Divorce Threats - Why They Aren't a Joke

Liz Brandsdorfer with Mika Meyers joins us to discuss why a spouse threatening divorce is more than a joke - it can be a major red flag that needs to be addressed. 

More information on divorce red flags can be found here: https://www.mikameyers.com/threatening-divorce-its-a-red-flag-not-a-joke/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I wish your marriage is the best of luck. I
hope it's till death do your part, and neither of
you have anything to do with the other person's death.
I don't know if that was a joke or not,
but this is West Michigan's Morning News. I am Steve Kelly,
and we are joined by local family law attorney with
Michah Myers, Elizabeth Bradsdorf for it. Thank you so much
for coming in today.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
My pleasure and call me Liz.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Liz. You've done this for a while and you've seen
a lot of things and recently wrote some warning signs,
and one of those is threatening divorce, saying it's not
a red flag. It's not a joke, right, it's something
we should take seriously. So talk to us a little
bit about the unlikely event of a divorce, right, what
kind of things do we see?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Well, in almost every divorce case, there is somebody who's
been thinking about this for a very long time and
somebody who's kind of blindsided when it happens. Yeah, and
I think that's the point of the red flag. If
somebody rose maybe we should get divorced out there, they're
probably thinking about it. It's probably not a joke to them.

(01:08):
They're probably getting frustrated and they're either using that threat
to manipulate you to do what they want so they
will stay, or they are trying to get you off kilter,
trying to get you to I don't know. I mean,

(01:29):
it's usually a manipulation and talking about it in therapy
and couples counseling if that's what you're doing, talking about
it with your own therapist, if your spouse won't go,
or even coming to see a lawyer to find out.
What if my spouse did find did file for divorce,
what would that look like? Is there anything I should

(01:51):
be doing or thinking about just in case? Because I
love them, I want to stay together. But this is
hurtful when they throw this out there, which is basically
saying you're not really that important to me.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
And I think lists some people, and maybe the blind
sided person doesn't talk to someone like you because they're
afraid that even making that step will make it worse. Right,
they want to think the best they want to hold
onto this marriage, or maybe they'll be talked into a divorce.
But that's not what a family attorney does.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
No, a family law attorney's job is to provide clients
with information so they can make good decisions for themselves.
If divorce is inevitable. There are some things you can
do gathering information, most importantly so that if it hits
you all of a sudden, you're not scrambling trying to

(02:44):
find tax returns and financial records and those kinds of things.
But more it is to reduce the fear, because fear
is the biggest thing that I think is an impediment
to those clients who haven't been planning for a divorce.
They're too afraid to make a decision. And when you're

(03:06):
in the middle of that emotional turmoil because your spouse
has said I'm leaving, that's not the best frame of
mind for making decisions. It's like if something's wrong and
you know you should go to the doctor, but you
don't want to because what if you find out you
really have something? Well, if you have it sooner. If

(03:28):
you find out sooner, you can treat it more easily.
And if you think there's a problem with your marriage,
a divorce lawyer can help you figure out what you
need to do to try to save it. Do you
want to go to counseling. Are you really doing something
that it makes sense the other person is not happy
about and you can change how you can decide to

(03:50):
change how you behave or are you married to somebody
who really has become kind of awful and it's time
to start thinking that life might be better after. And
one of the things in the article is about what
kind of modeling are you doing for your children? Oh boy,
what kind of dispute resolution? I mean, parents argue, everybody's

(04:12):
parents argue, But do the parents argue in a way
that is productive and respectful? And this is important to
me because or do they argue in a way that, well,
you must not love me if you won't do this,
which is not productive problem solving. It's not a good

(04:33):
model for those kids.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow. We'll put a link to the article in the
podcast section atwoodradio dot com. It's really an interesting and
helpful way to look at a complex and oftentimes super
sad situation with Micah Myers family law attorney, been there
a while, Elizabeth Liz Brandsdorffer, thank you so much for
coming in today.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
My pleasure