When your marriage is on the rocks and divorce is on the horizon, you might find yourself worried about having to work with your spouse to resolve the legal issues you’ll have to face. This can include figuring out how to divide the marital estate, creating a custody and visitation plan and addressing requests for child and spousal support. While some couples can work these matters out on their own without a lot of conflict or court intervention, others find themselves in the unbearable position of having to deal with a spouse who is belittling and who berates them every chance they get. If you’re dealing with an overly aggressive spouse in your divorce, then you’re probably wondering how much you really have to communicate with them during divorce.
The answer really depends on the facts of your situation. Some spouses can resolve their divorce legal issues without directly talking to each other at all, while others are still forced to communicate in some fashion so that they can address the details of their divorce settlement. A lot of it depends on the boundaries that you want to set. Let’s look at some strategies you can use to reduce the amount of communication you have to have with your spouse and how to minimize the conflict it creates.
Communication strategies to utilize in your divorce
There are several ways to address communication in divorce. Here are some that you may want to consider in yours so that you reduce conflict, keep your sanity and find favorable resolution:
- Speak through your attorney: One of the best ways to reduce or even eliminate the amount of communication you have with your spouse during divorce is to use your attorney as a go-between. While your attorney will bring back messages from your spouse, at least they’ll be filtered, and you won’t have to deal with the direct face-to-face contact that you may be dreading. Using this option can also help ensure that your responses are tempered and well-thought out from a strategical perspective.
- Reduce everything to writing: You don’t want to get caught in a situation where you and your spouse disagree over what was said about a key divorce legal issue. That’s why it’s a good idea to only communicate in writing. This will create a strong record that you can refer back to, and it’ll take out some of the contentiousness that’s often associated with face-to-face conversations in these contexts. Also, this will allow you to communicate as much or as little as you’d like. You can even block your spouse if things become too heated.
- Know when to walk away: In an ideal world, you and your spouse would be able to work out all your divorce legal issues without need for court involvement. But sometimes this is an unrealistic expectation. If you and your spouse simply can’t communicate in an effective way during settlement negotiations, then you need to be able to walk away, take the matter to court and let your attorney advocate on your behalf. You don’t deserve to be subjected to a toxic environment during settlement talks. So, know when it’s time to walk away.
Take control to secure the type of divorce that you want
It can feel like your spouse is trying to control the divorce process from the get-go. While that can be intimidating, you don’t have to let them commandeer every issue. Instead, you can find advocacy and communication strategies that not only protect your legal interests, but also your emotional and psychological well-being. That’s why it’s important to discuss with your attorney the amount and type of communication you can handle with your spouse and what you hope to get out of your divorce. This will give you a strong starting point to lay the foundation for the marriage dissolution you deserve.
