ALIGNING YOUR DIVORCE WITH YOUR CORE VALUES

By Nanci Smith

If you're having trouble reading the headlines these days, I understand how you feel. The last few years have been challenging.

Despite its decline, COVID-19 continues to have us reeling. On top of that, it's tough to take in all the news about the consequences of climate change, gun violence, the campaign against reproductive rights, or the systematic dismantling of our democratic system without feeling a little hopeless. The result, for many of us, is to disengage. We disconnect from the world around us, refusing to take in information that makes us uncomfortable or challenges our worldview. Social scientists have a term for it: absencing.

Being Absent vs. Being Present

Otto Scharmer, a senior lecturer at MIT's

Sloane School of Management, describes absencing as having a closed mind (not being open to new ideas), a closed heart (lacking empathy for others), and a closed will (refusing to change). He connects this thinking to all of the major problems facing the world.

Yet, against all odds, Scharmer seems optimistic about the future. And that's because, as he explains in his bestselling book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, the opposite of absencing is presencing. And he's pretty sure that it's the path forward.

What is presencing? Scharmer explains it as the ability to "sense and actualize the highest future possibility in the now." Put more simply; it's imagining the future and figuring out how to get there.

What Does Your Future Hold?

Despite our time's turmoil, uncertainty, and complexity, we are being presented with a valuable opportunity for personal growth and transformational change. While Scharmer is mostly interested in how complex systems and communities can change, I have found myself wondering how his theories might apply to us as individuals and to divorcing couples.

Many people have reported that they feel closer to their partner after going through these difficult COVID times together. But for others, it has reopened old wounds or exposed problems that were simmering just under the surface. In a survey of 2,704 married people in September 2021, 21% believed that the pandemic had negatively impacted their marriage. That percentage was almost double that of a similar survey conducted in 2020.

Now that the pandemic has receded, the number of people filing for separations and divorces has started to climb. Legal experts are suddenly seeing more clients come through the door, and projections are for a notable increase in divorce filings in 2022, estimating that for every 6.1 people who get married, 2.7 will be divorced.

Is it Time for Change?

As a divorce lawyer who works with people in a high state of existential angst, divorce being one of the most profound changes a person can experience, I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to ease the suffering.

Scharmer uses the terms "architecture of separation" and the "architecture of connection." These macro ideas about how individuals relate to each other have a profound impact on communities, and it can also be applied to individuals who are looking to change their own lives.

Breaking Up Isn't Always Hard to Do

The term "collaborative divorce" may sound counterintuitive, but if we use Scharmer's framework, employing an "architecture of separation" for divorce, then, indeed, the process will be fraught with pain and suffering. In this frame, the "architecture of separation" means we separate from ourselves, from others, and from the world. It's easy to see how this happens in a traditional, shame and blame, adversarial divorce process. People often perceive their only option is to shrink away from this painful period, withdraw, and isolate. This attitude can be destructive to the individual, their partner, their family, and their community.

On the other hand, the "architecture of connection" is a framework that could strengthen relationships, even as a divorce is underway. It fosters insight and understanding about how you are feeling and encourages empathy about the feelings of others. It involves deep listening to understand, not to counterattack or defend. It involves reframing old, destructive thoughts and behaviors that have held us back in the past and adopting new ones that can help us to reimagine and reshape our future, as separate, confident, and divorced people.

The Collaborative Divorce Process

Collaborative divorce is a process and a mindset. It refuses to opt into a system designed to break things apart and leave people feeling shattered. It is about embracing your core values instead of buying into a damaging process that involves battles over the distribution of assets, custody of children, and who did what to whom. Collaborative divorce encourages you and your spouse to come together to separate amicably and respectfully. It is the new paradigm for divorce.

How does it work? First of all, you and your spouse each retain collaboratively trained attorneys, and an interdisciplinary team is created. Agendas are set in advance of meetings, and you retain more control over the pace of your divorce process. There is a team of professionals to support you when you need them most. There is your collaboratively trained lawyer to provide you with legal counsel without becoming adversarial; you have a mental health coach to normalize all of the intense emotions; and you have a financial neutral who gathers information to help generate win-win solutions for maximizing financial security for both you and your spouse. It is an out-of-court settlement process. There is structure, support, and an expectation that you and your spouse will emerge healthy and wholehearted, not bitter and resentful. You will address all of the issues in your divorce without going to court and without threatening to go to court.

Taking a Step into the Future of Tomorrow

What I see in almost all of my Collaborative Divorce clients is that they are willing to consider becoming the architects of connection for what their lives will look like after their marriage is over. They have some insight into their own contribution to the end of the marriage, and they want to be involved in understanding their options about how they can be effective co-parents, and possibly even friends with their spouse, during and after the divorce is over. They need support to see the path forward to their emergent future, which starts now.

Nothing about divorce is easy. At the beginning of a divorce, it is hard to see a collaborative or amicable path forward. Collaborative professionals are here to help, and Collaborative Divorce is practiced in every state. The path you choose for your divorce matters. It will lead you into the future of your choice or a future by default. Since our thoughts and actions today create the future of our tomorrow, isn't it time to choose our divorce processes wisely? It is certainly one concrete step we can take to reaffirm our core values and walk our walk, despite the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world around us.

Nanci A. Smith, Esq., is an attorney licensed to practice in Vermont and New York.

She is the chair of the Collaborative Divorce section of the Vermont Bar Association, a leader in her collaborative divorce practice group, and a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. She frequently writes and talks about divorce, family law, ethics, and collaborative divorce practices. She believes that a good divorce is possible when you show up for it with humility, compassion, and the correct support.

Smith is the author of Untangling Your Marriage: A Guide to Collaborative Divorce.

Learn more at nancismithlaw.com

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