How to Effectively Communicate with Your Spouse During a Divorce

If you are going through a divorce, you are going through a difficult experience. While there is nothing you can do to alter this fact, there are things you can do to help lessen the associated burden and to smooth the path forward to the degree possible. The less contentious your divorce is – without allowing your parental and financial rights to be trampled in the process – the less difficult it is likely to be, and effective communication can make a significant difference. If you are moving forward toward divorce, an experienced Illinois divorce attorney can help. 

A Note About Your Efforts

The one universal divorce truth is that emotions run high, and even your best efforts to keep the lines of communication open with your soon-to-be-ex may or may not be effective. Divorce amounts to an exchange of information between both parties that ultimately helps determine the divorce terms, including:

• Parental responsibilities and parenting time 
• Child support
• The division of marital property 
• Alimony 

If your ability to communicate breaks down, you can expect your divorce to become that much more challenging. This is not to say, however, that your efforts to communicate effectively were misguided or that you didn’t try hard enough – divorce is nothing if not unpredictable, and beating yourself up over the matter is not going to do you any favors. 

Tips for Clear Communication

The better you and your divorcing spouse are able to communicate throughout the divorce process, the less harrowing your divorce is likely to be. Toward this end, there are several steps that you can take, including:

• You know your spouse, and you know what his or her trigger points are – avoid setting your spouse off to the best of your ability (while respecting your own boundaries). 
• Choose the right means of communication. If talking face to face is out of the question, consider phone calls. And if phone calls become too heated, stick to texts and emails, which come with the added bonus of providing you with a record of your communications.
• Identify your divorce priorities. Going into divorce with an all-or-nothing mindset is not going to further your cause. Once you identify the concerns that are most important to you, it can provide you with the direction you need to communicate more openly. 
• Don’t add fuel to the fire. If communication with your divorcing spouse is heading south, take a step back and do what you can to ease the tension (even if this means disengaging). You can always try again at a later date. 
• Cut your losses. If your spouse is showing you in no uncertain terms that he or she is not interested in communicating effectively, turning to your divorce attorney to negotiate (with your spouse’s divorce attorney) on your behalf may be your best option. 

An Experienced Illinois Divorce Attorney Is Standing by to Help

Cameron H. Goodman at Goodman Law Firm in Chicago is well versed in protecting the parental and financial rights of our clients while attempting to resolve their divorces as amicably as possible. We’re here for you, too, so please don’t wait to contact us for more information today.