If there is one tip I’d like to offer up it’s this: be honest during your divorce process! I know it can be incredibly hard not embellish facts and events or, dare I say, even make them up entirely in order to bolster your side. And especially when your ex might be telling lies about you, well, it’s hard not to do the same. But don’t! It will not bode well in the end, I promise you. Lies haunt you forever—especially when they’re written or spoken under oath.
When my ex, Rob, and I split, I got pleadings, filings and letters that were outrageous and false. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Truth and alcoholism are not friends, after all. Nonetheless, I sometimes wondered if Rob’s attorney was confusing me with someone else because what they sent over had nothing to do with truth.
Especially fun was Rob’s statement that he didn’t drink and that alcohol had not been a problem in our marriage. He said that he had been a calm and loving husband throughout our marriage. He denied dating anyone on Match, though he had been with the same woman since a few days after I had left him in order to seek cancer treatments. When Rob allowed a stranger to move into our vacation rental without telling me and then tried to get me to foot half the bill for this guy’s failure to pay any rent, I almost choked on my dinner. It was comical, ridiculous, and bizarre. Wow, I thought, how drunk was Rob when he wrote most of this stuff?
I would talk to my attorney, Rhonda, and ask, “Can he do this? Why would Rob’s attorney even put this in writing?” Rhonda too often had to calm me down because I was so incredibly upset. She assured me that all of those statements would hurt him in the end. Staying silent and not responding to every absurd filing and letter he sent over was really hard. It’s one of the reasons I started blogging—I had to have an outlet somewhere to voice my side even if no one ever read it but me. Writing was cathartic.
Several months into the process, I had a huge change in mindset. I realized that Rob was actually doing me a huge favor. I couldn’t wait to go to court and be in front of a judge. Rob on the stand being confronted with facts and evidence? Vindication. Because Rob told me that when we eventually went to court, he would fill it up with all of his many supporters, I thought that was a great idea. If they actually did show up, they could all hear what a fraud and liar he really is. Another reason to go to court!
I spent many hours going over every document Rob submitted to the court and my attorney and I compiled a file with evidence and rebuttal. I was confident and ready.
Rob, as one might expect, wasn’t quite as ready as I was. I think he knew that keeping all of his stories straight and trying to explain to a judge why his statements were in direct contradiction to evidence would be impossible. Several weeks prior to our hearing, Rob’s attorney began contacting mine wanting to settle. I didn’t even want to respond.
“Rhonda, the answer is no. I want my day in court,” I said.
When Rob’s proposal began getting better and better, I still wasn’t swayed. I came up with a list of everything I felt was fair and I wouldn’t budge. “They thing is,” I said to Rhonda, “I don’t care about settling at all. He’s a liar and I want to prove it.”
At the end of the day, logic and reason prevailed and we settled. But had Rob been truthful throughout our divorce process, things would have gone far better for him. While our marriage was horrific, our divorce didn’t need to be that bad. I was fighting cancer, I was in the midst of chemo and I really wanted and needed to focus on my health and children. I was not in a fighting mood. I wanted it all to go away so I could fight my one true enemy: cancer. But Rob took my physical and emotional weakness as an opportunity to kick me as hard as he could while I was already down. Insults, lies, financial manipulation—it didn’t stop. So by the time came, I was ready for battle, not something that Rob anticipated or intended. Oops (for him).
A little honesty and silence would have gone a long way and, I believe, it will for you, too.
Hi Lizzy!! Welcome to our little group of bloggers!
I want to say, being truthful does not always win. Seems like the courts are filled with narcissists who feed the narcissist you are divorcing to create even bigger monsters. Its sad and frustrating and wrong. Always love your posts!
It may not always win but it will give you confidence heading into a hearing. Keeping those lies straight gets complicated and can block you into a corner. It’s impossibly difficult at times, I get that! But I can speak from my viewpoint that things would have gone much, much better for my ex had he not given me the incentive to just see it through. The more ammo I had for court, the more I dug my heels in. I felt I could win that thing in court. I’ll never know but it was really dumb on his part, I have to say. Coming to that realization helped me emotionally cope with the unbelievable and untruthful things he said in legal documents. Thanks a million for the comment, Bella!
Lizzy,
I hope a lot of people in the divorce process read your words of wisdom and pay attention. Being honest, completely honest saved my children. Ours was a long 3.5 year divorce process. My ex has adult onset bipolar disorder, he is quite literally insane as in his mother who has the same disorder. They had a plethora of lies, witnesses to “support” their lies, a high paid lawyer who scared the crap out of me, and much more…
when we went to court, my honesty paid off. We had no surprises while their lies were all easily proven, his witnesses got confused because they couldn’t keep their stories straight even with cue cards in hand, other witnesses were removed from the court room by the judge because they couldn’t keep their mouths shut so she had them thrown out before they could even testify, all but one of the witnesses testimony was thrown out, one of our kids got up and said grandma said she would make it financially worth my while if I said I want to live with dad so I want to live with my dad. It was a mess.
I had requested a Guardian Ad Lidem for our children, she testified that she was scared of my ex and his mother… it was a mess.
I didn’t deny anything they said against me that was true, I did work. He was able to spend more time with the kids than I am because he doesn’t work. However that didn’t necessarily make him a better parent, etc…. I was honest and it paid off.
People need to realize the courts do not expect us to be perfect. They do expect us to own our mistakes and be real.
Good for you, Sarah! It’s so hard not to jump in the cesspool with them. By not doing so, you are ready for court. Should it get that far and they put the dishonest on the stand, they’ll be exposed if you have the proper facts. And those that lie really want to avoid going before a judge at all costs. Go in STRONG but, in my experience, the only way to do that is be as HONEST as you possibly can. Let the other side lie through their teeth. You just bight your tongue and smile until it’s your turn for vindication. Thanks for the comment!