Let’s do a thought experiment. (I promise it has to do with your divorce.)

Say you want to renovate your home, and a contractor you call comes to your home and asks, “How I can help you?”

“I’m not sure,” you say. “What are my options?”

“Well,” she says, “people generally go one of three options:

Option 1 is we will refinish your floors, repaint your walls, and clean and replace your air conditioners if needed. The time commitment is about six weeks, costing about $25,000. The place will feel refreshed, but this is not a new start. It’s a touch-up, not a makeover.

Option 2 involves doing everything in Option 1 but also renovating your kitchen and bathrooms, the most high-impact areas for most people. The time commitment is about 30 weeks and the cost is about $100,000.

Option 3 is a gut renovation, bringing everything down to the studs. We build back up from that shell, and you will get a brand-new home with everything new and customized to the latest modern standards. The time commitment is about 90 weeks, costing about $250,000.”

She also says you must vacate your home while the renovations are being completed.

You say you like Option 3, which would give you a brand-new home in less than two years, which you think is excellent. You could rent an Airbnb in the area for two years, you think. But you need to speak with your spouse, so you tell the contractor you will get back to her shortly.

As you talk to your spouse, your spouse says Option 1 is the only way. Your spouse does not want to destabilize your life so much, and the cost and time commitment are too great to bear.

So at that moment, what do you do?:

• Do you want to fight, be persuasive, be heard, convince, and show why your stance matters more?

• Do you let things slide? Do you say, “Better not rock the boat; sorry, I should not have brought it up”?

• Do you want to have a negotiation? What are your non-negotiables? What is most important to you? How do you set the stage for success?

Without a clear sense of what you want, what you value most, and what you’re willing to invest in the project, you’re either at an impasse or you’re setting yourself up for a frustrating, contentious, money pit of a process that is likely to leave no one truly satisfied.

You wouldn’t fly blind with a renovation. Don’t do it with a divorce.

The same is true in a divorce, except that the situation is exponentially more fraught. That’s why its’s essential to wrestle with the questions of what you want and how you’re willing to proceed as early as possible, with as much clarity as you can muster.

Fortunately, there’s a process for that: the divorce consult, a strategy session designed to answer your questions and help you think through your divorce goals and what it would take to reach them.

It’s a chance to do a deep dive with a lawyer whose intimate knowledge of the system can help you evaluate your situation so you’ll know what you might face and if your expectations are in line with reality.  

The answers you need

You’ll want to come out of your consult with answers to these questions:

• What’s really the most important to me in the divorce?

• What are the best options to achieve those goals, using my budget of time, emotional energy and money?

• How do I do pursue these options while maintaining a civil relationship with my spouse? (That’s crucial, if only for the children’s sake.)

Those answers are at the heart of the divorce vision you need to guide you forward.

What do your options really look like?

Your options in approaching the divorce are variations on the ones you saw in the renovation example above, and you’ll want to be sure you understand them and what it would be like for you to play out each one.

• Option 1 represents a less disruptive and less costly approach. It focuses on essential issues like where you are going to live and how much money you will need to support yourself as you transition to a new life.

• Option 2 signifies a more involved process with greater impact, for instance, valuing any assets that need to be valued, going to court, at least in part, to get more clarity about the reasonableness of certain positions

• Option 3, a complete overhaul, symbolizes a total life do-over. In this kind of divorce, you might spend years aiming to rectify wrongs that have been committed for years if not decades. You may think you are fighting about one thing, say, money, but you are really using money to delve into deeper issues, such as revenge, self-identity, respect, fear, and anger.

Go in focused

That’s a lot of ground to cover and to ensure that you get the most value for your consultation, it may be helpful to ask the attorney these three questions, which should prompt the most focused and useful conversation:

• What are the different approaches you take to handling a divorce, and how do they compare in terms of complexity, cost, and emotional impact?

• How can I best navigate the emotional and logistical challenges of the divorce while minimizing conflict and giving priority to my well-being and my children’s?

• What key factors should I consider when I’m determining the best course of action in my divorce, and how can I balance my personal needs with the need to maintain a civil relationship, especially when children are involved?

Listen openly and pay attention if someone makes you uncomfortable asking. An attorney you can trust will welcome your questions and help you determine what’s right for you.