Pat Gaudette

Make Any Divorce Better! Specific steps to make things smoother, faster, less painful and save you a LOT of money by Ed Sherman, best-selling author of How to Do Your Own Divorce books. Sherman, a family law attorney since 1967, founded Nolo Press in 1971 with How to Do Your Own Divorce in California, and co-founded Divorce Helpline.

All of Sherman’s books on divorce are written to remove the mystique from the legal system and empower the people going through the divorce process. Make Any Divorce Better! may be his best book yet,  providing tips and resources for any type of divorce, simple or complex, easy or adversarial. Included in this exceptionally well-designed book is a CD which includes worksheets, settlement agreements, parenting plans, child support guides.

BOOK EXCERPT: The divorce road map

The real divorce is your life, the context in which the narrow concerns of the legal divorce are played out. It is about ending one life and beginning another. It’s about your relationships with your Ex, family friends, children and yourself. It’s what you go through in practical, emotional and spiritual terms. The real divorce is about breaking old patterns, finding a new center for your life and doing your best with the hand you’ve been dealt. These matters are not assisted or addressed in any way by the legal divorce. Chapter 3 discusses your real divorce and how to get through it.

The legal divorce is only about settling the division of marital property, support and parenting. In high conflict cases, it’s also about keeping the peace. That’s all, nothing more. If you could settle these matters out of court, there would be nothing left but some paperwork and red tape to get your judgment, yet this is the arena in which people experience so much frustration and expense. Why is that?

Problems in a divorce are almost never legal, almost always about personalities and emotions, for which there are absolutely no solutions in court or in a lawyer’s office–zip, zero, nothing. In fact, getting involved with lawyers and courts almost always makes things worse instead of better. The purpose of this book is to guide you to solutions that reduce your exposure to the legal grinder or, if you can’t avoid a legal battle, how to conduct it effectively.

I highly recommend that anyone contemplating, or currently involved in, a divorce buy this book NOW. Even if you already have attorneys involved, you’ll learn how to regain control of the legal aspects of your divorce which could translate into countless dollars as well as reducing conflict and needless delays. You’ll also learn how to work through the real divorce–as the legalities progress and after they’re final.