Simple Divorce Advice

I meet all sorts of people going through all sorts of emotional turmoil due to divorce and separation. They are not all clients and some I doubt would like being my client anyway because they are too happy wallowing in their misery.

I came in contact with one such person last night, it happened to be a man but the situation he described and the reasons behind his actions are not a sex thing, I have heard these sorts of stories from both men and women.

We were talking about his separation and I said something very ‘Nicola’ about being the person you want to be and behaving in the way you want to be perceived. He decided to give me an example of why good manners do not work in his case especially with the ‘heinous b…h’ he was once married to.

The problem seems to be that he keeps being accused of breaking the court orders. I have no idea what this means. Whether it is being ten minutes late or ignoring things completely I don’t know and it is irrelevant to the point I am trying to make here.

It seemed that the court orders say that every Tuesday morning he is to hand the children over to their mother at a certain time and a certain place. Well, this week the ex wife rang to say that she would be sending her mother in place of herself to pick up the kids.

He then told me that he made a stand so that he would not be breaking the court orders by handing the children over someone who was not in the court orders. We are talking the childrens grandmother who looks after them all the time, not some random the father doesn’t know.

The arguing about this pick up thing went on all day with phone calls, texts, hang ups and rudeness.
He refused to hand the children over to anyone but the mother who had to cancel a trip interstate for work as she couldn’t get another plane.

Apparently, at the pick up there was a huge amount of aggression and nastiness ,in front of the children.

Was it necessary divorce behaviour?

It took more energy and time to not agree to hand the children over to the grandmother, it was mean and ungracious.

It may not have been what the court orders specified but there has been no problem with the grandmother looking after the children at other times so why do this?

Pay back, control, bitterness and anger are a few of the reasons that went through my mind.
Choosing not to live with these emotions making the decisions is the trick to being able to start moving forward and being the person you want to be.

I mean what did he expect was going to happen? The wife would have taken him back to court to say he contravened the orders because she asked him to.

Would it have been too hard to agree to the changed situation, marked it up as a bargaining chip for some future date when he may need someone else to pick up the kids or whatever and maybe have taken one step in the right direction that could lead to a place where they could actually co parent without the need for court orders to say exactly where, when and how the parenting is done.

This sort of thing is so destructive to any relationship you have with your ex and for yourself. Being the bigger person is what we all tend to strive for when we are in a good head space.

Always act the way you want to be perceived whether it is to a stranger, a friend, a child or your ex partner. Nobody ever makes you behave badly and aggressively, you choose to do this all by yourself, do not blame others or their actions for the choices you make in your own actions.

As I said earlier this is not a man/woman issue, both of these people are using the other to justify  being badly behaved. Don’t you do this.

Change the way you think about your ex, feel sorry for them and their need to make you unhappy, it is because they are so unhappy themselves and need to try to bring you to the same place of misery .

What do you think?

Read the original: Court Orders and Drop Off Times in Divorce

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