As attorneys we don’t receive training in emotional intelligence, empathy or most especially grief. Yet after being a family law attorney for over thirty five years,I’ve come to realize grief is something I see every day in my work with divorcing families.
I’ve heard grief described as “the reaction to a severing of a love relationship.” Most of us consider the severing to be death, but families that walk through the doors of a divorce lawyer’s office are often taking the first steps in severing or redefining their prior relationships with their spouse, their children, extended families, finances, their home, social status, possessions and identity. There is truly no part of life that isn’t significantly impacted by divorce.
The stages of grief as laid out by Elizabeth Kubler Ross often present themselves in the following manner in divorce:
Denial. In marriages, couples may threaten divorce in the heat of an argument. Usually nobody thinks it’s really going to happen. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, one of the partners decides to divorce. They may have done their grieving during the marriage, leaving the person “left” to experience shock and denial that it’s happening. Even when they are served with divorce papers many clients are in denial that their spouse is leaving, and they rush to try to get into counseling or have a heart to heart with their spouse. Most often it’s too late for this. Experts say the average couple gets to marriage counseling seven years too late and when clients try to get me to force their spouse into counseling it usually leads nowhere, even when the spouse does attend.
Anger. Anger bubbles up in divorce from the beginning as the marriage is breaking down, often months or years before divorce. Sadly, instead of recognizing this is a stage of grief, divorce lawyers demonize anger and try to use it as a weapon to accomplish a client’s goals. “George shouldn’t have the children because he has anger issues.” The anger may have started as George saw his marriage eroding and began to grieve the loss of what he’d had earlier in the marriage. Grieving starts when love changes. The wistfulness of “what we used to have” often turns into profound sadness as couples intuitively experience themselves disengaging physically or emotionally or both. Anger may have shown up months before the divorce.
Bargaining. Bargaining takes place in the negotiation of the terms of the divorce. Often it’s infused with threats aimed at hurting the other party or trying to stay connected with the departing spouse post-divorce. “If you leave me I will take the children from you,” is a common threat and clients are often in a panic wondering if this will happen. “Don’t you dare touch my 401k” is a response to the fear of the unknown of what post-divorce will look like from a financial perspective. Clients often have emotional attachments to the marital home, to certain items of personal property and they may even negotiate irrationally out of fear: “I’ll let you keep your pension if I can have the kids.” “I want to keep the house” is often an emotional choice without clear review of financial reasonableness. Helping navigate this urgent fear of scarcity and loss is some of the most delicate surgery a family lawyer can do with clients.
Depression. Clients who are in the depression state of grief may be hesitant to seek medical help. “What if the judge finds out I’m on medication? Will they take away my kids?” (In most instances the answer is NO!) Some clients self-medicate with alcohol or by entering into new relationships so they don’t have to be alone and face a new type of loneliness. Stay- at- home parents may have to work for the first time in years in order to survive financially often feeling depressed about putting the children in daycare for the first time. So many life transitions at once can be overwhelming.
Acceptance. Divorce clients come to acceptance at various times. Some counselors say you are “better” one- year post divorce because you have spent every holiday without your spouse under your new “normal.” That may be true of some, but I’ve had some clients come to see me years later still not having accepted the finality of their divorce. Some choose the path of identifying as a “victim” in their divorce story and I’ve seen clients who truly never get over it.
Unlike a death, where the loved one is gone, divorcing couples often have to continue regular interaction with their former spouse, especially where children are involved. This creates an opportunity for many triggers of grief, such as when a spouse remarries, new children are born to a former spouse, or when the divorced parents have to be together at events for their children.
I train and teach lawyers in conflict resolution and peacemaking paradigms in law. Recently I’ve incorporated grief training into my curriculum. By understanding the grief journey more fully, lawyers can hopefully become more compassionate problem solvers for our clients.
Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom. -Rumi