Knowledgeable Divorce Attorney in Lansing & Surrounding Areas

So you are thinking about filing for divorce. This is usually something that is thought about for days, weeks, months and in some cases years. My experience in the last 40 years is that you think about divorce in the morning, during the day and at night. It reaches the point where you start realizing you need to do something to change your life. If there is any consolation to thinking about whether or not to file for divorce, deciding to file may be the single most difficult part of the decision.

Divorce, as you know, is not something to be taken lightly. You stood up in front of friends, family and the world and pronounced your love. At one point, both of you thought you would live happily ever after and that is now coming to a crashing halt. It makes people difficult to deal with and sometimes they are at their absolute worst and sometimes at their absolute best.

I subscribe to the 10-year plan. That means you want to make a decision about divorce, custody and property division based upon what you think will be best 10 years from now. Do not make a decision based upon what you want to do today, tonight or next weekend.

One of the most important considerations is to consider saving the marriage. Will counseling help? Will ministers, rabbis or spiritual advisors be of any help to you? Is there some way that the magic can come back and your marriage can continue?

Having met my wife in 1968, I would prefer to keep everybody married for as long as humanly possible. I once asked someone what we could do to save their marriage and he said not much because they had been separated for more than 10 years. So in some cases, it's absolutely best that a divorce occur; the two of you separate and you work out a reasonable resolution of all of your issues. Unfortunately, this advice is a lot like losing weight. It is very easy to give, but very difficult to do.

The birth of a child; marriage; and the death of a loved one, parent or child are the things that mark us for life. The dates of those marriages and divorces get marked in our psyches and we have to figure out a way to live with them forever. Therefore, reaching a good marital division of property and a good divorce is far better than years of battling attorney fees, aggravation and acrimony.

In most cases, you and your spouse can make the best decision on property division, child sharing and custody issues. No one will think about you, your case and your family more than you will. If you're unable to decide these issues, then courts will set up many barriers before you get to trial.

The first thing they will have you do is go to a friend of the court to help determine custody, support and parenting time issues. If you are not satisfied with the friend of the court opinion, then you can go to conciliation and ask a magistrate to help decide those issues. If that is not satisfactory to either of you, then you file a motion with the judge and the judge will hear your case as part of your divorce. As you can see, there are many things in place to help you reach a resolution before the judge has to decide your family’s fate.