Tag: divorcing

Among the many disruptions caused by Covid-19, the delays in courtrooms around the country are chief among them. In Los Angeles county alone, there are more than 32,000 immediate hearings in the family law court system that are now backlogged. It could take a minimum of a year or possibly up to four years for those headed for a divorce courtroom trial to have their cases heard. The wait does not have to be as long as many might think though, if they take their trial to a retired judge. Divorcing couples can take advantage of what is becoming a popular trend to speed up the divorce process. And, in the long run, costs and attorney’s fees could run 50% less. With this choice, indeed, the time it would take to get to a full-blown trial heard in a public courtroom could be drastically reduced.

When friends divorce, it impacts everyone around them. When you’re friends with a couple who’s breaking up, it can create a whirlwind of emotion: shock, sadness, worry, even reflection or concern about your own marriage—if it happened to them, could it happen to us?

As your friends undergo a painful, all-encompassing change in their lives, you and your spouse may ride your own emotional roller coaster as you wrestle with two tasks: maintaining your friendship with the divorcing couple and also taking away lessons that will help you keep your own relationship solid.

By the early ’80s, when I was in high school, divorce was so prevalent in my community that I’d ask new acquaintances, "Which parent do you live with?" The first great American wave of divorce that began in the ‘70s has now become as common as a high tide. A recent statistic shows that, in the U.S., 43 percent of first marriages end within 15 years. And, according to a 1998 University of Chicago national survey, nuclear families—which are married couples with children—make up only 26 percent of households, down from 45 percent in 1972.

Many of my contemporaries truly did not know what a good marriage was, though a bunch of us benefited from seeing good second marriages (showing that some parents learned from their mistakes).