Why Divorce Becomes a Full-Time Job

Things I Wish I'd Known Before Going Through a Divorce #5

I knew divorce would be a process. An upheaval. A big change. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much it took over many of my waking hours. It became another job. I spent hours every week mired in Divorceland, instead of writing or working (or resting!).

And though I don’t have any data to back this up, I wonder if men spend as much time on their divorces. I think women become much more educated about the process, systems and laws of divorce than their husbands. We often have more at stake. We many times haven’t held the financial power in our relationships and thus we have to educate ourselves to get on equal footing. And we want to understand what we are entitled to. Some men (all men? most men?) think divorce is inherently unfair to men so they don’t really respect the law and sometimes even try to find ways around it. In fact, sometimes mediation seems to encourage this kind of thinking.

But here is a snapshot of how I spent my time: