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I'm in Divorce HELL!

Jenny was a young mother, 31 years old. She also seemed remarkably calm despite trudging through a 12 month long divorce. Maybe calm isn't the right word, rather sheer mental exhaustion. At this point, the divorce that she thought would last a few months, had turned into a nightmare and there seemed no end in sight.

She had put her husband, Scott, through college and he'd become an electrical engineer now with a very promising career with a computer-consulting firm. They had 3 daughters ages 11, 9, and 6. They also had a 3 year old baby boy.

Scott had become a workaholic during their marriage. To cope with the stress he began taking prescription drugs and soon developed a substance abuse problem. This caused added stress to an already fragile marriage and after many attempts at marriage counseling she decided divorce was the only solution for her and the kids.

Her bishop encouraged them both to keep trying to make it work, but he also said that if divorce was the only answer then they should divorce using a professional divorce mediator rather than going to court.

He explained how this would make the divorce much easier on the children and would cost a lot less than going to an attorney. At this point, she sure wished she could have gone back and taken his advice a year ago. But a year ago, she thought by going to court, it was the only way to get what she deserved.

Scott had taken a voluntary sabbatical from work when he got served the divorce papers. She thought for sure this would only be for a few months. Now a year later he had lost his job, and as she found out later, he'd been paying her support needs from their savings accounts and stock investments.

The money had run out and the only thing they had left was the equity in their home. Jenny had been living in the home during the divorce and was hoping the judge would allow her to stay in the home with the children. Now, that seemed like an impossibility.

She figured Scott had no desire to get a job to help her and the kids and that he'd rather see the house just get sold. She was frustrated with the courts because they were SO SLOW! Even when they made a ruling on an issue it seemed Scott did not do what the courts had ordered. That just meant another court date would have to be set-all to get him to honor the judges' original ruling! Which meant more time! Jenny felt like she was about to lose her mind if closure to this divorce did not come soon.

She had borrowed money from her parents to pay her legal fees, which were now over $12,000. She could not help but feel guilty thinking that money could have been much better spent on the children. The embarrassment of "borrowing" this money from her parents didn't set too well with her either.

She kept asking herself, "How could we have let this get so out of control?", and wondered, "Is this how all divorces are?…I knew it would be bad but I never thought it could get this bad!!"

Although the financial stress of the divorce was incredibly unsettling, Jenny literally broke down and could not contain her emotions whenever she stared to think about her kids.

She felt her children would never recover from the divorce. She knew Scott would never do anything intentionally to hurt the children, but his actions made her feel that he would do anything to make her feel more pain including using the kids.

She felt like the attorneys were so consumed with arguing about all of the debts and assets that they forgot all about the children. Even after the divorce was over she worried because Scott had told her he would take the children when he wanted to. The older girls were starting to accuse her of being too hard on their dad.

After a fight, one of them even told her that she wanted to live with her dad instead. She wondered if she could lose the kids if they wanted to live with their dad? The questions and concerns just kept pouring out.

She wondered why it took so long and why her family was crumbling apart with no hope in sight?

She longed for it to just be over. She wanted things to get back to normal, for her sanity, and for her children's sake.

This is a true story from a woman who shared this with mediators. While the events described are completely true and accurate, the names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

This woman and her husband successfully mediated their divorce in 7 sessions and are currently enjoying a fulfilling life with their children. They attribute their successful parenting plan to their experience in mediation.