Divorce advice: Mistake couples make when separating

It’s safe to say no couple ever gets married with the intention of getting divorced some day.

Except that, just like doing your tax return and sand at the beach scalding your feet in summer, it’s a an unavoidable fact of life for some marriages.

But is a messy or painful divorce unavoidable when you split up? Not so, says Anne-Marie Cade.

Ms Cade is known as “The Peaceful Divorce Lawyer” and is the founder of Divorce Right, a family mediation and divorce coach business.

The Melbourne lawyer told news.com.au podcastKinda Sorta Dating that one of the biggest mistakes she sees when marriages end is people thinking “it cannot be a very amicable split”.

“I think they start off on the wrong footing,” Ms Cade told host Jana Hocking.

“The common theme seems to be that if I want to get a divorce, I need to see a lawyer and it’s about this fight.”

Many couples “get caught up in the emotions of the whole situation” and simply go straight to the lawyer stage so they can “fight this out in court”, she said.

But instead Ms Cade believes divorce doesn’t need to be a “horrible fight” and there is a “better way to divorce”.

“I think you’ve got to work through issues, that’s where I see the mistakes,” she said.

“Seeing a lawyer straight away is not going to get you the best outcome.”

Despite this, during divorce proceeding there is usually one person that is “usually far ahead of the other”, Ms Cade said.

“In the marriage, things have really not being going well for a while and one of them has decided this is just not going to work but they haven’t really communicated that to the other person,” she said.

“So it comes almost as a shock to one of the other parties when they announce that you know, I think we should separate.”

Instead Ms Cade said communication is key – even when your ex isn’t willing to co-operate or it’s impossible to talk without a fight.

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“You still need to have that communication and there are ways in which that can be done,” she said.

“You can possibly engage with a mediator and have a mediation and have a shuttle mediation process.

“So the two parties don’t have to be in the same room, they can be in separate rooms and the mediator will go from one room to another.”

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