How Family and Friends Can Affect the Outcome of a Divorce

 Posted on May 31, 2019 in Family Law

IL divorce lawyerThe news of divorce spreads quickly among close friends and family members. Some may breathe a collective sigh of relief, happy that you came to this positive decision. Others may be left in shock, never realizing that anything in your marriage was wrong in the first place. During this intensely personal experience, some couples struggle to keep their friends and family out of their divorce. However, it can be crucial to the success of the divorce to do just that. Family and friends may want what is best for you, but that is not always the case with your spouse’s side of the family and his or her friends. Furthermore, family and friends can inadvertently push you in one direction, making your ability to see clearly and make compromises more difficult.

Friends Will Choose Sides

Mutual friends of the spouses often end up choosing sides at some point, particularly if it is decided that one of the spouses “single-handedly” ruined the marriage, such as by having an affair. The last thing that either spouse needs is to lose valuable friends at this time in their lives, and by involving friends in the divorce, that is likely to occur. Furthermore, a friend that never got along with you or your spouse may cause one of the spouses to have even more negative views of the other. This compromises the spouses’ abilities to work together to come to a center ground or to successfully dissolve the marriage out of the courtroom.

Family Members May Cause Added Stress and Push Their Own Agendas

Poor relationships with inlaws is one of the leading causes of divorce. In fact, 60 percent of married women report have a sustained stressful relationship with their mother in law, while 15 percent of married men say the same. Another study found that when men have a close relationship with their parents in law, their risk of divorce is reduced by 20 percent. The exact opposite is true for married women; married women who reported having a close relationship with their in-laws were at a 20 percent greater chance of getting divorced.

The takeaway is that relationships with in-laws can be stressful, and for divorcing couples this is only exacerbated. Family members may push for something that they believe is in your best interest, but is not; they may subconsciously simply be lashing out at the other spouse. The same can be true of a spouse who has a bad relationship with their in-laws. By bringing parents or other family members into the divorce discussion, your spouse may react differently than if the matter were kept between the two of you.

Contact a Hinsdale Divorce Attorney

If you are going through a divorce, an attorney can help you through this stressful and important process. Call the skilled DuPage County divorce attorneys at the Law Office of Martoccio & Martoccio today at 630-920-8855 to schedule a free consultation.

 

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/does-your-mother-in-law-daughter-in-law-drive-you-crazytheres-a-legit-scientific-reason-why-you-and-she-dont-get-along/2016/11/11/89cc2640-9c78-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.c9cbaa2abb41

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/13/health/kerner-inlaws/index.html

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