I think when picking your divorce lawyer you should choose someone who has actually been divorced. In fact…I think this should be the first question you ask.
“Hey, are you divorced?”
This did not actually occur to me when I was choosing an attorney. I had no idea what I was doing and was still a little bit in denial about the whole thing. I didn’t want to get divorced. It still felt a little bit like a bad dream that I would wake up from. So this genius revelation never occurred to me until close to the end…
My divorce was a long (in my opinion) messy affair. Money was at stake. Visitation schedules. Holidays. Hourly rates. Back and forth. Emails and faxes. Distribution of property. Maintenance. Child support. Health insurance. The family silver needed to be divided. Who gets the tea service (not joking). He said she said. No fault divorce.
Blah..blah..blah…
I was sitting in my attorneys office preparing for our upcoming trial. Yes- trial. I hadn’t slept for months. I hadn’t been able to actually swallow food for weeks. The knot of terror in my throat kept getting in the way. My attorney is late. When he finally gets there he’s cranky. Perfect. He begins to tell me about the HORRIBLE morning he has had. Apparently his dishwasher had overflowed or leaked or something.. I’m having a hard time following in my current state of terrified, sleep deprived, malnutrition. So I feel like I’m fighting for my life- and my lawyer is talking about kitchen appliances. You see his dishwasher malfunction caused water to leak onto his floor, and he had to help his wife deal with the catastrophe. His wife. He of course was happily married to a lovely woman. He had 2 adorable kids. (Picture the Christmas Card.) So at that very moment when he was lamenting his shitty morning to me- it hit me. This man has no fucking idea… He has no idea how this FEELS. He isn’t divorced. He probably thinks (like I used to) that divorce is something that happens to other people. And he probably thinks (like I used to) that they probably did something to deserve it. Divorce is a job to him. Not a feeling. And to me divorce is all about the feeling. Anger, rejection, grief, embarrassment, shame, exhaustion, uncertainty. It’s 100% fucking feelings. And those feelings are only understood by someone who has been there.
That is something they should put on their business cards…
Mr. John Doe
Attorney at Law
DIVORCED
Divorce Shoes 