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Posts Tagged :

filing for divorce

Excuse #2: “I Can’t Afford This”
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Here’s another excuse I hear over and over from people. “I can’t afford your information. It sounds great, but I’m broke!”

Often, they follow this up with “I can find free advice” or “X is cheaper than you.” Both statements are correct. You CAN find advice that is free. And you can find cheaper advice. But as they say, You Get What You Pay For!

Why is that advice free? Because it has little value. There is a joke: “What do you call someone who graduates at the bottom of their medical school class? Doctor.” But is that who you want to entrust your health to? The person who was at the bottom of the heap? Not me! I want someone who is tops in their field. I want someone who knows what they are doing. I want someone with the right knowledge. I WANT THE RIGHT ANSWER! I don’t want just any answer. I want one that gets me better.

Or an attorney. You can go get legal advice from an attorney who deals with anything that comes through his door, and maybe you will pay less than $100 per hour. Or you can find the person who can deal with your situation, a specialized attorney, and pay a little (or a lot) more. But you will at least get the RIGHT answer.

Anyone can give you an answer. And some of those answers will make things worse. Or you can get the answer that will help you.

I always find this excuse baffling. Do you know the average cost (not just legal bills, but lost resources, investments, equity, etc.) of a divorce in America? $30,000. That doesn’t even begin to calculate the loss over the years (2 homes, extra clothes for the kids, competing gifts, etc., etc., etc.) or the emotional and physical toll. The cost of a divorce is astronomical! The attorney’s fees for a decent divorce attorney start at $150 per hour, and go upwards of $500 per hour!

Or call a plumber to run his snake through the clogged pipe. 15 minutes, and you will pay upwards of $200, and you will gladly do it to take care of a crisis.

Trust me when I tell you: if you have found your way here, you have a crisis. You can deal with it now, or you can deal with it later, but the cost will keep going up.

If you are ready to save your marriage, I would tell you: you can’t afford not to!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D., is the author of the bestselling relationship ebook, Save The Marriage. It is available at http://www.savethemarriage.com .
Hint: Starting Divorce Proceedings Is NOT A Marriage-Saving Action!
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

I finally decided to say this in my blog. . . because I keep saying the same thing in emails! It started this morning. Another email telling me that she wanted to save her marriage, but that she had filed for divorce. Her question was how to start the conversation with her spouse.

My answer is “stop the legal process!” There is nothing in that process that will help get people back together. There is nothing that will help to solve the problem by filing for divorce. There is nothing in the action that will get the attention someone might be looking for.

Yet every week, I receive a couple of letters that say the same thing: “I don’t want to get divorced, but I don’t know what to do, so I filed.” Somewhere, I still fail to see the logic here, even though I know what they are thinking.

At some point, the desperation gets to the point that it feels like there is nothing else that can be done (there is. See my ebook.) But when it doesn’t feel like there is anything to be done, we start making panicky, foolish decisions. Filing for divorce is one of them.

Many people have told me that the only reason they filed was to get their spouse’s attention. Instead, the majority got a divorce!

An attorney may tell you that you can stop the process as any time. That is true, in the theoretical sense. But once someone files, something changes psychologically. When the case is listed in court with the “versus” between the names, they are not kidding! The process is adversarial by its nature. A relationship is being taken apart. And the effect on each person’s psychology is devastating.

What saddens me is how many OK marriages, marriages that could and should be saved, are tossed away because someone decided to file — didn’t want to file, but didn’t know what else to do. If you are in that situation, please let me remove that option from your vocabulary!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D., is the author of the bestselling relationship ebook, Save The Marriage. It is available at http://www.savethemarriage.com .