I always underestimated divorce. When people mentioned them I categorized them as 'break-ups' - when they really are more like a traumatic family death stretched over a few years.

My best tips would be:

• squirrel away some money before if you can.
  
• don't drink
• exercise every day

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Married 17 years, 2 teen kids

Me: working full time ~$110k

Her: sometimes part time / minimum

The last 5 years we were taking separate vacations. Roommates, still sleeping together, but she was going out a lot, and had several unexplained overnights. I think she had a drug thing going. I found some FB messages that showed she had some side-thing going with at least 2 randoms from her karaoke bar. I thought we could keep things going for another few years until the kids got out of school. I was probably lying to myself thinking I could ignore it and it would go away. Glad I didn't try to keep things going - 20 years means lifetime alimony in my state.

Went camping alone over my 50th birthday for a few days. Completely alone - sober - no internet or anything. I really needed to think. It was time well spent.

My atty focused on family law, not divorce. He had paralegal / secs handling the routine things which saved a lot, and he only needed to deal with the corner-case questions and the 8 hours of arbitration.

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I lost:

40% of the full retail value of my house

75% of my retirement,

$1600/mo child support.

Taxes changed dramatically, and I had a surprise 7K tax bill. (this was probably a mistake by my atty - he allowed her atty to flip the dependents at the last minute - it didn't help her, but it fucked me.)

Total legal costs for me were around 13K

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The first year:

Month 1 :: Charged to finally have made this decision

Month 2 :: Kicked out of my house as the legal games begin.

Month 3 :: Deep sadness / Arbitration - at this point I had 90 days to refi

Month 4,5,6 :: Refi, appraisal over Xmas, NYE, - weight down 50 pounds from stress!

Month 7 :: Refi, cash moved just a few days before the cutoff. Enough equity in the house to pay for things. Moved back into my own house. (COVID CRISUS !! LOCKDOWN) Cleaning 6 months of someone who want's to fuck up your house. Dog pee/poop, garbage, etc, etc.

Month 8-10 :: BBQ hamburgers and beer. Celebration! Relief.

Month 11-12 :: Need to lose some weight. Money is tight.

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Things are getting better. Questions? Let me know.