Divorce (ePub)

There are two ways that divorcing husbands and wives can employ the law. The first, which is
employed by divorce lawyers, is to use law as a weapon in a legal tug of war the object of which
is simply to get as much as you can and to give as little as you have to. The other, employed by
divorce mediators, is to use the law as a common framework that husbands and wives can look
to in their effort to conclude an agreement. To be sure, a divorce lawyer will not characterize the
undertaking in those terms. Rather, he will say that its purpose is to secure their legal rights and
conclude an agreement that is fair and equitable. Unfortunately, its effect will be to give them false
levels of expectation that will then be followed by equivalent levels of disappointment.
The purpose of this book is twofold. First, to help divorcing husbands and wives better understand
this so that they do not allow divorce lawyers to send them off on a fool's errand going nowhere.
Second, to enable them to see and accept what a divorce lawyer's window dressing is designed to
hide, namely, that it is not possible to find perfect solutions to imperfect problems. Contrary to what
divorce lawyers would have them believe, their divorce does not take place in a different world than
their marriage. It takes place in the same world, and that world is one of inevitable constraint and
human limitation.