Marriage & Divorce
  • Home
  • Marriage
  • Divorce
  • Books
  • Resources
    • Video Series
    • Booklets
    • Marriage Series
    • Divorce Series
    • Co-parenting Series
  • About
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
Blogs
Divorce Series, People are rational, but can be trapped into making terrible choices in the family law system

Ten Traps Series – Trap #9

The khaki squad attack

In prior blogs in this series, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through separations and divorce.  We next focused on how the legal system can trap people into self-defeating patterns of decision making: Trap #1 – distracting people from their life goals into thinking that legal outcomes are goals; Trap #2– treating divorce as a zero sum game; Trap #3: the system assuming disputes and seducing parents into thinking the same; Trap #4: treating children as property; Trap #5, acting as if selfishness is the best strategy; Trap #6, believing that winning is critical; and Trap #7: thinking that being angry is better than being sad; Trap #8, that a marital settlement agreement should be built deductively, rather than inductively.

Here we consider Trap #9: that a divorce is the end of a relationship.  It is obvious that a divorce is not the end of a relationship when parties have children.  They will interact with one another, directly and positively, directly and negatively, or indirectly and negatively for the rest of their lives.  A divorce ends parts of the marriage but the parenting partnership and expenses involved in that partnership continues for the rest of the parents’ lives.

However, even in a divorce without children, the relationship continues.  Sometimes it is in a very direct way, with continuing contact with one another or extended families and friends but also sometimes there is no direct contact, but the relationship remains part of the psychological life of both spouses.  We are all the sum of our experiences in life, including the people who were important parts of those experiences.  For example, we might still be carrying on internal conversations with a long dead grandparent, smiling at the thought of fond experiences with friends we no longer see and even still being sad that the dreams and hopes we had for our marriage failed to materialize.

When we think this way, that we are going to have a relationship with our spouse/other parent for the rest of our lives, we ought to step back and consider what kind of relationship we want to have and who we want to be in that relationship.  A divorce is not “final,” it is a major life transition.  Attorneys might view the final judgment of divorce as the end, because it might appear to be the end of the case, and convey this perspective to clients.  This is a disservice to the client and also traps them into strategies that become self-defeating.  Getting a bargain on a used car with deceit, aggressive tactics and Boulwarian bargaining can be wise because there is no lasting relationship with the salesman. Employing these strategies to a divorce can poison the relationship with harm, guilt, regret, shame and real damage to children.  Rather than recalling the marriage with fond memories and sadness at the ending, what is remembered is the horrible divorce.  The anger, guilt and shame fester inside and adversely affect the future.  The pain can infect a perspective on relationships and even when people remarry, they are a little distrustful because they might experience the same pain again.

Attorneys can serve their clients well by keeping this trap in mind and keeping their client focused on the long-term relationship that they will have with their spouse, whether they interact with that spouse or not.  Spouses, especially with children, should recognize that their divorce is simply a transition into a more limited relationship, but one that will last for the rest of their lives.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://marriageanddivorce.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/the-khaki-squad-attack-P7MPZVL.png 667 1000 Kenneth Waldron /wp-content/uploads/2023/05/logo-marriage-and-divorce-books.svg Kenneth Waldron2023-06-21 15:47:372023-08-31 11:13:25Ten Traps Series – Trap #9
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Categories

Search by Topic

addiction affairs Arguing argument bias careers cheating Children children's perspective co-parent co-parenting conflict control Controlling debt democrat Disagreement resolution disagreement resolution skills disagreements divorce Divorce conflict divorced parents Divorce emotions flexibility getting emotional grown children healthy co-parenting honesty in-laws listening lying marital conflict marriage Marriage skills money problems mother-in-law political arguments relocation republican resolving disagreements rules for successful marriage successful marriage taking sides voting working as a team
Marriage and Divorce logo
© 2023 All rights reserved. | 1 Day Website by Bizzy Bizzy
Ten Traps Series – People Generally Make Good Choices: But They Can Be...The khaki squad attackThe tactical dominationTen Traps Series – Trap #8
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more×

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Terms and Conditions
Accept settingsHide notification only