The Most Important Divorce Advice You Will Ever Hear (From #1 Divorce Lawyer)

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  The pain is unavoidable, but the damage is optional

  Sexton's framing is that divorce isn't weather that just happens to you. It's a process with many levers you control. Handled well, it costs less money, does less harm to the children and to you, and makes working with your lawyer easier. Friends, family and community form the 'fourth leg of the table' alongside you, your spouse and the lawyer.

• 02

  Ask whether your marriage is broken or just neglected

  Many marriages aren't broken but have been left unattended so long they look like 'roommates running a daycare center'. The two problems need different skills. The early warning signs are flatness rather than anger ('anger still implies priority'), conversations limited to logistics, no real questions asked of each other, and contemptuous 'What?' or 'All right, whatever' replies. He calls that 'the smoke, not the fire'.

• 03

  Five situations where divorce is necessary

  (1) Abuse of any kind, physical, emotional or financial, including threats around the children: 'you can't be loved if you're not safe.' (2) The 'false self', meaning 'one person and one costume'. (3) 'Stolen reality', where someone authors your life without consent, such as a liquidated 401(k), a second family or a three-year affair. (4) The 'unrepentant repeat', where cheating or using the 'nuclear codes' (weaponized intimacy) comes with apologies they've become fluent in. (5) The 'shrinking marriage', which demands you become smaller and quieter. Leaving these, he says, isn't a failure at love but a defense of it.

• 04

  Divorce moves through six stages

  Pre-contemplative (unhappy but not connecting it to the marriage); contemplative (a '3 a.m. private trial with no defense counsel'); decision (now it's about timing, logistics and fear); taking steps (the private becomes public); the thick of it (Whitman's 'hour of lead'); and getting out. 'The paperwork gets done faster than your nervous system': grief often begins only when the papers are signed.

• 05

  Before blaming the marriage, look back 18 months

  Grief from losing a parent, a child leaving for college, a pet dying or a job change can resurface about 18 months later 'in a different costume'. The spouse becomes the easy target because it's hard to be mad at fate or God.

• 06

  Confide in the right people, and not your kids

  Avoid social media, the group chat and your children at any age, whether 8, 15 or 40. Instead see a challenging individual therapist (if you love therapy 100% of the time, 'you're doing it wrong'), one discreet friend with no stake, and a lawyer purely for information, which is protected by attorney-client privilege. Then possibly your spouse. 'Counsel' asks what outcome you want; 'take him for everything' is entertainment.

• 07

  Announce a decision; don't ask for a divorce

  His suggested 13 words: 'I have given this a lot of thought. Our marriage needs to end.' Then stop talking, and own your part: 'I can't be the person you deserve… I apologize. I never meant to hurt you.' Tell your spouse before the children, and only tell the kids once you can answer their logistical questions, like where each parent will live and where the dog goes.

• 08

  Staying 'for the kids' is a choice about what they learn

  Children remember what your marriage looked like, not whether you stayed. His father warned him not to smoke while smoking, and he started in high school. The test: would you want your daughter or son to have this marriage? High conflict harms kids whether parents stay together or divorce; that's about how you handle it, not divorce itself.

• 09

  You are restructuring a family you will co-own forever

  'A divorce ends a marriage. It doesn't end a family.' He tells clients with toddlers that what happens at the negotiating table shapes their child's wedding 20+ years later. Write down your goals, give them to a trusted person, and have them read them back when you lose sight of them.

• 10

  Hire a skilled litigator to make court less likely

  He advises against lawyers who sell 'friendly divorce' because they're afraid of court and fold when they hear 'Please call your first witness.' Two skilled litigators know each other's arguments and settle. Good lawyers try to steer you toward therapists and mediators and use a 'scalpel', not a 'chainsaw'.

• 11

  Get a therapist before a dating app

  Rebounds skip the repair. He notes second and third marriages divorce at higher rates, especially when the new partner was an affair partner: 'a man who leaves his wife for his mistress just creates a job opening.' Treat divorce as one punctuation mark on your 'Wikipedia page', not the whole story. Stop chasing who you were before.