You’re getting divorced and you blame your spouse for the breakdown of the marriage. You’re angry. You decide to take it out on them in court. You are fairly wealthy, after all, so you figure you have the resources to make life miserable for your ex.
While this mindset may be common, it is not productive. Experts warn that you’re never going to get back at your ex or teach them a lesson. Letting anger — or any emotion — guide your decisions is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
All you really do is create drama and conflicts that you don’t need. Remember, the court’s job is to sort through the facts. They do not care how you feel, who caused the divorce or how your ex acted prior to the split. Unless laws were broken — your spouse was abusive, for instance — the court just wants to know the facts of the case to determine how things like assets and parenting time should get divided.
One way that anger guides people, to show you how this works, is when they fight for sole custody just to keep their ex from seeing the kids. The court prefers joint custody, and they’ll eventually figure out that there is no legal reason to grant sole custody. By pushing for it when it’s not needed, all you do is drag the process out. You still wind up with joint custody in the end.
Instead of letting emotions cause mistakes, take the time to look into all of your legal options so you understand exactly what steps to take.