Friday, November 5, 2010

Mid-life Crisis And Divorce

I told a client this week that doctors love to give legal advice, and lawyers, in turn, love to give medical advice. Family law practitioners usually limit their medical practice to the psychiatric field. That is what I do today. In a purely anecdotal, non-scientific, unresearched, but greatly observed, survey, a few things have become evident. The most obvious is that both women and men are prone to mid-life crises, although the manifestations and on-set ages are not always the same with the genders or the individuals.The second , but most often overlooked, is that the crisis has a limited lifespan (usually 2 years or less). Usually, the person comes out on the other side of it and cannot believe that someone who looked just like him or her did or said all of those things, that now seem very odd.
During the crisis, it often seems like a good idea to get rid of your old spouse because you have outgrown them or they depress you, etc. Often, they are "helpful" and cooperate with your plan of dismantling the family. Other times, they are very "mean" and want you to go to counseling and come home at night and talk about "saving" the family. In the end, it often turns out, that people wish that their spouses had not been so "helpful" and "nice" and had actually cared enough to fight for the family and be a little "mean". Sometimes, you may not be happy when you get what you wished for!

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