Submitted by Attorney Douglas Gardner
Tempe Arizona Divorce Attorney Speaks About Communicating With Spouse or Ex-Spouse About The Children
Most expensive Arizona divorces become expensive because of poor communication about the children. Other factors can occasionally cause cases to get expensive, but generally custody issues have a large impact upon the cost of a case.
Except in extreme cases, the Court will generally order that the parties share joint legal custody. Joint legal custody requires that both parents work together to make major medical, educational, and religious decisions. In both sole custody and joint custody cases, the parties will still be required to have some level of communications regarding the logistics, including exchange times, exchange locations, and holiday scheduling.
In many cases, the parties will quickly (or at least eventually) learn to get along in a business-like relationship. While the emotion and romance are long since gone, the parties should learn to work together at the business of raising their children. Even in a business-like relationship, in which both parties are seeking to receive a personal advantage, parties can learn that it is mutually advantageous to compromise and to acquiesce to the other parent’s requests, so that at other times the other parent will compromise and acquiesce to future requests needed.
It is important in developing a business-like relationship that the compromise work both ways, and the acquiescence work both ways. If one parent is constantly a taker, and the other parent constantly acquiescing, this will cause resentment and will eventually result in a breakdown of communications and an unwillingness of one or both parents to compromise.
A good divorce attorney should be able to discuss with you and share with you ways to work on communications, ways to set appropriate boundaries so that you are not taken advantage of, and other methods for “training” your ex-spouse or your soon-to-be-ex-spouse to understand that compromise works both ways.
It is also of vital importance to have a detailed and strongly worded parenting plan in place. While it is beneficial to both parents to work together and cooperate, and while it would be wonderful if both parents got along so well that the parenting plan was never needed, the fact is the parents are divorced or divorcing, and this indicates that there is a good chance that at least occasionally communications break down. A solidly written parenting plan or custody order provides a fall back position for times when compromise is not occurring. The parenting plan should detail the rights and responsibilities as well as the parenting times. The parenting plan serves as the tie-breaking vote for occasions when no agreement can be reached. The parent wishing to follow the written parenting plan prevails at that time.
If you are experiencing legal issues involving custody or other difficult issues, whether as part of a divorce, after the divorce has already been entered, or a custody battle in which the parents were never married, you should have experienced legal counsel on your side. Please call 800 899-2730 and ask to speak with attorney Douglas C. Gardner, or visit our website at www.yourarizonadivorcelawyer.com.