There are two ways that divorcing husbands and wives can employ the law. The first, which is employed by divorce lawyers, is to use law as a weapon in a legal tug of war the object of which is simply to get as much as you can and to give as little as you have to. The other, employed by divorce mediators, is to use the law as a common framework that husbands and wives can look to in their effort to conclude an agreement. To be sure, a divorce lawyer will not characterize the undertaking in those terms. Rather, he will say that its purpose is to secure their legal rights and conclude an agreement that is fair and equitable. Unfortunately, its effect will be to give them false levels of expectation that will then be followed by equivalent levels of disappointment. The purpose of this book is twofold. First, to help divorcing husbands and wives better understand this so that they do not allow divorce lawyers to send them off on a fool’s errand going nowhere. Second, to enable them to see and accept what a divorce lawyer’s window dressing is designed to hide, namely, that it is not possible to find perfect solutions to imperfect problems. Contrary to what divorce lawyers would have them believe, their divorce does not take place in a different world than their marriage. It takes place in the same world, and that world is one of inevitable constraint and human limitation.
