How Can I Make My Massachusetts Divorce As Miserable And Expensive As Possible?

Divorce can be difficult enough. Your financial future may be on the line and perhaps even your relationship with your children. The uncertainty and fear can wreak havoc on your psyche. But if you want to take it to the next level of difficulty and misery, there are some simple steps you can take.

Let’s start with the basics. It’s important to avoid educating yourself on the subject of divorce. There’s a wealth of free information online on government websites and the websites of reputable family law attorneys. It’s critical that you avoid this information at all costs. The less you know about divorce, the better. If you have no idea how to plan for divorce and are generally clueless about the topic, you’re more likely to remained stressed throughout and make costly mistakes.

Another key to misery is to be sure you hire a terrible divorce lawyer. Avoid running a simple google search to learn about the experience others in your circumstances have had with the attorneys you’re researching. Hire an attorney who tells you everything you want to hear instead of setting realistic expectations. And be sure the attorney is willing to inject as much senseless conflict into the divorce as possible so that’s it’s almost impossible to come to an amicable resolution, and you can spend more on legal fees than necessary. Hiring a terrible attorney will substantially increase the odds that you’ll end up with a terrible divorce judgement that will haunt you for years.

Misery happens when your expectations don’t match reality So make sure you have unreasonable expectations and are not willing to concede anything. One of the best tactics for ending up broke and frustrated in divorce is to fight for everything, even stuff you don’t really need. An incidental benefit of this approach is that you’ll continue to damage your relationship with your significant other, which will further complicate and delay the process.

Finally, to maximize your chances of a long, expensive, drawn-out battle, it’s important that you harbor as much resentment as possible toward your soon-to-be ex. Don’t stop there, taking action is key. The more name-calling, blaming, and overall negative interaction you can initiate, the less likely it is that you’ll make any progress on the issues that really matter in the case.

This strategy is especially helpful if you have children. This allows you to inflict collateral damage on unsuspecting individuals who had no choice about whether to be a part of the mess you’re creating. Hating your ex and making a mountain of every molehill you encounter in your parenting relationship will make it impossible for you to work together to raise the children effectively. This will likely make your case more difficult to resolve. As a bonus, if you remain disciplined and continue this behavior long-term, you can inflict psychological damage on your children so they can suffer for years to come.

You now have the playbook for making your divorce as miserable and costly as possible. Don’t educate yourself on divorce, hire a terrible divorce lawyer, develop and nurture unreasonable expectations, and increase the bitterness and animosity between yourself and your soon-to-be ex, and you’re well on your way to psychological and financial pain!