The Divorced Divorce Attorney

Blog 2: When Is It Over?

Making the decision to end a marriage is difficult.  When has it been enough?  When is it over?  This is a personal decision.  Some people have more patience than others.  Sometimes there are legal reasons to stay married, even if the love is gone.  Every situation is different.  A family law lawyer’s job isn’t to decide when a marriage is over, her job is to help the client to the resolution of the divorce proceedings whether through settlement or trial.  Going through my own divorce hasn’t changed my position on that.  However, I am now, more than ever, a proponent of marriage counseling.

Many people don’t know that the divorce statute starts with a section that actually states that the purpose of the statute is to preserve the family.  Sometimes families can be preserved by staying married.  Sometimes the only way to preserve a family is to dissolve the marriage.

Marital counseling must work for some people.  I don’t know any, but I’m sure they are out there.  As a divorce attorney, I don’t really get to see the success stories of marital counseling.  By the time people come to see me, it is normally over.

The court can order two parties to attend counseling.  I have seen a judge do it.  From a practical standpoint, however, the court cannot force both parties to participate meaningfully. 

I opted to try counseling before I filed for divorce.  I hoped for some kind of miracle.  I hoped that the therapist would say something profound; something that would enlighten my husband and I.  There had to be something simple that we were missing.  We are two educated individuals who both love our son.  We have mostly the same values, blah,  blah, blah. . .  Fix us! 

When my realization that it was really over came, in an individual therapy session, it wasn’t what I wanted.  There was no magic pill or touchy feely exercise that would fix my marriage.  Fixing a marriage takes two people who want to fix the marriage.  I found out that I was the one who didn’t want to fix the marriage anymore.  I was over it.  I was nearly through the grieving process already.  My unhappiness in the relationship had gone on for too long and I couldn’t come back from it or, according to my therapist, I didn’t want to come back from it. 

If you are reading this blog because you are unhappy but you have not passed the proverbial point of no return, do not stop, do not pass go, go straight to therapy!  Do everything you can to save your marriage because divorce is really no fun at all.

Florida is a no fault state.  Neither party needs a reason to get a divorce other than that they feel the marriage is irretrievably broken.  Even in uncontested matters, the court will ask for testimony regarding this.  The question will be asked, “Is there any amount of counseling that the court could order, that you feel could save your marriage?”  How could one really know the answer unless they have tried.  I personally feel that the difficult decision to end a marriage should be made by an individual after she has a grip on whether the marriage can be saved and after all attempts to save the marriage, including counseling, have been exhausted.  I love helping people and I am happy to have been chosen by many people to be the attorney who helps them through a divorce but I am even happier for the folks that I never get to see because they were able to fix it. 

Until next time,
Cori

Corrine Bylund, Esquire
Zisser, Brown, Nowlis, & Cabrey P.A.
One Independent Drive #3306
Jacksonville, FL 32202
www.zisser.net

The Divorced Divorce Attorney

Blog 1: The Divorced Divorce Attorney

I have been in the divorce business for a little over fourteen years.  I started as a paralegal at a small firm in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and handled divorce files for four years there.  When I was in my second year of law school, I started as a law clerk doing research and writing for Barry Zisser, Elliot Zisser, Don Brown, Nancy Nowlis and Brian Cabrey.  I was lucky enough for them to keep me after I graduated and I have now been practicing as an attorney for a little over seven years.  Over the past fourteen years, I have worked with hundreds of clients and felt that I had a firm grip on the issues that people encounter in divorces.  I thought I had learned to strike a pretty good balance in being compassionate while still managing clients and their expectations.  It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that I became a little more sensitive to children’s issues. Then, it wasn’t until I went through my own divorce that I realized things I thought were minor were really kind of major when viewing them through the eyes of someone going through a divorce.

Today, I was having a discussion with a judge and an opposing attorney.  We were talking about communication and how important it is that two parents get past their hang ups about the divorce and put the children first.  I shared that I felt I was lucky.  My ex-husband and I aren’t buddies.  I would say that we don’t even get along that well.  However, he knows that if he needs to talk about our son or if he needs help with our son, he can call me and I won’t backhand him with some motion about how incompetent he is the following week.  I know that if I need him to pick up our son from school on two Thursdays in a row, that are supposed to be my Thursdays, he isn’t going to tell me it is my problem and he isn’t going to sling it in my face that I am some kind of absentee mother that puts my career before our son.  Everyday issues that we, two people who couldn’t save our marriage and two people that don’t even like each other sometimes, work out without issue are turned into motions and brought into the courts for judges to decide.  The judges who manage several hundred files at one time and who might rule on issues involving egregious child abuse in the same day that someone wants them to decide whether it is appropriate for a 7 year old to have a cellular phone.

The judge I was speaking to and my opposing counsel both agreed that I was not typical.  Opposing counsel suggested, as we were walking out of the courthouse together, that I should start a blog to share my experience and maybe help others through the difficulties of divorce.

I’m certainly not perfect and I’m sure that some people will disagree with how I choose to handle my life but here I am, starting a blog and hoping that something that I post will be helpful to someone.  Love, Cori

Corrine Bylund, Esquire
Zisser, Brown, Nowlis, & Cabrey P.A.
One Independent Drive #3306
Jacksonville, FL 32202
www.zisser.net