Firstly this is not an exhaustive post, there is already some great information on this sub, read it and get a full picture. Secondly, this post will only touch on legal remedies and seeing a lawyer. I am a lawyer so I know one thing for sure, the standard advice of “lawyer up” is exactly what I tell people. Why? Because I know that lawyers are the only people who profit from being involved in a divorce. My post will focus on doing the exact opposite of seeing a lawyer, the main emphasis of this post will be a satisfactory result for you, your kids and (gasp) your soon to be ex wife. So let’s proceed with my method of divorcing your wife.

So I have already made it clear that you DO NOT WANT TO BE SEEING A LAWYER. You only see a lawyer as a last resort. This is what you do if there are criminal allegations against you, she will not let you see your kids, or if there have been many attempts, over at least a year to speak rationally and there is zero progress. If you need to see a lawyer then read other posts and info on here carefully and give u/Red-curious a holler. He is a lovely guy and he dispenses grade A legal advice for free. You only see a lawyer if your wife is a bona fide sociopath or you are literally against the wall dealing with false accusations of criminality.

STEP ONE

You need to make your ex wife into a friend. You need to fake it until you make it.You need to walk the fine line between being Machiavellian, and genuinely forgiving this person for all of their failures and faults. FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT! How do you do this? That depends on the reasons for the break up and your past relationship. This could be broken down into an infinite number of categories but your approach will be largely the same in any situation apart from some minor variations on your mantras (see below). The most common scenario we see in here is that you were predominantly a hapless beta or you gradually became one and now your wife has told you “I love you but I am not in love with you” or you have found out she is fucking some other dude or she has commenced an emotional affair.

At this point her hamster is busily justifying why she did what she did and she will happily throw you under the bus just to avoid feeling any responsibility whatsoever for sucking Chad’s dick and abandoning all morality due to her tingles. She does not care about you, her children or anything else on the planet. Her primordial desire not to be murdered has kicked in and she does not even think she has done anything wrong. She will gaslight you, she will lie, she will make fake allegations to the police, her family, her friends and social circle and she will do literally anything other than act like an adult and accept responsibility. The time you raised your voice in 2010 becomes evidence of a long relationship of abuse. So here is the hard part, even though you are either crying into your pillow clutching your childhood teddy bear or seething with rage, you need to swallow your emotions and proceed as if she actually did not do anything wrong.

STEP TWO

You need to just say shit like “relationships have a use by date and it appears our relationship has run it’s course”, “we had a good time together but now it is over”, “you were a great partner and you are a loving mother. I just want us both to move forward”, “I want this to be as easy as possible for both of us”, “I do not want our hard earned money going into the pockets of some greedy lawyer”, “We are adults, we need to act like adults and talk this through”. These are your mantras, you do not say “You are a worthless whore who does not give a shit about our kids or our past” or anything like that, you just act stoic and hold the line and keep repeating the above phrases until she is 100% certain that she is escaping from responsibility for her actions. Then you need to turn her into a friend and ally for the sake of money and the kids.

A couple of small amendments to this, for those of you in the minority of guys who visit this sub who were actually the bad guy and who got caught fucking around on their wife, you fall on your sword. You let her rage at you, cry, threaten you abuse you, hit you, and you take it all like a scalded dog. You admit to everything, you give her every opportunity to scream hysterically at you, in fact you seek out these opportunities to vent at you. You tell her it was all your fault (even if she was a frigid dragon from hell) you accept 100% responsibility and the only thing you deny are false criminal allegations or false allegations of abuse. Even then you let her rage at you until it is out of her system and you never attempt to offer up an excuse for allowing your selfish demon spawned cock to control your rational mind.

So as you can see, both options essentially absolve her of any responsibility or need for introspection. In scenario 1 (95% of you) you have forgiven her and you just want to move on like adults and do what is best for your kids and your hard won finances. In scenario 2 you fall on your sword and don’t blame her for anything. Now that you have your modus operandi you stick to the mantras, you need to move from the position of putting the past behind you into the position of an alliance. This may be a temporary alliance which allows you to file consent orders with your family court, or it may be a permanent alliance so that you can mutually decide the best way to deal with the kids and the money. Your feelings are absolutely fucking irrelevant, she does not give a fuck about your feelings, the courts and the government do not give a fuck about your feelings and I do not give a fuck about your feelings. We are here to achieve a goal, not to obtain some form of existential justice. It is your own stupid fault for getting married anyway, marriage is an abomination and humans are not monogamous, get over it.

STEP THREE

Now you must establish a regular and friendly way to communicate. Those of you who achieve the best outcome should have no issue at all having coffee or even dinner with the ex and having a friendly and even enjoyable time discussing how awesome your kids are, helping each other out with problems or anything else which comes up in normal discussions between two adults. The next lower step is you just do everything by telephone and keep it civil, ideally this is a step which ends up as face to face communication. Thirdly and the least desirable outcome is that you stick to writing only, by email or text. This has some advantages during the early hostile stage so it is often the first of three steps. If you are stuck on this step then you are a butthurt little bitch or your ex is a sociopath, either way it is your fault for marrying her so STFU.

That’s it, it is not rocket science. Once you remove the emotion from these issues things should fall into place pretty naturally. Do you both love your kids? Check. do you both like money? Check. Then why on Earth would anyone go and see a lawyer except to punish the other person. Now I am not a child, I know that there are plenty of women who think divorce is an opportunity to extract maximum revenge, children and money from their ex husband and there are plenty of lawyers who will tell her that is exactly what she should do. I have seen so many people waste 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars essentially punishing their ex. Even the most hardened lawyers are often astounded at just how much people are willing to spend on petty grievances. Do not be one of these people. Make an ally out of your ex, or she will sure as hell become your enemy. Take your pick.

  • ”Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” ― Abraham Lincoln

Finally, if your ex has already started legal proceedings, made fake criminal allegations, or has a restraining order on you then the above is not likely to be an option for you. You then need to revert to the standard advice of “lawyer up”. Even then you should try and see if you can change her mind. Ask her why you need to talk through lawyers at a cost of $100s of dollars each per hour, for all of your communication. Ask her why you cannot just act like adults and sort this out between the two of you. Try and avoid mediation and conciliation as well, this is just an interim step to seeing lawyers. Why do you need to pay someone so that two adults can talk? It will not be an option for everyone but it is definitely the best option for you, your kids and your ex wife to keep the state out of your lives.