Carl Taylor (00:02.232)
Hello and welcome to Happily Even After the Carl Taylor law firm divorce podcast. This is Carl Taylor; I’m a New Jersey attorney and happy to sort of get back to the podcast. It’s been a while, a whole pandemic in between and everything else, but hopefully we’ll have some fun with this and hopefully it’ll be entertaining given the material and also more importantly informative.
So the topic I want to cover today is the concept of “happily even after,” which is obviously the theme of my law firm. It’s kind of the driving force for why I do divorce and family law. It’s also the title of my book and it’s obviously also a play on the classic ‘happily ever after’ and the idea that, you know, a divorce is sort of in many ways the opposite of that.
The ‘happily ever after;’ it’s…how do I say it? I think that in our culture, we sometimes have the wrong messaging around divorce. I know, growing up for me, with sort of a standard Catholic upbringing, divorce was sort of vilified. And when I became a lawyer and chose divorce law, there was definitely certain elements within my own family and friend group who were sort of…”Why are you doing that Area of law?” “Like, why not any other area of the law?” “Who are you to come in between a marriage” and all these sort of, essentially, biblical arguments? But I’m trying to flip that narrative on the head a little bit and really, it’s 2024, right? If a marriage isn’t working out, then it’s pretty obvious. It should be self-evident that there’s no need to stick things out and make.
Carl Taylor (02:09.59)
each other miserable for, you know, the rest of your lives. It’s a normal rite of passage to pursue divorce. And if you’re in a great marriage, then that’s excellent. But that’s not everybody, right? And people change. But I also think we’ve gone maybe too far the other way where we want to really vilify each other, right, in a divorce. And I’m not sure if that’s the right messaging either.
So what kind of brought this to mind for me was I read an article on CNN of all places recently that discussed the concept of the growing divorce rate in China. I guess it’s sort of like how in the United States in the 70s and 80s, we had this great growth in divorce that’s actually sort of reversed in some ways statistically. But in China, they’re now having the influx there. The culture is starting to accept divorces.
But the article also discussed that they’re kind of going at it in a different way and sort of a more respectful way overall, which is they’re actually getting just as they had wedding photos, they’re now getting divorce photos. They’re commemorating their marriage. They’re seeing it as a stepping stone or something to be nostalgic about even in the moment as opposed to wanting to sling mud and blame each other. And I’m sure that that goes on too and you know, any
anywhere in the world, right? It’s only natural. I think that the more we can kind of look upon divorce as something that’s more of an ending than something that’s evil or harmful or and same thing for for your spouse, right? If you’re there was something that brought you together at one point and whatever that is, is obviously gone away. And now it’s time to move forward. But
I really think the more you vilify your spouse or your soon to be ex spouse, really the more difficult you’re making things for yourself, not just them, right?
Carl Taylor (04:20.332)
That’s the mindset. Then it becomes one where you’re going to pay your divorce lawyers a lot more money to try and win, right? And really there’s no true winner in a divorce. You know, there’s just a pie you’re trying to cut up and split. And the longer that you go through the process, the smaller the pie is getting, right? Because the court fees are adding up and you know, I’m a divorce lawyer, right? My fees are adding up. The other divorce attorney’s fees are adding up. The legal fees are the expert fees.
You know, you can really, so maybe you’re getting 55 % now instead of 50 % of the pie, but guess what? The pie is a lot smaller. So the amount of dollars you’re actually getting have shrunk over being more reasonable. And of course that also leads us into, yeah, it takes two people to settle a case. It takes two people to be reasonable. It only takes one person to be unreasonable and hold up everything. That’s the shame of it.
But the more we can as a society sort of look toward a divorce as just a natural step and not some game and not some form of punishment for each other, I think the better off we’re all gonna be and the better off your children are certainly gonna be. And obviously there’s cases where that’s not possible and that’s.
That’s the shame of it, right? But then you have a divorce lawyer, you know, I can help you through the process, whether the other side’s being overly aggressive or not, I can walk you through the process of how to handle it and try to mitigate the damage. But to just go in and say, I think I want to, you turn this into a World War Three situation. You’re really only benefiting your lawyers. And honestly, even even your lawyers as well compensated as they are, it’s, you know, it’s it’s
It takes a certain kind of person to really enjoy being in that process of, of, you know, world war three, right? There there’s, there’s, no real winners in that situation, but if you can kind of come through with the idea of happily even after, and I think it really starts with mindset.
Carl Taylor (06:34.582)
Really a mindset shift. So what are we talking about when it comes to mindset? and I know it’s kind of a psychology term and almost a little woo-woo, but You’re not gonna be able just like playing golf You’re not gonna be able to hit a good shot unless you visualize where you want the ball to go Even then it might not go where you want it to but but you’re gonna have really no shot if you’re not thinking about where you want to go and Visualizing it right. It’s the same thing with a Divorce you have to think about
the identity of what your post divorce life is going to look like. How do you want to get along with your ex? How do you want to co-parent if you have children? How do you want to, you know, live your own life independent of your your ex spouse? What does that look like for you? Do you reconnect with old friends? Do you join certain clubs or activities? Do you start a business? And of course, there’s the restraints to write that can come into play if we don’t plan for this. Well, what if you do want to start a business, but you’re
going have to pay alimony. know, how can he, is there a way to do an alimony buyout and give you the freedom to kind of move forward with your life and start something fresh and new? If you don’t convey that to your divorce lawyer, or you don’t know it yourself even worse, right? You’re not going to get to where you need to be in your divorce. So that kind of all goes back to that mindset. And that’s where I thought in that article, you know, about the divorces in China, what a positive mindset it is to say, let’s go and
and try to commemorate our divorce and show some respect for it and show some respect for the person who was willing to marry you and at least willing to say they’d be with you for a long period of time, if not, as it turned out, forever. Because I think otherwise you’re really doing yourself a disservice. And I try to explain this to clients. I’ve always tried to…
focus on the happily even after aspect because I think that’s the way to keep costs down, to get better results, to keep more money in your pockets and to treat the divorce with some respect or the marriage even as it’s ending with some respect, but also to treat the divorce process as though it’s a business transaction. You know, as somebody who’s done a lot of business, law and civil litigation, I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to settle a case when you can remove the emotional.
Carl Taylor (09:02.4)
element and it’s not always possible and you know, you might have a spouse who has certain, you know narcissistic traits or other mental health issues, but whatever possible I think to shine a little light into there and to try and Move forward it’s only a positive for you for your ex as much as you might not care or want that to happen and most importantly, of course for your children if you have them because
The studies all show that a divorce is not going to harm your children necessarily, or at least not permanently, if you have a clean and amicable divorce. It’s the aggressive, difficult, arduous…
conflict within a divorce that creates, you know, permanent or substantial or long lasting health, mental health issues even for your children. And that’s why I kind of take some umbrage with
the marketing of a lot of divorce practitioners or those adjacent, which is I’m the bulldog. I’m aggressive. You know, I, I’m going to get you whatever you want, no matter what the cost, it’s going to be scorched earth because what you’re really saying in a sense is I’m going to do whatever my client says and have very little client control. I’m not going to care necessarily about what
harm that might bring to society or to specific children in this marriage. And it’s just not how I want to, you know, for me, at least it’s not how I want to practice or to make my living. And I’ll get off the soapbox.
Carl Taylor (11:05.176)
So I guess to wrap things up, and I’m not telling you to go out and get a photographer like apparently they do in China in some instances to get your divorce photographs, but is to try and have a mindset of growth, because as I tell my own children, change is neutral, right? Change doesn’t have to be.
Necessarily bad right there’s good change. There’s bad change. There’s neutral change, but the word change itself you know, it makes us nervous because we tend to be creatures of habit as human beings, but It does not in of itself have to mean something Horrible is going to happen or something’s gonna be permanently worse right the the fact that you’re getting divorced and even if it’s not your own choice, right? You don’t want to be married to somebody who doesn’t want to be married to you, right?
You don’t want to be friends with somebody who doesn’t want to be your friend. You don’t want to work for a boss who doesn’t want to have you be their employee, right? You want to be wanted because if you’re not for those individuals, then you’re going to be perfect for somebody else, right? You’re going to be perfect. Maybe not for this job, but for another job. Or if you’re like me, you’re going to have to be self-employed. You’re going to be, you know, if you’re not prepared for this spouse, then maybe there’s some other person out there. I’m sure there is that in time, if that’s what you want.
will value you for who you are, you know? And the fact that people are always changing, what might have been a perfect relationship or a perfect job a few years ago might have shifted. maybe it’s not you shifting, maybe it’s them, right? But the big takeaway is…
90 % of the time, not 100, but 90 % of the time, the more, your spouse is just another person who’s trying to go through life, right? And maybe they’ve broken promises to you and maybe they’ve broken your heart. And maybe it’s hard for you to admit that you made a mistake, right? Because we’re humans and if we get divorced, we like to think, well, maybe we didn’t marry well or we made a mistake in who we chose. And there’s all of that going on.
Carl Taylor (13:15.894)
and all of that is really difficult to deal with. And it’s why you should probably almost certainly meet with a psychologist to get you through your divorce and help you with the psychological impact of it. But if you can put all that aside, what is a marriage, right? And what is a divorce? It’s really just a coming together of certain ideas and assets and a divorce is how do you divide them and how do you divide time with children and how do you divide?
business interests and assets and debts, right? And all of that is not overly complex in most instances. What makes it complex is the emotional aspect and the desire for revenge. And if we can kind of neutralize that because it’s very quickly eye for an eye in divorce law, you know, if we’re going to throw out the first, you know, aggressive tact, then the other sides could come back and be twice as aggressive. And now we’re,
You know, eye for an eye and everyone’s blind, right? So if we can kind of come at it from the mindset of what are we hoping to achieve for our children? What are we hoping to achieve for ourselves? What does my happily even after look like? And knowing that.
winning quote unquote your case or getting over on the other side, that might feel good at first. It might feel good for a day or two, but is it gonna feel good when you go to your children’s wedding someday in the future when they’re grown? Is it gonna feel good when you look in the mirror a year from now? Is it gonna look good when you realize you paid $35,000 in legal fees when you could have probably gotten out for 10? No, it’s not gonna feel good. Hopefully it’s not gonna feel good.
If it is, if that does sound appealing to you, then you need to do some, some introspection, I would suggest. And if the other side is of that, of that oak, then you have to work with your attorney, whether it’s me or somebody else and figure out how to neutralize them. Of course you’re, you know, it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be tough, right? Just because we’re trying to find the happily even after, but it does mean we’re going to be smart and we’re going to be business-like and we’re going to try our best to be efficient. So.
Carl Taylor (15:28.876)
That’s podcast. I hope you got something out of it today. I hope that everyone is doing well in this fall season as we enter into the Halloween and the Halloween decorations and into the heart of the holiday season here and hope all hope all is well. And if you need to find me on the web at www.my nj divorce lawyer dot com. That’s
MyNJDivorceLawyer.com. You can find my books on Amazon happily even after. And you can always give me a call at 609-359-3345. Again, 609-359-3345 if you have any family or divorce law issues in New Jersey. So have a good one, take care.
Partner with Carl Taylor, Esq.
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