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Sunday, September 23, 2012

And the billboard called it a quick and easy divorce...


...Not so quick and easy...

While there is a certain degree of commonality that exists for all of us who go through the divorce process, there are lots of factors that mean there is also a great deal of variety and divergence.  When I write my blog postings, I do so from the perspective of a U.S. citizen.  Not only, that, but a resident of Kansas.  That cultural viewpoint impacts the writings regarding divorce.  For instance, I recently learned that a certain eastern state has something like a 2 year process for a divorce.  Here, it is a 60 day waiting period.  Everything from child support, child placement, alimony, “visitation” and a host of other details seem to vary pretty widely from state to state and nation to nation.  If divorce has entered your life somehow, it can be critical that you know what the ins and outs are for the state in which you reside, and that is where the attorney can be pretty helpful.

Other countries have different ways of doing things as well.  At least in some of the Muslim countries, the laws don’t allow a woman to get a divorce, she has to ask the husband for it.  And if he grants it, the children of a certain age always go to the father.  I have heard that in some places, a divorce is accomplished merely by one telling the other that he/she divorces him or her.  In some Catholic countries I have heard about, divorce is not an acceptable part of the legal structure.  Apparently, the bad marriages are handled in other ways….some of which don’t sound very good. 

These things are part of what make divorce such a difficult process.  The waters are very murky.  And what is helpful or effective in one locale may be counterproductive or irrelevant in another.  To make it more complicated, people don’t generally pay attention to divorce laws, until they are being applied to their own situation.  The person who files may have explored the topic prior to filing, and the filed upon may have to play legal catch-up, but  they both often discover that there are an incredible number of unknowns.  Friends who have gone through the process and attorneys can become critical aids in making it through the upheavals of divorce.  Friends who haven’t been through the process can be more effectively encouraging when they understand a bit how complicated it all can become.  And, of course, the most important support of all is God, who understands far better than any human ever can.

TL:dr  The variety of laws and processes can make divorce surprisingly confusing and complicated.



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