Fickleness, Procrastination, and Other Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Divorcees

Part of being an adult is realizing that people don’t really change.  Perhaps you decided to get a divorce once you realized that you would always be the way you are, and your spouse would always be the way he or she is, and therefore, you could never truly get along.  If your spouse made impulsive decisions throughout your marriage, that will probably also be the case during and after your divorce.  The same is true if your spouse never followed through on promises.  Of course, divorce is such a disruptive event in anyone’s life that it can drive even the most reliable and conscientious person to indecision and inertia.  While it is normal to feel stuck and to fall behind on some of your obligations while you are going through a divorce, running back to court with new petitions every time you have second thoughts about a decision you have made will result in a mountain of legal bills, but failing to follow up on legally binding obligations is even worse.  A Boca Raton divorce lawyer can help you figure out what you want out of your divorce case and act accordingly.

Lost in a Sea of Half-Fulfilled Promises

A 2017 decision by an appeals court in Florida is the last chapter in a divorce saga that had gone on for six years.  The parties married in 2003, and the wife filed for divorce in June 2011, at which time the husband filed a response to the wife’s divorce petition.  In July, the wife filed a motion to dismiss her divorce petition, so the court dismissed it.  This left the husband’s response as the only remaining official set of requests related to the dissolution of the couple’s marriage.  In February 2012, the court finalized the divorce by granting a default judgment in favor of the husband.  In other words, it granted all of the requests in the husband’s response, regarding division of marital property.  The appeals court’s decision did not indicate whether the couple had children together, but in cases of default judgment, the court also grants the parenting time requests of the party that is not in default.

The published court documents offer no insight into what the wife was thinking during these six months when her husband’s divorce papers were under consideration by the court, but hers were not.  Did she think that, because she withdrew her petition, the marriage would continue as if she had never filed for divorce?  Was she content with the requests the husband made in his response to her petition?  What we know is that the couple went back to court several times over the next several years; at one point, the court even ordered the husband to pay the wife more than $600,000 in pendente lite alimony, although a later court decision reversed this order.

Contact Schwartz | White About Divorce in the Face of Indecision

A South Florida family law attorney can help you if you are feeling stuck regarding your divorce case.  Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.

Source:

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