What would YOU change if you could?

Statement of Arrangements for children is a joke. My ex had one drafted without consulting me. It said something like 'at the start of the summer holidays the children will move out of the marital home to the ex's address'. That never happened, the children stayed in the marital home with me. When I suggested to my solicitor that the statement should be redrafted she said it was not worth doing as it is not legally binding....so what is the point of it!?

I believe the childrens arrangements should be formally agreed by both parents before a dicorce petition can be served.

Not sure if thats possible!

I would also change the names of the Nisi and absolute stages to something more relevant like 'pending' and 'final'

Hi dl don't even need to widen scope of legal aid just have sliding scale of charges but not sure how solicitors would claim this money back.

think counselling and mediation personally should be compulsory and in those sessions not only sharing of knowledge on possible divorce outcomes but discussions of options on what parenting options seem best for all concerned.

the problem of this could be timing. too readily peeps go for divorce. Counselling may prevent it happening in the first place and if inevitable counselling could at least reduce fall out. This followed by mediation has to be better than we have now.

Itgetsbetter wrote:


I believe the childrens arrangements should be formally agreed by both parents before a dicorce petition can be served.

It is blummin well supposed to be!!!!!

Thankyou DL, I thought Id done wrong there....again! And I suppose this only proves that the procedures and possible ramifications should be issued to each party once the Divorce Petition is submitted.

Im sure if Id have had this information (or had found wiki sooner) I may not have had half the shocks that I have along the way. How does it go "knowledge is power"

Allowing the Absolute to go through before the Financial side was sorted allowed my ex to then hold the balance of power. Push push push to make decisions that I was incapable of making. It also put my pension rights at risk had he remarried (mind you he may be!! ). If he had wanted a divorce that quickly then maybe by waiting until the Finances were sorted would make him more reasonable and open to fairness and more eager to get things sorted instead of playing games.

However, apart from anything else the ease of divorce does not allow the partner left behind the time to get used to the idea, but more importantly the children.

I think there should be a cooling off period following seperation (a year maybe) to allow emotions to settle.

I think parents with children should be forced to attend mediation/ family therapy or some other professional organisation to sort out arrangements and the children (maybe 11+) should be able to attend and participate. A legally binding contract between all parties (including kids) should be drawn up.
This organisation should not have anything to do with the court but the court would be required to endorse it.

You could never make this 'legal', I guess, but some kind of recommended time lapse between a marriage breaking down and the side with the new partner introducing children of the marriage to the new partner....my stbx thought nothing of doing this to our then 4 year old at 8 days after leaving the family home (also after saying in front of me that he wasn't leaving to live with another lady - I had worked it out, he just thought I was stupid) and told him to keep it secret.

Perhaps this is where 'conduct' should come into things - screwing with your children's mind has lasting impact. Stbx still in denial that our sobbing 5 year old, who's school work has bottomed out, is even midly upset. What is there to be upset about when at daddy's house you get to eat crisps, have fizzy drinks and get new toys every week?! It's me that deals with the fall out, not him!

Seriously, perhaps some simple research outcomes for children of separation and divorce could be summarised for use at mediation and/or given out by solicitors. Our mediator did this - but sheis on the board of Resolution so has a vested interest - and it was very sobering, visibly so for my stbx (although lasting impact hasn't happened). However, if we are going down the more or less compulsory mediaton and/or counselling route, this would prove useful, I think.

Asram wrote:

Thankyou DL, I thought Id done wrong there....again! And I suppose this only proves that the procedures and possible ramifications should be issued to each party once the Divorce Petition is submitted.

Im sure if Id have had this information (or had found wiki sooner) I may not have had half the shocks that I have along the way. How does it go "knowledge is power"

Allowing the Absolute to go through before the Financial side was sorted allowed my ex to then hold the balance of power. Push push push to make decisions that I was incapable of making. It also put my pension rights at risk had he remarried (mind you he may be!! ). If he had wanted a divorce that quickly then maybe by waiting until the Finances were sorted would make him more reasonable and open to fairness and more eager to get things sorted instead of playing games.

However, apart from anything else the ease of divorce does not allow the partner left behind the time to get used to the idea, but more importantly the children.

Not at all hun - I just want to be able to understand the reasoning behind the views, that's all .

What is becoming very apparent is that you are all spending money with solicitors and being subsumed into a process that no-one is explaining to you. While it is great you have all found wiki, what I am becoming very concerned about is the wiki membership is a drop in the divorcing public ocean - we have over 40,000 of you, but there are 280,000 people divorcing each year... to not have the process explained is simply wrong . I wouldn't dream for example of letting a surgeon operate on me unless he firstly justified the operation to me, explained the process, and explained the improvement he hoped to achieve. On a similar basis, I expect at the least that the process is explained to you guys and you receive an explanation of why going down route a is better than route b. Even if we can just change that, we will have achieved a great deal it seems .