How to have the “best divorce”

According to a recent study, there is no such thing as a good divorce when children are involved. Research carried out by Pennsylvania State University found that children suffer when their parents’ marriage breaks down, no matter how amicable the split.

While we agree that children are almost always adversely affected by divorce, their distress can be kept to a minimum if the separation is handled in the right way.

Here, then, are some guidelines for ensuring the “best divorce”:

Non-contentious legal process: If you and your estranged partner can agree on issues such as the division of assets and, most importantly, arrangements for the children, the divorce can be finalised quickly and relatively painlessly (and will be less costly). A dedicated matrimonial solicitor will always try to steer clients towards a non-contentious divorce.

Get fit: If you are physically fit and healthy, you will feel better psychologically and mentally, which will help you cope better with the legal process and the emotional upheaval.

Look good: You may not feel like getting out of bed in a morning, but it’s important to take care of your appearance. If you look good, you are more likely to feel good.

Anticipate change: This is very different to fearing change. Look to your post-divorce life as a positive life-change – the beginning of a new and exciting chapter. Is it time to look for a new job or career? Do you need to keep driving the car your husband bought you or would you prefer something else?

Dignity: However disillusioned or resentful you may feel, always conduct yourself with dignity. If you have children, it is important to be able to maintain a civil relationship with your former partner. Remember that one day you will have to stand side by side with your ex at your child’s graduation ceremony or wedding. You don’t want to have any future regrets over your behaviour.

Put the children first: Never let your children hear you discussing the divorce with anyone. Shield them as much as possible from the legal process, but do explain, as carefully and sensitively as you can, why you and your partner are going their separate ways. Make sure you listen to what your children have to say and how they are feeling. If you find it difficult to discuss the break-up with them because of your own hurt, find them someone – such as a relative or family friend – they can talk to about what is happening.

• Next week: How to avoid the “worst divorce”

How domestic violence can scar children for life

Domestic abuse affects many thousands of households in this country. It’s often a silent scourge, because a lot of families feel embarrassed and ashamed to talk about what is happening.

For the partner who is the victim of violence, the toll is heavy enough. For children, the effects can be even more devastating and long-lasting.
However hard couples try to shield children from abusive behaviour, most youngsters will be aware of what is going on – even if they don’t actually witness Dad hitting Mum.
There are two women I know who are being physically abused by their husbands. Both have young children and, in both cases, the children have witnessed the violence. Also in both cases, the women have chosen to do nothing about the situation because they think the children will suffer more if they leave their partners and become single parents.
I was discussing the subject of domestic abuse with a friend recently. He said he can still remember his father beating up his mother when he was just six years old. “The terror has never left me,” he said. “What I witnessed fractured my relationship with my father.”
Such behaviour can fracture all kinds of relationships in the future. Some men – and women – who witnessed one of their parents abusing the other grow up to become abusers themselves.
Thus, the argument I’ve heard put forward by some women – that young children won’t remember seeing or hearing physical violence in the home – is wrong.
Although children will react in different ways, the bald fact is that they will be affected by domestic abuse. Some will be scarred forever.
Just because a youngster doesn’t display obvious signs of distress or fear, it doesn’t mean they are not deeply upset, confused and afraid. Symptoms of emotional turmoil can range from disturbed sleeping patterns to developing an eating disorder. Many children will blame themselves for what is happening around them – and as a result suffer from low self-esteem.
If children are older, they may try to intervene in their parents’ fights – desperate to protect their mum (or dad) from being battered and bruised. This can lead to the perpetrator lashing out at them, too, and it can also cause the child a devastating amount of guilt and anguish if they are unable to stop the abuse.
Sometimes, though, the intervention of a child can finally make a wife or husband see the brutal truth of what is happening: the 15-year-old daughter of another woman I knew, whose married life was blighted by her husband’s drunken rages, stepped between them one day. Her mother described it to me as “like a light bulb going on in my head – I realised that my daughter had put herself in considerable danger in order to protect me. That was when I knew I had to leave”.
What I always say to clients who say they have been assaulted by their partners is this: The first time it happens, you might be able to do something about it or it might, just might, have been an aberration. The second time it happens, you know it’s a pattern of behaviour – and you walk away.
At Benussi & Co, we recognise that “walking away” is a lot more complicated and difficult than it sounds. That is why we guide clients towards seeking help from agencies such as Women’s Aid, and we also help them to make arrangements for the children to stay in contact with the other parent wherever possible.
Strange though it may sound, men, in particular, who are violent towards their wives, become better parents to their children once the marriage has broken up. Some come to realise for the first time how bad their behaviour was and how it affected both their wife and the children. In a different situation, they start acting differently – often for the better.
So, if you’re reading this and saying to yourself “oh, my husband only hits me occasionally, and only when I’ve asked for it, so there’s no need for me to worry about either me or the kids,” please, please book a consultation with a dedicated divorce lawyer now.

The top ten reasons to get divorced – and they’re the same one!

There are lots of reasons to get divorced, but here are the top ten:

• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage
• If there is violence in the marriage

Domestic abuse is still largely a hidden problem, but it is such a destructive one that there can be no justifiable reason to remain in the relationship if one partner is violent towards the other.
If your partner hits you more than once, you need to walk away from the marriage.

• Next week: The effect of domestic violence on children

Schedule 1 – mothers pushing at an open door

By Neil Hobden

Ten years ago, Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 – which allows an unmarried parent (usually the mother) to seek financial support for the child from the other parent – had little or no impact on the work I was doing; today, it accounts for perhaps one third of my caseload.

Although Schedule 1 is of real help for children whose parents were in a long-standing relationship, it increasingly being used by canny women as a meal ticket to a gourmet life. There is little doubt that sometimes men are targeted by potential gold-diggers – women who are prepared to marry for money, but have discovered they don’t need to go to that trouble.

Schedule 1 isn’t just about the courts requiring the father to pay a certain amount of child maintenance very month; it is about ensuring the child – whether or not the father has any direct involvement in their life – is provided for whilst dependent. This can involve financial support for 20 years or more.

That means, on top of a monthly allowance (£4,000 isn’t untypical in these cases), the provision of a house – suitably furnished and equipped – a car, nursery, school and university fees and money for holidays. Quite often, this represents a settlement that will cost upwards of £2m for what might have been a one-night “adventure”.

What some men still haven’t grasped is that there are women who view becoming pregnant after a dalliance as a career option. For, although the financial settlement is for the child, the mother also benefits. More women are realising just what value can be unlocked in these cases.

A recent example involves the actor Hugh Grant, said to be worth £40 million, who fathered a daughter with a woman with whom he enjoyed – what his publicists described as – a “fleeting affair”. Tinglan Hong now lives in a £1.2 million property (reportedly bought by a cousin of the actor) near Grant’s home in up-market Fulham.

Whilst there is no suggestion Ms Hong deliberately fell pregnant, the fact remains that Grant will be footing a hefty financial bill to ensure his daughter – and her mother – lives in a style not too dissimilar to his own.

Although Grant is unmarried and his spokesman has been quoted as saying “Hugh could not be happier or more supportive”, for many men who find themselves in this situation, the arrival of an unplanned child can cause havoc.

The man may be married or in a long-term relationship and have other children. It is not unusual for a wealthy man to be fighting the demands of a short-term paramour on one front and a divorce on the other.

Then there is the emotional turmoil when children from a marriage or long-term relationship can feel resentful and unsettled by the arrival of a half-sibling, and older children may worry about their inheritance.

For well-off men, then, a brief affair can have unimagined long-term consequences. As my workload suggests, the situation is an increasingly common one. Women have discovered that Schedule 1 enables them to push against an open door. Men with money need to bear that in mind when their eyes alight on a pretty face.

• Neil Hobden is a partner with Benussi & Co