WHEN ART IMITATES REAL LIFE..

" There is no winning, Oliver, there are only degrees of losing " - what Danny Devito's character says to Michael Douglas's character in " War of the Roses "... . That quote is probably the most profound statement regarding modern divorce that I have ever read. Ask anyone who has been through a divorce and they will tell you how easily the divorce process can become out of control, power struggle. And where does the fault lie? With the divorcing couple who are trying to deal with emotions like sadness, loss, anger, and abandonment? With a legal system which more often than not breeds adversarialness or unaccountability? Or with the lawyers who strive to be neutral advocates, but can slip, in trying to help their clients, into being negative advocates?
The recent change to a no fault process in New York State divorce law will hopefully help smooth and streamline the entire process, how much so is an open question at the moment...

WILL DIVORCE INSURANCE FOSTER MORE DIVORCES?

I was talking with a friend about the concept of divorce insurance. She attempted to be objective about the issue, despite the fact that she, herself, was embroiled in a " nasty " and financially draining divorce. She voiced the opinion, which I've heard from several others, that having divorce insurance would make it far too easy for a couple to leave the relationship and not work on improving it.
While I'm not necessarily a big proponent of the concept of divorce insurance ( I believe that the best divorce insurance is a close, compassionate, marriage ), I don't believe that having an insurance policy against divorce gives someone free reign for bad behavior. After all. does having automobile insurance make people drive more recklessly, or having health insurance lead to poorer health choices? I don't think so.
However, if you as a married person, or as a single person, and are considering divorce insurance, You need to ask yourself something. What is my interest telling me? If you are married and thinking this kind of insurance sounds good, you need to take a good look at your marriage and assess what's working well and what's not working so well. Then decide how do you fix what's not working so well. If you're a single person and find the concept of divorce insurance intriguing, you need to decide what are the things that are most important to you in your life and uncover where your priorities are, before getting married.
Getting back to my divorcing friend, while she admits that having divorce insurance would ease the financial burden she's feeling now. The majority of her distress now, and during her marriage, is emotional. She feels the money she would have spent on premiums would have been better spent on individual and couple counseling and life coaching...

DIVORCE INSURANCE OR DIVORCE PREVENTION

Earlier this week, I heard about a new type of insurance being offered " out there " called divorce insurance. Created by a man who suffered a severe financial downturn as a result of a " nasty " divorce, divorce insurance attempts to protect the insured from the often financial
" tsunami " that divorce in the tri-state area, in 2010, has become...

The details regarding divorce insurance will be addressed in a future post, for now though, I'd like to focus on what the concept of divorce insurance symbolizes. Insurance coverage commonly is about protecting oneself from the potential calamities of life, death, injury, loss of job, etc. that may befall us. These calamities threaten our ability to maintain the quality of life we've become accustomed to, as well as, potentially threatening the possessions we've accumulated and become attached to in our lives. No one seems to question the validity of why the aforementioned occurrences are catastrophic. Now, with the advent of divorce insurance, there seems to be a long overdue acknowledgement that divorce can be a catastrophic. Which seems to be borne out by the statistics: Over 40% of people going through divorce eventually end up declaring bankruptcy, and men end up losing an average of 77% of their net worth in their divorces. The toll is not just financial. There is a higher incidence of anxiety and depression in people going through divorce. What are the factors that influence the severity of the negative impact that divorce can have on those involved? Not surprisingly they are : The level of antagonism between the couple, the court system, and the lawyers involved...

No insurance policy can protect us from the devastating effects of divorce. That is why the best insurance is to focus on preventing divorce in the first place, by improving the quality and level of satisfaction in the relationship.... To be continued...

THE BIG GAME

This has been quite a week in sports: the men's and women's NCAA basketball championship games, opening day for baseball, and the start of the MASTER'S golf tournament. All week long terms like " the big game ", and " the biggest prize " have been used repeatedly.
It got me thinking about the concept of " the big game " and how we can relate to it in our everyday lives. For most of us, there is no clear " big game ", we don't have a crowd cheering us on, or an audience to our successes and failures. For most of us, our victories will be moments and opportunities that can build toward a life well realized. Perhaps then that is the real " big prize " for us, living a life in line with our values and passions, which will be different for all of us. In sports, there is usually only one winner, in fact in order for someone to win, someone has to lose. Not so in life, we can all live a well realized life.
So ask yourself are you overlooking the little victories in your life, and those around you, because your looking for the big victory or prize. A prize that is usually more transitory than living a life well realized. After all, there's a new sport's season beginning every year, in our lives we have one opportunity ( depending on your beliefs ) to win at our big game ... .