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Divorce: The Beginning of the End

by | Aug 4, 2017 | Divorce

We consult with thousands of people each year about their lives and their circumstances and the desire to divorce or their revulsion about divorce or their probabilities of divorce. Add to that that I’ve been practicing family law for 28 years. With that kind of data set, you could probably expect that we’ve become rather attuned to the signs that suggest a divorce is immanent.

Here are a few signs that divorce is in your future:

“She goes out with friends and often stays out all night. She’ll stagger in, in the morning, looking like something the cat dragged in, telling me that she had too much to drink so she knew she shouldn’t drive home.”

“What does she do next?”

“She heads for the shower so that she can get to work.”

“How often does this happen?”

“Not often. Maybe every other week.”
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“Tell me about his cell phone.”

“You would think it was his second heart. He doesn’t move without it. He even takes it to the bathroom.”

“Is it password protected?”

“That thing is locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Does he give you the password?”

“I’ve asked him. He tells me it is none of my business.”
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“My husband travels for a living.”

“How often per month?”

“About three weeks out of four.”
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“He pays all the bills from his account.”

“What goes into your account?”

“I don’t have an account. He says I don’t need one. He gives me an allowance.”

“Do you know how much goes into his account?”

“No. He says I don’t need to know. He’s taking care of everything.”
_________________________

“He told me that bringing another woman into our bed would bring us so much closer”
____________________________

“She said she was just taking the children back to her country for the summer. She’d be back before school started again.”
____________________________

“He gets right in my face. His face is red. He tells me I’m worthless, that I don’t contribute anything.”
_____________________________

“She likes her friends more than she likes me.”
______________________________

“He’s a Leo. I’m a Taurus.”(Okay, maybe I made that one up.)

You get the point. We’ve gotten exceptionally skilled at identifying what’s what, and quick. We aren’t sooth sayers; we don’t predict the future. But past performance is a pretty good predictor of future behavior. And we know the trends. And we know all the signs.

Do you have any signs you’d like for us to interpret?

Michael Manely 

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