Divorce Mistakes to Avoid

For many people, the divorce process feels like a dangerous minefield they must cross on their way to a new life after the end of their marriage. Divorce involves making a lot of decisions—some relatively minor, others that can change the course of your future. Making good choices can be challenging when emotions are high, but it helps to know about common divorce mistakes so you can take steps to avoid them. Here are some of the biggest divorce mistakes we see in our practice.

Letting Your Emotions Dictate Your Words and Actions

Let’s face it—divorce is an emotional time, even when you and your spouse agree it’s the best course of action. It can be even more emotional if you didn’t want the divorce, if your spouse betrayed you, or if you feel guilt over actions that led to the breakdown of the marriage.

Those feelings are real, and you will need to process them, ideally with the help of a therapist trained in divorce work. What you should not do is to let your emotions override your better judgment. In particular, you should avoid such things as:

• Threatening your spouse
• Talking negatively about your spouse to others, including on social media (screenshots are forever!)
• Badmouthing your spouse to your children, which could harm both their well-being and your child custody case

A therapist or divorce coach can help you manage your emotions; your divorce attorney can help you make well-reasoned decisions in your divorce and avoid common divorce mistakes.

Using Your Children as Pawns, Go-Betweens, Confidants, or Spies

When your marriage has fallen apart, you no longer have access to the person you once depended on more than anyone else. It may seem natural to turn to your children for comfort, but be careful. Your children are hurting too, and no matter how mature they may seem, it’s not appropriate to burden them with adult problems like your divorce.

That also means not withholding access to the kids to “punish” your spouse, asking your children to tell you what goes on in their other parent’s house, or using them to carry messages to your spouse. Your priority must be their well-being. At this time, you should be reassuring them that their parents love them, and that you’ll work together to make sure they are cared for.

Beginning to Date Too Soon

You might think that the best way to get over the end of one relationship is to start another. Unfortunately, that rationale can backfire on you. For one thing, you might not be in the best emotional head space to navigate a new relationship until you have processed and grieved the end of your marriage (and perhaps had some therapy to figure out how not to repeat past mistakes).

Dating while your divorce is pending can be risky from a legal standpoint, too; since there is no such thing as “legal separation” in South Carolina, starting a new relationship before your divorce is final can cause your spouse to allege adultery in your divorce, which can affect your property distribution, your eligibility for alimony, and custody of your children.

Even if your spouse doesn’t try to use your new relationship against you in your divorce, if they’re hurt that you’ve apparently moved on, they may be more difficult to deal with during divorce negotiations. And, of course, if you have children, they may be confused or hurt by your new relationship while they are still trying to process what your divorce means for them.

Falling Back in Bed with Your Spouse

During the divorce process, your feelings toward your spouse may be very conflicted. You might be hurt and angry, but also find yourself missing them at times. One of the most common divorce mistakes is for spouses in the midst of a stressful time to reach for the one thing that used to give them comfort—each other.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t usually work out in real life the way it does in romantic comedies. Being intimate with someone you are planning to divorce can impair your judgment and lead to renewed heartache. From a legal standpoint, it can also delay your divorce. In South Carolina, a no-fault divorce can only be granted if the couple has lived “separate and apart” for one year. Being intimate with your spouse resets that clock, delaying the date of your divorce and the start of your new life.

Concealing or Transferring Marital Assets

Divorce involves dividing all the assets you and your spouse have accumulated during your marriage, regardless of which of you acquired or earned them. If you feel like an asset should be “yours,” you may be tempted to conceal it or even transfer it to a friend or family member with the intention of reclaiming it after the divorce.

Resist this impulse; if the court finds out about your actions, you could be penalized and end up with less than if you had just been honest. Trying to do an end run around the rules is one of the easiest divorce mistakes to avoid—just listen to your lawyer.

Forgetting About Estate Planning

If you had an estate plan while you were married, your spouse was probably your primary beneficiary, as well as the person you appointed to make medical and financial decisions for you if you couldn’t make them for yourself. In South Carolina, divorce automatically revokes your ex-spouse’s rights under most of your estate planning documents, but that doesn’t mean that you should forget about your estate plan when you are divorcing.

Ask your divorce attorney what you should do about estate planning at the outset of your divorce. If something should happen to you during the divorce process, your spouse may still have rights you wouldn’t want them to have. And any major life transition such as marriage, birth of a child, or divorce, should prompt you to review your estate plan. If you don’t have an estate plan, then now is definitely the time to get one.

Divorcing Without an Attorney’s Help

Divorce is costly, and an attorney’s fees can be a significant part of the expense associated with divorce. It’s natural, especially when you are worried about finances, to want to cut expenses wherever you can. It can be tempting to attempt a “DIY divorce,” or to rely on your spouse who says that their attorney will “take care of everything.”

It is a conflict of interest for one attorney to represent two spouses in a divorce. If your spouse has hired an attorney, that attorney is obligated to look out for their interests—not yours. That puts you at a serious disadvantage. Even if your spouse doesn’t have a divorce attorney, you should. It’s important that you understand everything that you are agreeing to in a divorce, including the tax implications of property settlements.

Once your divorce is final, it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to change the terms of your divorce. Having an attorney represent you in your divorce is an investment in getting the best possible outcome, financially and otherwise. Not having an attorney of your own is a divorce mistake that can cost you.

To learn about other common divorce mistakes to avoid, contact Brinkley Law Firm, LLC to schedule a consultation.