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Wanting to date before your divorce is over with? Read this first

Everybody wants to be happy. You do. I do. My wife does. My daughters do.
I could go on and on just like this. Suffice it to say that in our modern
world happiness and living out a life that causes you to be happy is just
about as important a life’s goal as anything you could be doing.
Whether or not happiness is something that we can strive for in and of
itself is a topic for another day, however. If you are in a failing marriage
and are moving towards a
divorce happiness may just be no longer living in the same home as your spouse.

With that said, when you begin to create some physical distance between
yourself and your spouse it is likely that there is already a great deal
of emotional distance at play. Physical and emotional distance, a turbulent
and stressful divorce and possibly more free time leaves a decent sized
void in your life that some people try to fill with a new relationship.
While it may feel good to have the companionship that comes with a new
relationship, there are many possible ways that a relationship can harm
your during a divorce.

If you have not done so already, I suggest that you go back and read yesterday’s
blog post from the
Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC. We went through a few of those ways that dating during your divorce can
severely hamper your ability to put on a strong case and achieve the goals
that you have set out for yourself in your divorce.

We will pick up where we left off in yesterday’s blog post by completing
our discussion on dating, divorce and how the intersection of those two
topics may end up causing you more harm than benefit in the short and
long runs.

Complicated divorces are more expensive divorces

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not on Facebook and have not been
in some time. My profile was deleted years ago so I haven’t seen
any of the newer features that the website has created. With that said,
one thing I do remember from the old days of Facebook is that you could
list “It’s complicated” as a description of your relationship
with another person. I can’t think of anyone I knew that chose this
option seriously. The few people that used it did so as a joke amongst friends.

However, that relationship descriptor would certainly be appropriate for
describing a relationship that you enter into as a married person during
a divorce. Throwing another person into an already emotionally involved
and difficult situation is a recipe for disaster in most circumstances
based on my experiences as a family law attorney.

If you have children then you can doubly emphasize this point. Your husband
or wife will probably already be in protection mode as far as keeping
your children away from this new person in your life. Whereas in other
circumstances you could have easily negotiated settlements on property
division and custody with your spouse, your dating someone openly during
the divorce could cause a lot of hard feelings that make it hard to negotiate
in any way. If you expect to negotiate a settlement, co-parent successfully
or just to simply show the slightest bit of respect towards one another,
you and your spouse cannot also date someone during the marriage.

Think about your own mental and emotional state

Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, a divorce is hard to deal
with. Even if you are the most emotionally well put together person you
know, or have moved on emotionally from your marriage a long time ago
there is something about the finality of divorce that can cause unforeseen
emotions to arise in a person. It is critical to your being able to move
forward with your life for you to deal with these emotions, to work through
and process them.

Dating during the divorce is a great way to distract yourself from these
emotions and instead to apply your attention to another person. In some
ways this can be a good thing- after all, we all need distractions on
occasion. However, if you are spending every waking moment with this person
rather than betting yourself you will be no more able to start your post
divorce life than you were at the beginning of your case.

My point is this: no matter how you are in terms of your emotional make
up, it is important that you at least give yourself an opportunity to
assess your situation and make an honest assessment of where you are emotionally.
You may need to do some soul searching to determine what you did (and
did not do) during your marriage that could have led to this divorce.
Avoiding these type of difficult analyses can lead to problems down the
line in your life.

Time is money

The best case scenario in your divorce is to have a settlement reached
with your spouse early in the process that requires only some fine tuning
and putting the agreement into writing for you all to sign. This can be
done. Not only can it be done but I see it done all the time. However,
not all spouses are in the position to do this. I’ll explain why.

The spouses that are able to put their differences aside, focus on the
important aspects of their lives and understand that a divorce does not
have to define either of them as a person are the ones that usually see
the light and settle the differences early. This does not mean that either
party would have bowed down the other and given up things that they believe
in. On the contrary, these spouses are often more honest with one another
and have a degree of trust that the other person simply wants to get out
of the marriage with as little turmoil and hurt feelings as possible.

When you bring another person into the picture then whatever level of trust
that could have been in place will have evaporated quickly. How do you
expect to be able to negotiate with another person over issues like finances
and children when you have betrayed what little remaining goodwill that
there is between the two of you? By dating someone during your marriage
you have broken the last bonds of trust that may have been in place.

What this means is that you have a spouse who has no goodwill towards you
and will likely be more prepared to stand their ground and not back off
in any regard when it comes to negotiation. There is still a possibility
to settle your case rather than to head to a trial, but expect that it’s
going to be a “my way or the highway” approach exhibited by
your spouse.

If your case proceeds to a trial you can expect the overall cost of your
case to nearly double. The time that is spent preparing for trial and
physically being in the courtroom cause this to occur. Your attorney will
need to prepare your case, prepare you as a witness, and then spent a
day or two (or longer) at the courthouse focusing on you and your case.
All the while you are paying for this to occur (literally and figuratively).

The bottom line is that you can avoid this scenario by acting towards your
spouse in a respectful way. Holding off on dating during your marriage
is a good place to start.

Questions about how to handle yourself during a divorce? Contact the Law
Office of Bryan Fagan

The attorneys with the
Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC understand that a divorce is not all about strategy and the law. There
are emotional and relational aspects to your case as well that our attorneys
and staff will help you with along the way towards helping you achieve
your goals.

If you have questions for one of our attorneys please do not hesitate to
contact us today. We offer free of charge consultations six days a week with one
of our licensed family law attorneys.

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