Arianna Jeret lays out 12 of the many ways to ensure your divorce costs as much money as possible.
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Over the years I have heard from countless people who would immediately divorce if it weren’t for fear of financial ruin.
I won’t sugar coat it. The amount of money it takes to support two households after divorce is always going to be higher than the amount of money it takes to support one during a marriage. That simply doesn’t mean it isn’t doable, and it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.
The average cost of a divorce in California was most recently estimated to be $95,000 total — $47,500 per spouse. In Los Angeles County, the average length of a litigated divorce (i.e., a traditional, courtroom-based with an attorney representing each spouse) is 3-4 years.
Those statistics are not only insane, they are entirely unnecessary.
And yet, I still regularly encounter individuals who will say in response, “I hear you, but I just want to make sure I get what I am entitled to. I don’t trust my spouse not to screw me over if we mediate.”
I am still unclear as to why anyone trusts an attorney they have never met, or an overwhelmed court system in which you are no more than another case number, not to try to screw them over any more than a spouse who has a mutual interest in making sure both of you and your children can all stay afloat following the divorce.
Since some people seem intent on fighting the good fight, I thought I would offer these 12 helpful tips for making sure your divorce is as lengthy and expensive as possible.
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- Keep fighting for what is “fair.”
- No matter how comfortable you feel with a settlement proposal, refuse to accept it until your attorney agrees that you should.
- Demand that your ex run any and all parenting decisions by you until the children are past the age of 18.
- Insist that your ex undergo a vocational evaluation so you can pay the least amount of child and spousal support over the shortest time period possible.
- Do your best to ensure that all verbal agreements you and your ex made when during your marriage are honored, regardless of how the court would likely rule on any of the issues at hand.
- Refuse to settle on each aspect of your divorce agreements until your ex is willing to acknowledge your value, position, opinion, rights, etc.
- Withhold information requested by your spouse until he or she has agreed to do x, y, or z.
- Every now and then, attempt to “negotiate” with your spouse directly in order to save time and money.
- Assume that your spouse must be hiding money somewhere and hire a forensic accountant to identify the exact origin of every penny earned and spent by each of you, personally and professionally, over the course of your marriage.
- Engage a child custody evaluator to decide what is in the best interests of your children. Especially since this group of “professionals” is so well known for it’s ethical procedures, lack of bias, and clean personal backgrounds. Or not.
- Stay firmly entrenched in a belief or expectation of what you should get in your settlement, particularly as based on a friend’s divorce, an article you just read, or a calculator you found online.
- Decide that you just want to let the judge decide — despite the fact that in the majority of cases these days many judges simply scare both spouses into going back out into the hallway to come up with a settlement agreement anyway, resulting in a minimum of less than 5% of all cases ever seeing a direct order made by a judge.
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Did you or your ex make sure your divorce was as expensive as possible? I would love to hear how!
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Also by Arianna Jeret
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Photo credit: iStock
Get yourself a girlfriend. Jealousy is a powerful emotion.
Oh, and marry someone that exhibits characteristics of borderline personality disorder.
Filed for divorce in Contra Costa County, California August 2012… Divorce was finalized October 2015… And it was only finalized cause I threw up my hands, quit fighting for my rights, and allowed him to “win” in every aspect by not showing up to the hearing after making countless cross country trips for senseless, expensive hearings… After personally spending 92k (that’s my portion not his) on the process I felt defeated in every which way. Still my ex goes to great lengths to financially and emotionally exhaust me…. And here I thought the courts would protect my rights, and leaving… Read more »
I am so sorry for what you have been through Amanda. Sadly your story isn’t unusual at all these days. Thank you for sharing it here so that others can hopefully learn from it and the call for systemic change can grow louder and louder.
Great article. The divorce attorney in me – the one putting his daughter through college and keeping his wife’s shoe budget in place wants this offline (kidding!) – but these points are really true. I am constantly working with clients to try to get them to make agreements that “look pretty close to even” rather than spending dollars to figure out the numbers after the decimal point. Divorce can be a humane process without just rolling over. One thing you don’t mention is the degree to which any appearance in front of any judge is essentially a crapshoot. No one… Read more »
Jude, I cannot begin to thank you enough for that honest, on target and helpful additional information. I know an attorney who keeps a small roulette wheel on his desk. Instead of number on each pocket the ball could potential fall into, there is a different ruling that any judge could possibly make. When a client asks him what a judge would decide about their case, he takes the wheel out for them and says, “Here, let’s give it a spin and find out.” You sound like an ethical and clear thinking attorney, and I applaud you for that. I… Read more »
I didn’t want a divorce. I wanted to work on our marriage when my wife finally told me she was unhappy. But, I wanted to go to a mediator if she was unwilling to go to a counselor and see if we could fix our marriage. So, while telling me she would go to a counselor, she went behind my back, got the lawyer her best friend used, and then got an OOP to have me removed from our home. Why? She didn’t think I’d ever agree to a parenting schedule that was less than a 50-50 split of time… Read more »
I am sure she probably would have. Unfortunately, the urban legend that people cling to of being able to get “what is right” in court is so pervasive that this kind of self-destruction is far too common. I am sorry that you went through what you do, and I am glad it did come to a close.
Like I’ve said before, it’s all well and good if you want to try and save money on a divorce, but if the other spouse wants to fight to the bitter end there isn’t much that the cooperative spouse can do about it. That’s been my hell for the past 2 1/2 years.
I am sorry it has been so difficult for you. There are ways to make that change. Please let me know if I can be of help.
Agreed. If I hadn’t married a sociopath who is only interested in our child to hurt me (and is a psychological and physical danger to her as he was to me during our six-year marriage), my divorce would have been free. I don’t care about my stuff. I don’t care about money. I just care that our daughter is safe, and that has cost (so far) $15K to an attorney that is being exceptionally gracious. The next step is going into debt $20-30K if I get the psychological evaluation I requested in order to prove that he’s dangerous to her.… Read more »