What I have in common with Christie Brinkley

Christie Brinkley, like many of us attempting to get divorced, was the victim of a system that dramatically increases the financial and emotional cost of an already painful experience. When I was going through my divorce, I remember a court psychologist stating that the “emotional trauma of divorce is second only to the death of a loved one.”

We face so many challenges from initially making the decision to divorce to hiring an attorney; to trying to figure out how the system work and if you can settle out of court amiably or need to enter the complex and costly trial process. Then there are the children; the initial ‘telling’ of the divorce and then how to protect them from the emotional fall out of their parents.

In my case, we had to hire a court appointed law guardian (a lawyer for the children) and have a psychological forensics expert interview me, him and the children. They were often scared, confused and afraid of speaking for fear of being disloyal to one parent or the other. There world was falling apart and the longer the struggle went on, the more damage was done to them.

As parents, you also feel isolated. Your married friends cannot empathize with what you are going through, you’re whole life is collapsing and changing and you don’t know what’s around the corner. Then, adding insult to injury, you begin to amass legal debt that you never imagined as the system inches along like a slug, draining you of both your financial and emotional strength often with no end in sight.

My divorce took 3 years, tens of thousands of dollars (and we had no assets to fight over) and dozens of trips to therapists and counselors for my two children. Our entire fight was over the custody of the children. I am ‘out’ of the marriage 2 years last month and still picking up the emotional pieces of my children.

The kicker is I was back in court today. He hasn’t paid his child support in 5 months and is petitioning the court to dismiss it altogether. So after all that time in court, I must re-hire my attorney to fight all over again for something that he agreed to just 2 years ago. My children are 9 and 11, so there is a long way to go before they no longer need to be supported by me.

There is such a myriad of issues for us to discuss pertaining to divorce.
Check out these articles about the problems with the divorce system in NYS:

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/news/ny-enfaul135762497jul13,0,6983477.story

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/news/ny-endiv145763295jul14,0,7413500.story