Calm : Confused :: Organized : Overwhelmed
Getting Game Ready for Divorce: What to Gather, What to Write, and How to Create Order Before You File or Meet With an Attorney
Amy walked into our second meeting disheveled, gray and dull, with tears in her eyes, her purse barely holding on to her hunched shoulder, and clutching the telltale Start Your Divorce family law packet from the Superior Court of California County Self-help clerk’s office. It cost $5.00. I recognized it immediately. I didn’t say anything. We had briefly met four months ago when she was first thinking about divorce. She seemed hollow now and had lost her shine. I recognized that too.
Too Much!
Amy looked up, saw me, and immediately started talking frantically, a million miles an hour.
“He’s a narcissist, Betsy. And he, he’s a narcissist. He used to be gone for a couple months at a time, for years.” She took a breath and started again.
“I told you he was a mining engineer before he retired. Our marriage worked when he was on the rotational schedule, home for six weeks and gone for six weeks. If they had an emergency, he might be called back early, or he might stay longer. And it worked. It worked for our marriage. I started my own business. I had my own life. I had a little candy shop downtown. He did help me start that financially. But I doubled up on our mortgage payments until we paid the mortgage off. The mortgage has been paid off now, but I doubled up on those payments for months. I did that. And then he retired. And then I was diagnosed. And I got so mad at him one time, and I told him that if he wasn’t going to be there for me, I just wanted a divorce.”
Another breath.
“And he said, ‘Oh, no, no, I’ll be there for you’. And I believed him. And I had all this paperwork that I had done. I had my checkbook that proved that I had doubled up on all the payments of the mortgage, everything I had paid for. And then I calculated, I had calculated some of his earnings and his retirement. He got mad at me and yelled at me that if I trusted him, I would just burn all that.”
Amy must have seen my eyebrows raise because her next sentence was:
“Yes, I threw it all in the fire like he asked me to. Now I don’t have any of those documents. Oh, believe it or not, I did get a therapist as you had suggested. We just started our weekly sessions.”
Amy started weeping again and trembling and white knuckling the table.
I sat next to her and breathed deeply and slowly until her breath mimicked mine. And then we stood up and stretched our left arms and sides and then our right arms and sides up to the sky. We sat back down and I asked her if she wanted to do a little settling meditation. She did. I asked her to close her eyes and tell me about a happy time and place. She loved the California coast. I heard about her last trip to the ocean with a couple of girlfriends including the dozens of green anemones and hundreds of hermit crabs they spotted at low tide. Even thought it was summer, the air turned chilly when the fog rolled in, so they put on sweaters and went out to dinner. Amy just loved every minute of it. It was her happy place. And I could see that her breathing was now at a normal cadence and there was some color back in her cheeks.
With her eyes still closed I asked her to visualize, imagine where she wanted to be three years from now. Three years from now, where was she? What was she doing? Who was she with? It took a few minutes and then a smile came across her face. She told me she was in her own home, her brand-new home that she had just bought and paid for with her portion of his retirement. No mortgage.
And who was she with? She was with those same girlfriends. They were celebrating her birthday. And they had champagne, and one of them made their famous basil-tomato-mozzarella quiche, they were listening to music and dancing.
5-4-3-2-1
I asked what five things she saw around her, champagne bubbles in the flutes, her best friends, the famous quiche, her father’s artwork on the walls, and her hands, sans wedding ring. I then asked for four things she could touch or feel in her new home,
“The carpet under my feet, the champagne bubbles on my nose, my new silk dress against my legs, and the slight breeze blowing in the window.”
“And now, what are three things you hear?” I asked.
“I hear my friends laughing and talking, I hear the timer in the kitchen go off signaling the quiche is warmed up, and I hear a crow cawing outside in the distance. Can I add one more?” She asked.
I nodded. “Heck yes.”
“She’s a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones is playing.” Amy danced and snapped her fingers high in the air.
And I said, “I love that song. Two smells?”
“Easy. The warmed quiche Maxine brought and the pine scented candle Susan just lit.”
“And one taste?”
“Basil.” She laughed.
She opened her eyes and the first thing I noticed was her glow. She had moved from crumpled to confident.
Now that she was calm, relaxed, present, and had an idea of where she was going, the business of divorce and of creating her path forward could begin.
The first step to moving through any transition is learning how to calm and regulate yourself. Exercises such as square breathing: inhale to the count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, engaging your body with stretches, yoga, walking in nature, and the 5-4-3-2-1 sensory grounding exercise can bring you back into the present moment to focus on what needs your attention. In terms of the divorce transition, it is helpful to be able to separate the emotional work of divorce from the business work of divorce. This is where a good therapist comes in. As you build your divorce team of an attorney, forensic accountants, and realtors, your therapist will play an important role. Divorce is hard enough and during your divorce you will probably get upset, feel anxious, and even feel like you are falling apart. Having the tools and resources to calm yourself and bring balance back to the soma-psyche relationship will help you focus on the all the divorce tasks at hand.
Amy and I turned our attention to the County clerk’s $5.00 Start Your Divorce packet. The County clerk’s family law legal packet provided basic information about the initial divorce process.
Amy was 65 and newly retired, her husband had been retired for about five years. He was 10 years older than her. It was a long-term marriage without minor children. They were still living together but in separate parts of the house. She felt shame around that. She said she had to live there because she couldn’t afford to move out. He controlled all the money.
What’s for Dinner Au Divorce?
Describing the California divorce process as three waves helped Amy put it into perspective. The first wave is the appetizer, the second is the meat and potatoes and the third wave is the dessert. Amy saw where the Start Your Divorce packet had the “waves” broken down differently into steps that were not as helpful as the three wave description. She found the first wave forms: the Petition and the Summons. Amy saw on the two “appetizer” forms where the case number, her case number, will be stamped by the Court and suddenly the process became very real for her.
The second wave. If the first wave is the appetizer, the second wave is the meat and potatoes or main course. This is the big gulp of the divorce process. This middle wave is where the choices and level of conflict between the parties can have a significant effect on how long and how expensive their divorce becomes. The main course, much like the main course at a fancy restaurant, can be expensive. In divorce, the price can include more than just legal fees and costs; there can be an emotional toll, too.
And dessert? The third wave? Amy hoped that she and her husband could make their way through the divorce and reach a final Judgement that they both could live with.
Amy read through the page titled, Legal Steps for a Divorce or Legal Separation. He eyes landed on Disclose Financial Information. She gingerly googled the two forms mentioned. Just looking at the Income and Expense Declaration form and the Schedule of Assets and Debts form brought up so many emotions in Amy. She started to cry again saying she felt overwhelmed, sad, and scared. We stopped. Together did the four-square breathing several times. Then we stood up and stretched and literally shook our arms and legs making us look so silly we could not stop laughing. While still stand and bouncing gently, I asked Amy what one thing felt upsetting, just one. Remembering that she had burnt all her documents, all her proof gone up in smoke left her distraught.
Game Ready
Getting organized looks like this: I asked Amy what one document that was burnt did she think she might be able to recreate? Amy said, her checkbook. What specifically I asked? What got her were all the double mortgage payments that she made to pay off the mortgage. Aside from your check book, now ashes, where else would you find that information?
“The mortgage company!” She yelled, surprising herself.
I gave her a notebook that had three sections, a file box with a stack of manilla folders inside, and a three-ring binder divided in two: one half where she could put her fillings with the Court and the other half for his filings.
Amy labeled the first section of the notebook FINANCES. Based on the two financial forms from the packet, she went through and started listing all the financial documents and information she was going to need. She calculated 36 years from the date of marriage to the date of separation. She grabbed her pen: credit cards, hers and his, all the jobs and careers he had, his pay, and bonuses, and possible retirement plans, bank accounts, cars, that “loan” from his mother, the mortgage, boats, jet skis, her business, taxes… She realized she did not know his social security number but quickly figured out how she could get it. On another page she started to list all her monthly expenses. Her mind started putting the pieces of the financial puzzle together. Click-click-click. I could see her mind starting to make sense of it all.
ATTORNEY AND LEGAL QUESTIONS were her header on the second section. she made a list of resources for how to find an attorney, a list of attorneys, and a list of questions to ask each attorney prior to scheduling a consult.
On the next page she wrote down questions she wanted to ask the attorney during the consult. The first question was regarding his pension with the mining company. A friend had told her about something called a QDRO. I showed her how to research that on her computer. She wrote QDRO? On her list of questions to ask an attorney.
Turning to the manila folders she got busy labeling each one for a different financial item: Mortgage, Bank Accounts, Vehicles and so on.
After talking about researching QDROs, we talked about good solid trustworthy online legal research resources such as County Law Libraries, the Courts and the need to be in the driver’s seat with AI. She told me that whenever she uses AI-generated legal information she is cautious and always verifies what it says.
Before she left, we revisited her three-year goal. At the bottom of a piece of copier paper, she wrote MY HOME and the date and at the top she wrote today’s date. She then started to outline the steps between now and MY HOME.
Step One. Research attorneys and book a consult. Check out the Bar Association.
Step Two. List all the financials. Gather all the financial documents I can. Review the two financial forms from the Court packet and fill them in.
Step Three. Write out my attorney questions and organize the financial information to bring to my consult.
And then Amy wanted to stop there at step three because she wanted to find out more from the attorney. Step four, she thought, would probably be to file her initial paperwork for divorce, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to talk to the attorney first.
I asked if she felt different now that when she first walked into our meeting. “Relieved.” Was her word.
“I feel calmer and less confused. I have resources. I have a plan, I have homework, I am getting organized. Betsy, I feel empowered and I feel hopeful. I am choosing to take care of and focus on me.”