If you read about Lord Byron’s tempestuous affair with Lady Caroline Lamb and her behaviour during and after the affair, which he ended, I think you will soon see what I mean! Throughout, Lady Caroline was married to William Lamb: the future Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite advisors.

Looking back over recent posts, I noticed that some of them appear to present women as victims. The truth, of course, may be somewhat different. Both men and women are more than capable of casting themselves as innocent victims in their relationships with others – but in some cases, when viewed up close, they can seem more like oppressors.

I recently attended a fascinating talk given to our firm by two ladies from the Oakdale Centre, which has consulting rooms across the country, but is headquartered in Harrogate. Psychotherapy and psychology isn’t part of our normal legal training, but it’s a compelling “add-on”. At Stowe Family Law, we include it as part of our in-house training programme. It is useful for us – and for our clients – if we understand how some clients may be feeling, and how we can best help them to cope with divorce.

The Oakdale ladies focussed on The Drama Triangle, and it proved to be a fascinating insight into the minds and thoughts of some highly distressed people who cannot get what they want. The Drama Triangle may also apply to some of the everyday situations family lawyers sometimes encounter. And because these situations are so emotionally fraught, it can take a lot of skill to resolve them.

What is the Drama Triangle?

Imagine a triangle with all three sides of equal length. The three corners are labelled as follows: The Persecutor, The Rescuer and, on its own, The Victim. Let’s look more closely at each corner, and its label.

The Persecutor is bearing down upon The Victim. Unstoppable, ruthless and refusing to negotiate, The Persecutor applies maximum pressure and intends to crush the Victim into the ground. There is no room for manoeuvre. The Persecutor is motivated by anger and is anxious to avoid all blame or responsibility.

The Victim is at the bottom of the triangle. Like The Persecutor, The Victim won’t take any responsibility for the situation. The Victim cannot be wrong, hasn’t made mistakes. The Victim has done no wrong to The Persecutor; rather, The Victim has been wronged by The Persecutor.  The Victim, dejected and unable to make decisions, blindly reaches out for help. Looking ahead and up, the Victim finds… The Rescuer.

The Rescuer turns out to be a fictional Knight in Shining Armour, often a figment of The Victim’s imagination. Soon The Rescuer assumes an impossible position in the Victim’s thoughts, as the person who will prise The Victim from The Persecutor’s clutches. Faced with The Victim’s intransigent, impossible demands, The Rescuer cannot or will not deliver.

Then The Victim turns on The Rescuer.  At that point The Victim becomes The Persecutor, The Rescuer becomes the Victim and the Drama Triangle has shifted.

How do you put an end to it?

Ideally, The Persecutor should immediately move on. If The Persecutor consciously leaves the triangle, it begins to break down.

The Victim must begin to accept responsibility and stop blaming others. The Victim must be firmly encouraged to find solutions, but should make decisions and leave the Drama Triangle independently.

The Rescuer, if there is one, must nurture The Victim. This is necessary in order for The Victim to resolve problems independently. In doing so, The Rescuer leaves the Drama Triangle and takes the Victim too. If The Victim won’t jump off the triangle – and many Victims won’t – The Rescuer must part company with The Victim.

Interesting isn’t it? But the Drama Triangle doesn’t always require three people. It can be played out with only two, who move from one position to another.

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know”

In Lord Byron’s case, he unwisely pursued Lady Caroline Lamb. She described Lord Byron as “mad, bad and dangerous to know” after meeting him for the first time, but ultimately they entered into a passionate affair.

When Lord Byron broke off the relationship, there was all hell to pay. A married woman, Lady Caroline had her position in society to consider – but she didn’t care. Instead, when he refused to rekindle their affair, Lady Caroline became akin to a modern-day stalker.

After trying to get into his home, she left a note in the flyleaf of his book. “Remember Me”, she wrote. He responded with a hate poem:

Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

His actions only exacerbated the situation. Lady Caroline refused to give up. As The Victim, she still yearned for him to rescue her. He refused to play The Rescuer. So then she became his Persecutor.

Her marriage was in turmoil. Her husband, William Lamb, was still willing to stand by her. However he couldn’t be The Rescuer in her eyes. She spurned him, and they later separated.

Lord Byron also shifted alternately from The Persecutor to The Victim. He flatly and harshly refused to compromise, or to respond to her as she wished. Instead he replied to her writings with fierce words of his own. This, in turn, worsened her conduct towards him.

For many years following the end of their affair in 1812, there followed exchange upon exchange as the Drama Triangle shifted first one way, and then another.

It ceased to be in 1824, when Lord Byron left the Drama Triangle abruptly, dying of a fever contracted in Greece. Lady Caroline Lamb died four years later, and her premature end appears to have been hastened by alcohol and laudanum. Lady Caroline Lamb alternated between the roles of The Victim and The Persecutor. Byron, for her, was always her impossible Rescuer.

Lord Justice Munby, the chairman of the Law Commission, who also sits as a judge in the Court Of Appeal (and was one of the judges in Imerman), made a very wise observation last week.

As the Law Commission prepared to publish its report and provisional recommendations in relation to prenuptial agreements, he told the FT:

Emotions are engaged in a way in which one suspects emotions are not engaged in litigation carried out through Queen’s Bench division or Chancery court.

I couldn’t agree more.

As a solicitor practising at grassroots level, I get to know a client for better (or worse) during the course of his or her case. Indeed, it could be argued that as a solicitor I get to know a client much better than his or her barrister, who may get to meet the client on a few occasions only. Even then the client is buffered by the solicitor for the most part.

In fact, few barristers and even fewer judges will ever see a client in all the differing emotional states that we solicitors do.

A typical case: from denial to acceptance

The example to which I am about to refer describes a female client, but applies to male clients in equal measure. Both are the “innocent parties”, having been left for another person.

Typically I will first see the client, who has been deserted by her husband for another partner, when she is deep in shock. She will be seeing me because her friends or family members think it is the right thing for her to do, in the circumstances. They are probably right, but usually the client isn’t receptive to any of it. The last person she wishes to see is a divorce lawyer, who is there to help her get out of a marriage that she desperately wants to save. This can be the case even when it is clear that the client’s husband, with the advantage of months or even years of planning, has other ideas.

In all likelihood, she is still stubbornly in denial when I see her for the second time. Perhaps she has tried to come to terms with the loss of her spouse, her home and the distress of her children, but it is all too much to bear.

It isn’t happening.

He may still come home.

He just needs time.

Months later, when she begins to move forwards, she will become angry. He has rejected her. The utter coward gave her false hope. How dare he ruin her life and the children’s lives too?

How dare he?

The next time I see her, she is enraged.  Often this is the time when the financial disclosures are being made and she believes that her husband is being less than truthful. Everyone will be getting the flak. It’s everybody else’s fault and above all, it’s his, or his lawyer’s, or his family’s. They are all conspiring against her. She may even be right.

Then, as the truth that he is never coming back home begins to dawn, she will be prepared to bargain, as a last resort to stop the divorce happening. But it takes two to tango, and he’s too far ahead of the game to even consider it. Nothing works. He wants to take full advantage of her weak state of mind to try and get her to settle for too little.

And she finds it incredibly tough.

Time passes. She finally realises that the past is in the past and he isn’t coming back. She accepts that she must come to terms with her family circumstances. She finds herself ready to face the future and her new life without him.

And she does.

However it takes time and courage to get to this stage. It doesn’t always happen quickly, and the court case may be over before she’s even ready for it. I reckon that on average, it can take at least a year for a distraught client to realise she has no choice and to reach this acceptance stage.

For a solicitor, it can be challenging to manage a client who is trying to cope with such an array of emotions. The client can’t help it. Everything she feels is real. Her ups and downs; her highs and lows.  Her pain and devastation may even cause her to react in ways she wouldn’t dream of doing if life was great.

But life in divorce isn’t great. It is far from it.

It can be horrible and lonely. The client can’t help how she feels and she must deal with the pain of divorce at her own pace. And deal with it most of our clients do, physically and mentally.

By the time she reaches the acceptance stage, the typical client will have her urges to text “him” under control. She may have steadied see-sawing weight or had a new hairdo. She will have retrieved her dignity and self-confidence.  Finally the client finds closure, all by herself.

It is a cathartic process, one which all those who have experienced divorce or bereavement will recognise as normal and will have experienced to some degree.

It is of course made much more difficult if the wife is also physically ill. For example, what if she is a cancer sufferer, whose husband has turned to another for comfort? This isn’t as infrequent as you might think. She is fighting two battles, one of them for her life.

I wonder, would binding prenuptial agreements help or hinder this emotional recovery process?

If I were a wealthy man with a newer, more inviting model in the wings, I would – naturally – vote in favour of an advantageous, rock-solid prenup to remove myself from my current marriage. How much simpler life would be!

No messy divorce.

No legal fees.

Trade in one spouse for another.

She would just have to deal with it.

Similarly, if I was a wealthy man and was minded to protect the interests of the wealthy family from which I hailed, I would vote similarly. I’d crunch the older model into the ground: my new wife would be hovering on the horizon – and she would come and go as cheaply as her predecessor did.

How cheap and easy marriage would become!

Consider the needs of the deserted wife.  She is left bereft, alone, with no real income capacity to maintain herself. Her self-confidence is worn down and her dignity is in shreds.

Her husband has shamed her by moving on and worse still, if these prenups with their renewal and exclusion clauses have become binding, and she has been obliged to sign one, there is little that can be done. Nothing is left to the wife other than what her husband has graciously decided to bestow upon her.

As judges know, these wives sign because they trust their partners.

It is difficult enough in cases that involve rich men, with assets in trusts, meeting their wives needs. If these women are tied into harsh prenuptial agreements, their fates would be far worse. The wives would be ruined while their husbands would not.

All our law would be turned on its head. Meeting the spouse’s reasonable needs and standard of living during the marriage? Not a chance.

Let’s consider the emotional states of the parties when they entered into such an agreement. Pre-marital stresses are known to exist. This should be a happy, fun time – but in many cases it is fraught with nerves and worries on both sides. Brides will find they gain or lose weight, arrangements for the wedding are often complicated and expensive, families may be quarrelling, there will be a home to consider, a wedding list, the guests, the cost of it all and the honeymoon. All parties will be treading on eggshells.

Is this the best time for a coldly impersonal marital agreement that, years down the line, could leave one spouse virtually destitute?

Perhaps you would argue that people have a choice and don’t have to sign up to a prenuptial agreement.

But guess what? They are emotionally involved and they trust their partners, even when everyone round them thinks they are fools. They don’t care about lawyers and the future because their emotions are preventing them from thinking rationally. If they were rational, cold-hearted and commercial, they’d never sign a tough prenuptial in a month of Sundays.

Relationships (and not forgetting the intimacy of a sexual relationship which has produced absolute trust in the other) produce normal but highly turbulent emotional reactions which, observed objectively, are off the scale. It is because of those emotions that people decide to marry and for the same reason, why people decide to divorce.

So, if we understand how foolish emotionally involved people are when they sign the prenup, when lawyers can’t stop them, why on earth are we trying to hold them to their crazy bargain? Especially at a time when we need not do so, because we still have the fallback position in Radmacher?

Last week I heard the most unbelievable comment from one client.

Why, she wondered, had her husband decided to divorce her when his company, predicted to be sold in the next few years, was doing so badly right now? Was it because he was so mixed up, having started an affair?

I kid you not.

My client couldn’t see that this was absolutely the best time for him to divorce her, before the business picked up again. That’s because, in classic denial, she just didn’t want a divorce. So she was clutching at anything at all that might mean he was the emotionally unbalanced one of the two.

The First Wives Club

This weekend I watched one of my favourite films – again. The First Wives Club is terrific: it follows three wives through the full range of emotions that are so familiar to my clients, when all three are dumped by their husbands for younger women. The story is of course exaggerated, but the film is brilliant. At the end of it, all three reach the acceptance stage and begin to move on.

The clip above is from the end of the film, when the three wives literally dance off the set, their self-confidence and dignity returned. They accept the past and are ready for whatever the future may bring. And because they are played by Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler they all look fabulous.

The First Wives Club is raw, funny and at the same time, truly demonstrative of real life divorce and all its pain. It shows it can be overcome.

I never tire of this film. It’s unashamedly pitched at all divorcing women and if you are a woman going through divorce, I recommend that you download it and watch it immediately.

And laugh!

A final word

It is important to remember, particularly after the ruling in the Imerman case, that if YOU need to draw upon self-help in your case against your spouse, it can be very difficult. The judges are clearly aware of your emotional state, and they may even recognise that emotions don’t occur in the same way in the other divisions of our court system. However this does not mean that allowances will be made for any form of self-help.

The judges will have no sympathy whatsoever and, unlike the triumphant three women in the movie, if you decide upon any self-help you could find yourself in trouble. You could even, heaven forbid, end up in jail.

I wish our judiciary would watch The First Wives Club, and act on it. It should be compulsory viewing!

As an old proverb states: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now”.

I am a very lucky woman and the law has been good to me in an unexpected way. At almost 54 I have finally found my niche – and a very interesting legal niche it is. I know it is a cliché, but if life throws lemons, make lemonade. (And sell it at 20p a bottle more than it costs you to make…)

I was what was charmingly called a “gymslip mum” in the early 1970s. I managed to leave school with no formal qualifications, a beautiful bouncing baby son and a laser-like ability to choose hopeless boyfriends. When I was 21 and my son was about to start school, I met my husband and a blissful period ensued. By the time I was 34 he decided that the grass was greener (it very rarely is) and I had three children to support and raise: a 16-year-old, a three-year-old and a ten-month-old baby. I had no formal qualifications and no useful work experience. I fully believed that the magistrates court, and later the CSA, would make sure that the children were supported. However I soon realised that I was on my own financially. A pretty scary prospect, but I was determined that my children were not going to be the victims of my poor choices. I was also determined to use education to understand the system in which I was embroiled, but also to widen my horizons and develop a career.

Macclesfield College allowed me, for free, to take a Law A-level and to learn to use a computer. I also needed a back-up plan and an instant income so I took a City & Guilds qualification in soft furnishings. Ultimately I developed a small business, making and selling very high-end, bespoke soft furnishings to the prosperous of south Manchester and Cheshire. I also began buying and renovating the many rundown silk weavers’ cottages in my hometown. Whilst these activities made sure that my children and I ate (well!) I was also pursuing a legal education at Staffordshire University: an LLB, an LLM and eventually in 2006, a PhD (on the role of adultery in divorce, historically and today, ironic on many levels). I loved it: it was thrilling, intoxicating and fascinating. It was this intellectual exercise that gave me the confidence and belief that my business and family would succeed. Of course some of it was devilishly difficult and, if truth be told, dull. I remember sitting in a crime lecture and wondering what the hell I was doing there; the clever, bright young things made me feel like a dinosaur. In my third year I started family law with Chris Barton, an inspirational teacher, and really began to fly.

Ultimately I have ended up Head of Family Law at Staffordshire University – and it is thrilling. The curtains and footballers’ wives have gone, but I remain a landlady and my interest in property has, if anything, been enhanced by the recent downturn in the market. My children have had the opportunities I wanted for them and, in spite of frequent absences, they know that they are cherished, loved beyond everything and are my most important motivation. The absolute icing on the cake is my late blooming career in legal academia. To be able to work at the institution that gave me so much and to help future traditional and “non-traditional” students achieve their ambitions is a privilege.

If this saga of teenage promiscuity and divorce proves anything, it shows us that adversity really can push us all to do very unexpected and exciting things indeed. Divorce is a miserable, unhappy time, but it can also be a time of great opportunity. It can be a chance to reinvent oneself and be a person nobody could have predicted.

It is important never to underestimate the impact of shock on a client. Shock affects a client’s state of mind and can take weeks, months or even longer to overcome. Some of those who find it difficult to return to normal can even develop the more serious (but treatable) condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

When I see clients who appear to be suffering from shock, I politely and gently suggest that they return to see me when they are able to give me the information that I need to advise them appropriately – and also when they are able to make an informed decision about their future. It is clear even to me, a lay person, when a client is in deep shock and unable to take in a single word that I am saying. If a client persists, then of course I will give my advice – and I will follow it up in writing, as I do with all clients. At least the client will have something to read when they feel better able to take it in.

How does psychological shock manifest itself?

The symptoms vary but at first there may be numbness, a feeling of being dazed and an inability to absorb the information which has led to the shock. The mind will keep replaying the information, totally denying it, refusing to believe it can be true. Nothing else that is happening will matter: the surrounding circumstances, the people, what is playing on the radio… They will all blur into the background.

I had never experienced “shock” at first-hand until very recently. Put simply, it was awful.

A close relation of mine (who I will call CR) was being treated for an apparently mild skin rash. A consultant dermatologist diagnosed it as a type of eczema or skin allergy. A cream was prescribed, but the rash worsened. It did not respond to treatment; eventually it flared and a second opinion was sought. I volunteered to accompany CR to the hospital but was told it wasn’t necessary. An hour later I received a phone call from a strange-sounding CR to say the second consultant had dismissed the eczema diagnosis. This doctor thought that it could be cancer, of which the rash was a symptom. CR was immediately admitted to hospital.

My response was textbook.  I was stunned. It was only a rash! It felt like my head was floating above my body. I felt my face start to burn up. For a moment I didn’t even know where I was. And I denied that such a diagnosis could even be a possibility. I refused to believe it. It couldn’t be true.

I won’t detail the devastation I felt that week, trying to come to terms with the possibility of cancer in one of my loved ones, but as a result of the shock I suffered a complete loss of appetite, sleeplessness, nightmares when I did sleep, inability to concentrate and so forth.

There is a very helpful article entitled Coping with Trauma on the website of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which describes the symptoms of shock and the response and recovery from the condition. I recommend to anyone who is suffering from shock. You may find it useful to understand that the range of reactions to the shock you are experiencing, while very unpleasant, is also normal.

After the trauma was over – and thankfully, the diagnosis was not cancer – I could begin the recovery phase from the shock. I discovered that this takes time and I had to be patient. I learned that having been in a state of shock for a week, I couldn’t expect to recover within hours. My clients are often in shock for much longer because their trauma is ongoing and may reoccur over a lengthier period.  I found the bullet point advice on the website, about coping with and recovering from shock, comforting and helpful.

Interestingly, other members of my family congratulated me on “staying strong” for everyone else. In fact I had not been able to speak to outsiders about the trauma, nor to express any feelings, because – as a result of the shock – I hadn’t had any.  I also expected to feel huge surges of relief after the worst case diagnosis was ruled out, but I didn’t. I felt numb and flat. That too, I discovered, is normal.

At the end of the week it felt good to return to work and see that all was functioning normally. Normality felt good. It was nice to see a smiling receptionist and hear her say, “Welcome back Mrs. Stowe. Tea or coffee?” It struck me that the office is indeed a quietly calming place to be for traumatized clients, just as we have designed it to be. But I never imagined I would be the person to try it out “from the inside”!

For clients going through a year-long experience of divorce, coping with and healing from severe, prolonged emotional and psychological trauma will clearly take longer. This is particularly true if clients were already under a lot of stress before the case began. I recommend seeking professional advice if symptoms such as severe anxiety, depression or fear become too much to handle, if you avoid or are unable to connect with others, or if drugs or alcohol become serious problems. As previously discussed this is nothing to be ashamed of, will not affect the outcome of the divorce and shows that you have insight into your own condition.

This experiencing psychological shock has been a salutary experience for me. I believe that when I deal with clients in the future, I will have a greater understanding of what they are going through. I hope that I am better-equipped to reassure them that the range of deeply unpleasant feelings they may be experiencing is normal, and that these will pass with time and understanding of an abnormal situation for which they were unprepared.

As I wrote at Christmas, my blog is intended to be real, about real feelings and real people – and I am a real person too. This is a very personal post, but I have written it for two reasons.

Firstly we all have been, or will be, touched at some point by trauma. Life is like that. Life happens. The unexpected comes unexpectedly, out of the blue. We aren’t prepared for it. So I hope that by sharing my response to an unexpected trauma, it may be of some comfort to others who are in shock or who are recovering from it.

The other reason for this post is that someone out there may also have and “eczema rash” and, although I do not wish to be alarmist, they too may be receiving the wrong treatment. If that could be you, please get a second opinion, quickly.

The near blizzard conditions made it a lengthy and eventful journey. Fortunately my trusty driver, Garry Houseman of CSC Executive (who I can’t recommend highly enough), got me home safely. We listened to the car radio and heard the horror stories of hundreds of people stuck in their cars overnight or even abandoning them. One woman had decided to move house and spent the night in the car with her belongings and her pets, rather than delay the removal by just one day.

A travel expert came on the radio, lamenting the society that we have become. We expect to be able to travel where, when and how we want, whenever we want. If the snow stops us, we simply can’t cope. We undertake crazy journeys in order to live our lives exactly as we are used to doing.

That, by the way, includes me! I didn’t think twice about the journey back home because I wanted to get back to work.

It made me think about the e-mails that had been sent to GMTV for me to read. Viewers of the programme were invited to write in with their problems on the theme of Life After Divorce, so that we could advise some of them live on air.

Some of the correspondents were bogged down and had written to GMTV as a last resort, out of desperation. Loneliness and hopelessness were common themes. One lady wrote that because she is very lonely, she now wonders if she made the right decision when she divorced. Another wrote bitterly of the havoc that her former husband and his new wife have wrought upon the children’s lives. She is determined to make sure they never see the children; the courts, however, do not agree with her. Other correspondents were stuck in the past, unable to come to terms with fresh starts and new beginnings.

Unfortunately, when I read the e-mails I realised immediately that a number of the issues raised could not very well be addressed in a five minute sofa slot.

So I will try now.

Reading those e mails, one simple fact stood out: that although legal issues may be resolved between the parties or the courts, divorce is not an event that can be recovered from emotionally in minutes, weeks or months. For many people, it will take years to come to terms with such profound changes to their lifestyle. Any trauma, be it bereavement, an accident or a violent attack, will affect the person who sustains it. No-one should expect to recover quickly.

Yet we do recover, eventually. Just as the travel expert on the radio pointed out, we expect to be able to do exactly what we want without events that are beyond our control affecting day-to-day life. This attitude is understandable, but it is as ill-suited to divorce as it is to turbulent weather.

My advice is as follows. If you are going through a divorce or recovering from it, you are travelling through a blizzard. Don’t try and battle your way through at the height of the snowstorm – your wheels risk leaving the road. Instead, stay indoors and keep warm. Don’t pile pressure upon yourself to do anything.

Wait for the storm to abate. In the meantime, begin to adapt to your circumstances. Make slow but necessary adjustments. Keep being positive but take it easy, step by step, day by day. Don’t expect anything. Don’t expect your loneliness to melt away overnight. Be friends with those who offer you friendship in the storm. And take it easy. Know that you won’t be “snowed in” forever, and begin to live your life in a new way.

When snow falls, a thaw will follow. One of these days, your road will be clear – and you will be ready to move on.

If you had a divorce question that was not covered on the Lorraine Kelly programme, you are welcome to leave it here.

Image credit: dee_r.

How has this year been for you? If it has been anything like mine, it has been a rollercoaster. It has passed by very quickly and, looking back, there have been some real highs. There was the faster than expected development of our Cheshire office, our acquisition of a London office set to open next year, and five of our cases included in the Law Reports. I also appeared on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour, debating against Baroness Deech on possible changes to the law on cohabitation.

There have also been some lows: my surgery and a long slow recovery from its complications, getting used to major lifestyle changes and a dash to Israel to deal with a family emergency. I’m no different to anyone else: we all have our ups and downs, our highs and lows.

I have chosen to share many of those very personal up and down moments with my readers, because this blog isn’t just about family law and how it works in practice. It is also about connecting with other people, sharing feelings and emotions, and going through good times and bad together.

Every one of us is touched by tragedy and bad times in our lives. We can’t win everything, and we don’t get everything we want in life. We all have to deal with tough times – and to try and help others through tough times, too. We may not realise quite how good the good times were, until they are over. Conversely we may not appreciate how bad some times were until they are over too. Then we can look back with relief. We were able to escape the worst. Some days we may find ourselves in turmoil: worried, scared, despairing and despondent. But that black cloud does lift, and we can smell the fresh air again.

We can’t predict the future. Instead we must be patient, taking each day as it comes, step by step. We can’t go faster than that. Time passes, the days, weeks, months come and go, and when we look behind us, we realise that actually, it wasn’t that bad.

If we try and use our personal experiences wisely and with humility, it can make us better people and hopefully more understanding of others and the challenges they face in their lives.

This photo of me isn’t the most flattering that I have had taken: I am at home, sans makeup, on my Wattbike! I do think, however, that it sums up my own year quite neatly: lots of hard work, a Wattbike, a determination to keep going and to never give in – which I haven’t, although I admit I’ve felt like throwing in the towel quite a lot this year –  and as you can see at the end the year, I’m still smiling!

Don’t let life knock you off your stride. Keep going, onwards and upwards!

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year.

The Children Act emphasised the responsibilities of parents and adults. It created the concept of parental responsibility and set out in law the child welfare checklist for public and private law proceedings. It moved the focus from the parent’s rights to the rights of the child. Even the language was designed to empower children:

• A parent does not have custody of a child. Instead, the child resides with a parent.
• A parent does not have access to a child. Instead, the child has contact with an adult.

Most importantly of all the Children Act recognised that within families, even when there are two households, it is better that there is an agreement rather than an order where possible.  In short: if it doesn’t need an order, don’t make one.  If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Unfortunately without an order there can be no enforcement. Frequently this means that one parent dictates contact arrangements to the other or simply disregards agreements when it suits them to do so.

The Children Act promoted mediation through CAFCASS, agreement over orders imposed and most of all looked at what the child wanted and needed.  Wishes and Feelings Reports came into the consciousness of the court and solicitors.  People asked children how they felt and told the court – and the court listened.

That was 20 years ago; where are we now?

Well, the unpalatable truth remains that although the Children Act is the best fix for a difficult situation, it will never be as effective as an agreement made by parents who work together for their children. What is more, a recent survey of 4,000 parents and children makes for grim reading. Seventy per cent of parents quizzed cited the child’s welfare as the main priority during separation. However:

• Nineteen per cent of children reported that they felt used, 38 per cent felt isolated and 37 per cent felt alone.
• For 38 per cent of children, the separation meant they never saw their fathers again.
• Many admitted that they had turned to drink and drugs, played truant from school or self harmed.
• Fifty per cent of parents admitted putting their children through an intrusive court process to ascertain access issues and living arrangements.
• Twenty-five per cent of parents surveyed believe that their child was so traumatised by the separation that they self harmed or contemplated suicide.
• Twenty per cent of separated parents admitted that they actively set out to make their partners experience “as unpleasant as possible”, regardless of the effect this had on their children’s feelings.

The Children Act cannot be described as an unqualified success. Then again, very little ever is.  Certainly it is better than what went before, and encompasses high ideals and fine principles.  In reality, things do go wrong and the 20^th anniversary provides a prompt for practitioners to review the law.

After all, for every benefit there is a flip side:

Advantage

The court is able to consider the wishes and feelings of children to assist in making their decisions

Disadvantage

CAFCASS is overburdened (see Jennifer Hollyer’s recent post on problems with CAFCASS).

Advantage

The no order principle discourages court orders being imposed

Disadvantage

Uncertainty and lack of enforcement if one parent breaks the agreement

Advantage

Focus on mediation

Disadvantage

The trauma of court involvement

What is the answer? Should we go back and try again?  Should we amend the current law to patch over these holes?  Is it simply a case of throwing more money at the courts to assist with CAFCASS shortages and court pressures?  Or is what we have the best that we are going to get?

To be honest it may well be the best of a bad lot.  The court system has its flaws.  It certainly isn’t perfect and watching parents duke it out will never leave a pleasant aftertaste.

However the alternative is even less palatable.  If parents can’t agree, surely it is better to impose a decision from on high than to leave the situation unresolved and the children in limbo with no contact with one parent?  If there are constant squabbles between adults then perhaps it is better to avoid the discussions at all.

Mediation is a comfortable middle ground but realistically there will always be people who cannot agree, even with outside assistance.  Ultimately the court is the destination of last resort.  Perhaps the way forward is to discourage issuing until everything else is exhausted. Even that is not ideal, because an unscrupulous adult can choose to delay and drag on mediation and discussions until the children barely remember what their other parent looks like.

Happy birthday to the Children Act 1989: an act of ideals in an imperfect world.

Stephen Hopwood is a child law specialist and Head of the Children’s Department at Stowe Family Law.  He has been involved in aspects of child law for over ten years and has particularly advanced the concept and practice of joint residence. He has also been involved with cases with complex foreign elements, and specialises in cases that have become “bogged down” or “written off”.

Children image credit: sammydavisdog

This is the third post in a new series about coping with divorce.

I have previously described how important it is to keep your mind healthy when you are getting divorced, but what about your physical health? The Mental Health Foundation stresses the benefits of exercise for mild to moderate depression.Your body is your temple, so get into shape. Exercise, exercise, exercise!

Depression can be a vicious circle. You feel terrible. Your worry shows in your face. You can’t be bothered with yourself and days drag on endlessly. Alcohol is very tempting because it takes away the pain for a few minutes. Before long, however, the pain is back and worse than ever. You can’t be bothered to exercise. You are overweight and you haven’t got the energy. It is much easier to stay at home and reach for comfort foods. Or the bottle.

My advice? You need to have a good look in the mirror and make that leap of faith, if you are to overcome those black feelings.

What do you like doing? Salsa dancing? Going to the gym? Cycling? Running? Swimming? Do anything that will get your heart rate pumping. You will feel better immediately.

I do not recommend solitary exercise. It is all too easy to make an excuse and not bother. Instead, find a local group (a running club, perhaps), join a class or get a trainer. That way you have to join in and the habit soon begins to form. If you can’t afford it, can you cut back on some other expenses? Of course, if you have a good lawyer, you may be able to get the cost added into your maintenance!

Nothing, repeat nothing, should keep you from exercising. As for dieting: in my experience, this follows exercise. As you build up your exercising, the change in your eating habits will naturally follow.

Break the old circle and begin a new, more positive one. You exercise and its very hard. But…you begin to feel better. You see a change in your body. You keep exercising.

One day you think, “I need a new hair cut”. Another day you notice that your clothes are better fitting. Gradually, but certainly within a few months, you will feel and become a different person. Your workouts will have a tremendous effect on your body, mind and spirit.

After all, a new beginning begins with a new you.

Image credit: MiiiSH.

The vast majority of clients going through divorce will never become seriously ill as a result. However I think it is fair to say that I do look for trauma in clients and do my best to ease it.

If you are getting divorced and you are finding it difficult to cope, here are some tips and pointers that may help you. This is the first part of a new series on coping with divorce.

First of all, let’s assume that you aren’t sure why you are reading this blog. You shouldn’t be reading it at all but now you are, because the world has fallen in. Life as you know it has ended, has come to a full stop.

• The arguments and the silences are unbearable.
• Money, children, home…  The future frightens you. What has happened?
• Everything you are used to and everything you believed to be true has altered and changed. The person you have loved and trusted has shattered your trust and destroyed your confidence. Yet the life you are living isn’t a life at all.
• You have decided to end the marriage because you need an end to the nightmare. There is nothing left between you. You have tried and tried. You have no other choice. Your future cannot be as bad as your present. Can it?
• You are raging inside; you are heartbroken. You cannot clear your mind of all these thoughts.
• Life is spinning round and you no longer feel that you are in control.

How do you cope? How do you get through this and come out whole on the other side? Such feelings of distress are normal in the circumstances but are bound to have an effect on you, emotionally and physically.

Most of my clients, when I meet them for the first time, exhibit one or more of the following signs and behaviours. They are extremely low, or having mood swings. They are experiencing weight gain or loss. They find it difficult to express themselves, speaking in flat monotones and repeating themselves. They may complain of being unable to sleep, of worrying and panicking around the clock. They may be drinking more (never a solution, and never a good idea). They may have difficulty concentrating and giving instructions. Or they may be highly emotional and aggressive because it is all too much to cope with.

 I am not a doctor but if I note some or all of these signs and I am concerned for the client’s wellbeing, I will immediately recommend that they see a doctor or a skilled counsellor. Of course I cannot diagnose depression; it may be that the client needs little more than a good chat with a professional who can help alleviate the nightmare. But after so many years working in this field, the most important thing to me is to stabilise a client who presents with these problems.

A client who bottles up stress can become physically ill; furthermore their state of mind may affect the progress of their divorce. On rare occasions our family law firm has represented clients whose instructions have become increasingly irrational and contradictory. They make conflicting demands such as, “I want you to settle my case NOW!” together with “I demand to know the whereabouts of all the hidden money that I am certain exists”. We cannot do both! Such clients cannot be satisfied, because they are not thinking straight.

Some clients refuse to see a doctor or counsellor. “I will get through it just fine”, they say. “There is nothing wrong with me.” Yet their emotionally charged choices and behaviour suggest the opposite.

In my experience, a client may refuse to seek medical help because they are scared that if it comes out during their divorce that they are depressed and taking medication (although not every doctor will prescribe medication), the revelations will affect the outcome. They fear that they will suffer financially either with the finances or worse still, that they will lose their children.

What nonsense!

Please rest assured that you will not be penalised if you have sought help. In fact, your decision demonstrates that you are still in full control of yourself: you recognise that something is temporarily wrong, and you are putting it right.

So if you do feel low and distressed – if you recognise that this is how you are feeling – and you would like to address your situation with the help of a professional, what are you waiting for?

Professionals are there to help you. It is their job. Place yourself in their hands. Let them help you. Even if you are prescribed medication it is likely to be a short-term measure that should not affect you adversely and will restore your equilibrium.

As for counselling: perhaps your GP will be able to spend time talking to you, and that will be all that you need. If it is not, please do consider professional counselling. I have observed that when clients have been to counsellors, the results are often swift and truly amazing. Don’t sit there worrying. The restoration of mood, self-confidence and assertiveness works wonders.

When you are able to put your worries into perspective and into proportion, the cold, hard legalities of divorce will become less daunting.

As for quelling your fears about the legal process: that’s my job!

Image credit: oddsock.

Like every other human being, I have my bad days too. I have had some major life changes this year and some of these have been tough to accept. I try not to wallow in negative thoughts, and it helps that my work keeps me busy. Occasionally I come across something in a case that doesn’t seem right – an unjust decision, perhaps, which needs to be corrected – and the fight is on.

Whenever I need to gain a little extra strength, to reassure myself that what I am doing is right, and that I am right to care so much about a given client, case or situation, I find inspiration and courage in a tiny, peaceful churchyard in Oxfordshire.

It stands some distance from the magnificent Blenheim Palace at Woodstock. This stately home was built in the reign of Queen Anne and presented by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough for his valiant services saving the nation from the French at the Battle of Blenheim. It is hard to think of a more romantic building, set as it is amidst stunning parkland and lakes. Blenheim Palace is dominated by the 40 metre “Column of Victory”, on top of which stands the Duke’s statue. It can be seen for miles around. I have used that statue as a makeshift compass when running in the stunning Blenheim parklands, which were designed by Capability Brown. It looks as though His Grace is pointing towards the little church of St. Martin at Bladon in the distance.

The churchyard (above) is as inspiring as it is humble. Buried in a modest grave there is one of the Duke of Marlborough’s descendants: Sir Winston Churchill. The statesman was born at Blenheim Palace but, at his own request, his final resting place is far more modest.

St. Martin’s churchyard stands at the top of a hill, reached by a small windy path from the road. Every time I have visited, it has been raining!  Churchill’s tombstone is surrounded by the tombstones of other members of his family.

He is often regarded as the 20^th century’s greatest Briton and the Quintessential English Bulldog (although he was half-American). When you consider his triumphs and achievements, in the face of adversity and daunting odds, he is also a great inspiration.

This is a man who fought depression – which he called his “Black Dog” – throughout his life. But he did not let it defeat him; nor did he let it pull him away from his ambitions. Instead he devoted himself day after day, year after year, to the preservation of Great Britain and the free world against tyranny.

Whenever I walk through that windswept churchyard, my head clears. It is all too easy to become mired in difficult situations, but life sets challenges for all of us. What matters most is not what those challenges are, but how we face them.  Churchill said, “We will never surrender”.  He meant it – in more ways than one.

I am interested to learn what others think. If you draw inspiration from a particular place or person when you are feeling low, please share your thoughts in the comments.