How to have an Amicable Divorce in Ontario

You dread ending the divorce process despising your spouse, your bank account drained of funds by expensive legal action, and your children scarred for life from seeing their parents at each other’s throats. You want to avoid this scenario at all costs, but don’t even know if it’s possible. Aren’t all divorces painful, acrimonious and generally awful? Isn’t this the way most marriages end?

The answer is no. There is a more peaceful way in which your marriage can come to a close. A way that more and more couples are choosing to pursue, because it allows you to separate without overwhelming anger, bitterness and heartache, and without the excessive costs associated with hiring family law lawyers to secure a divorce through the courts.

No couple wants a disastrous divorce ruining an already fraught situation. So by entering into your separation by both being determined not to blame the other for the failure of your marriage, you’ll increase your chances of achieving an amicable divorce. Remember, there are many reasons why a marriage can fail, some beyond the control of either partner. And if you both accept that it’s over, why waste time, money and emotional energy on the blame game? There’s no point. You need to move onto matters you can affect.

Of course, your divorce will impact you and your partner as well as your children and family too.

There will also be financial implications as a result of your separation. Be aware of this from the outset, and aware that you can choose to put others’ needs before your own. Be aware that you can also choose how you get divorced.

Don’t let your separation become bogged down by arguments concerning issues that don’t matter in the big scheme of things. Arguing over small details can drag out divorce proceedings for months if not years. Choose instead an amicable divorce by making sure the issues over which you dig your heels in and search for the best result are the most important ones to you.

While there are never any winners in divorce, choosing to participate in amicable divorce mediation will give you both a better chance of achieving a resolution that’s right for you and your children.

Hiding assets or not being honest about your income are great ways to fast-track your divorce on the road to disaster. The truth will come out in the end, and hiding facts will only delay things and raise costs.

In an amicable and friendly divorce, you and your partner will agree to be honest and upfront about everything from day one, revealing all relevant financial information in an honest and truthful way. It’s a case of putting all your cards on the table aka net family property, so both parties can see assets, debts, incomes, bank accounts, tax returns and other information.

This is particularly important for the partner who has taken the lead on financial matters during the marriage. They are likely to know more than their spouse, but in an amicable settlement, this knowledge needs to be willingly and fully shared so both partners can make informed decisions.

It’s worth noting that agreement can be achieved in a collaborative joint divorce without you and your partner needing to be best friends. You just need to be able to trust each other.

What parent doesn’t feel the heartache of seeing the impact their divorce has on their children? Sharing parental responsibilities in a way that least disrupts your kids’ life has to be the chief aim of your divorce settlement, and that’s where getting an amicable divorce can really make all the difference. By agreeing to divorce mediation you are demonstrating your commitment to resolving issues relating to your children and crafting a great parenting plan, in a peaceful way that’s in their best interests. You’re proving you’re prepared to work together to ensure you’re both involved in your children’s lives, and determined to preserve as much of the family finances so that your children don’t suffer as a result of a costly divorce.

Crucially, the key factor behind the vast majority of good divorces is that they are arrived at BEFORE trial, WITHOUT divorce lawyers getting involved, through a carefully negotiated and amicably arrived at settlement agreement.

The purpose of the separation agreement is to put down in writing the terms in which the spouses agree to separate. In short, it’s an economic blueprint for the family’s future. It lays out each partner’s rights and responsibilities towards any children they might have. It details what is to happen to the property the former couple owned or shared, how the finances will be divided, and it decides which spouse will pay spousal support and/or child support.

This may sound like a completely foreign idea of a divorce to those of you who have experienced a bad divorce. But such amicable divorces are possible, not unrealistic. They are within your reach, not pie in the sky.

You will probably have noticed already that not one of the factors common to a good divorce mentioned a divorce lawyer. And there’s good reason for that. Because when divorce lawyers become involved, the process of getting separated becomes adversarial. Like boxers in a ring, couples are set against each other with lawyers egging them on from their corner, never likely to throw in the towel.

Causing damage and hurt to each other, taking cheap shots at each other are all fair game in adversarial divorces. Your lawyer will try to terrorize your partner into conceding this or that, prompting your partner’s lawyer to react in a tit-for-tat that sees the gloves come off and plenty of hits below the belt.

This is the bitter divorce of the movies, with the anger and conflict fuelled by lawyers who will generate animosity between former partners to such an extent that any amicable outcome to the separation becomes virtually impossible.

A good divorce is far more likely when you restrict the role of divorce lawyers and the court process to an absolute minimum. You and your partner need to maintain control of your separation, not hand it over to confrontational lawyers who thrive in the ‘them versus us’ adversarial system.

• Keep your feelings in check, however strong.
• Act rationally, not emotionally
• Maintain a healthy respect for your partner
• Seek compromise ahead of confrontation
• Get the help of a Divorce Mediator before a Divorce Lawyer

In most relationships, it’s one partner who initiates divorce proceedings. They’ve decided the marriage is over and that they don’t want to continue with the way things are. It’s likely they’ve thought about getting divorced for a while and have had time to get used to the idea, even begun planning for a life away from their spouse. They have also had time to weigh up the pros and cons of getting separated.

It follows that the other partner, the one who is about to receive the news that their spouse wants a divorce, has most likely not had time for all these thoughts and preparations. While this spouse may agree the marriage needs to end, the divorce request can still seem like a bolt out of the blue. They are going to need time to adjust and come to terms with the new reality.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

The Best to Start Your Separation

How both partners manage this disparity is crucial to a good divorce.

• If you’re the initiator, and you think this gives you the right to control and define the terms of the divorce, you won’t have a good divorce.
• If either spouse tells the other it’s all their fault, you won’t have a good divorce.
• If one spouse puts pressure on the other to make decisions they’re not happy with, you won’t have a good divorce.
• If you use your divorce as a way to get one over on your partner, you won’t have a good divorce.

Instead, you will almost certainly have to each employ the services of a divorce lawyer and enter the adversarial system with all the emotional and financial strains that entails.

• Accept that your divorce is a sad but inevitable result of the breakdown of your marriage
• Realise that both partners have contributed to this situation
• If you are the divorce initiator, give your partner time to get used to the idea
• Negotiate all aspects of the separation in good faith
• Minimize the role divorce lawyers and adversarial courts play in your divorce
• Use the services of a professional divorce mediator