Obviously divorce is difficult and more often than not extremely painful. Even more so when children are involved. If the divorce case ends up in the family court system it is likely to become a three ring circus with no clowns, with the probable exception of one or both parties seeking the divorce. When the divorce is filed during the holiday season an extra log of wood is thrown in the fire.
There are also some intelligent people who suffer through the entire process with intelligence and kindness. Too often however one or the other or both exes gets a wounded ego and the battles begin. The process then becomes about THEM, and their lawyers and not what is in the best interest of the children. All kindness and decent communication becomes relagated to the back 40 and ugliness becomes their main focus. The ex becomes the enemy and the ones who suffer the most are the children.
There is an entire group of individuals who become involved intimately in the family stress. The courts also often refer “high conflict divorce” to outside therapists, family therapy groups, experts in financial investigators, drug counselors, etc… All of these referrals charge a pretty penny for their services and often the outcome from the referral is minimal. And of course, as you probably already know, the divorce lawyer stands to make a fortune and unfortunately some keep the ugliness going longer because of the money. All of the possible referrals are making good money off the “high conflict divorce”. There is nothing wrong with making a decent and even good living working with this population. There is a lot of hard work with two people who once loved and now HATE.
Family Court was founded to lessen the conflict of divorce and to take steps to keep from hurting the children. It wasn’t taken into account that children of divorce will, most of the time, make a very painful choice about who is responsible and will then be less willing to relate to the other parent. If the other parent is angry he/she will complain about the parent in front of the children thus often alienating the child against the alienator. What a painful mess the entire experience becomes!
There are no solutions we can control. We can not force adults to grow up and act like caring, kind parents. We do know that divorce is going to continue to be a reality in our world. We need to find a way to love each other enough to let go like an adult when the marriage is over. We know a larage number of adults who manage to split their relationship with kindness and empathy and caring and without destroying the children. That doesn’t mean they don’t have pain and anguish over the end of what started as love and they are now unable to keep the marriage alive. They just are not vindictive, narcissistic, angry and hateful. They just let go of their ex and embrace with respect their children and their ex. What a kind world that would be. Adults dealing with emotional integrity in a positive manner.