Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid During a Connecticut Divorce

A divorce is one of the biggest events in any person’s life. It can disrupt everything from where you live to the time you spend with your children. Far too many people make costly, life-changing mistakes during their Connecticut divorce. Here are some of the biggest, and suggestions for how to avoid them.

Getting “Legal Advice” Without Hiring a Lawyer

One of the most common divorce mistakes people make is looking to sources other than a divorce lawyer for advice. These days, it may be easy to look up questions online, or get suggestions from an AI chat-bot. But people have been making this top mistake far longer, turning to family or friends for advice instead of a divorce lawyer who has the training and experience to handle the case.

The problem with relying on non-legal advice is that no two cases are exactly the same. Your neighbor’s good property settlement or your uncle’s take-aways after a long custody battle likely will not translate well to your situation. Online resources may rely on law from other states without you realizing it. An experienced Connecticut family lawyer can review your circumstances and provide you with customized legal advice to protect your family and priorities.

Ignoring Connecticut’s Automatic Orders or Temporary Orders

One top mistake to avoid during a Connecticut divorce, specifically, is ignoring the automatic and temporary orders entered in your case. All too often, people make assumptions about what they can or should do during the divorce process without carefully reading and following the orders in their case.

The filing of a Connecticut divorce complaint triggers the entry of certain “Automatic Orders.” These orders are designed to maintain the “status quo” during the divorce process, and protect both parties’ interests in their children and shared property. In addition, many Connecticut family court judges will enter temporary orders while the case is going on. These automatic and temporary orders address many typical concerns, including the preservation of financial assets, use of the marital home, payment of household expenses, and prohibit a parent from permanently moving children out of state without consent or Court approval. On motion, Ignoring these automatic orders is one of the top mistakes to avoid during your divorce case since it could result in enforcement actions, contempt orders, and significant sanctions against you.

Hiding or Protecting Assets

It is never a good idea to lie to your lawyer, or the court. Still, one of the top mistakes Connecticut residents make during divorce is trying to hide or protect assets. Under Connecticut law, there is no such thing as “separate property.” In other words, legal title is irrelevant to the Court’s jurisdiction. When two people get divorced, the courts have the authority to divide up all their assets in an “all property equitable distribution.” You may be tempted to omit bank accounts or other valuable assets from your disclosures to your attorney or the court to “protect” those assets from being divided.

The Automatic Orders, described above, prevent either party from selling, hiding, or transferring marital assets without permission from the other party or the Court. You will also need to sign financial affidavits disclosing the family assets. If you hide assets, or try to play a “shell game” by transferring property while the divorce is pending, you could face sanctions or “fraudulent concealment” claims, and end up worse than when you started.

Putting Your Children in the Middle

Your kids are likely your most precious concern during your divorce. But that is likely also true for your spouse. Often, conflicts over a child’s custody and visitation plan are some of the hardest to resolve. Depending on your children’s ages and exposure to the divorce process, they may blame you for the divorce, take sides, or struggle behaviorally or developmentally while the case is pending.

All too often, parents make these struggles worse for their children by putting them in the middle of the divorce process. They may ask their children who they want to live with, make them pass messages to their spouse, or, in the worst cases, fight in front of the children. This is one of the biggest mistakes to avoid during divorce because the harm you do to your children cannot easily be repaired. Instead, you must commit to keeping your children out of the divorce conflict, putting their best interests first and protecting them from the harm of ongoing parental conflict.

Going to Trial Over the Small Stuff

When emotions and conflict are high, it can be tempting to tell your former spouse that you’ll “see them in court!” But the truth is that taking your divorce to trial may be one of the top mistakes to avoid. Trials are public, slow, emotionally taxing, and involve a lot of attorney fees. At the end of the case the Judge is the one who makes the final decision. There are no jury trials in divorce cases, so the final decisions will be in the hands of a single person who must strive to be impartial. Almost always, there is something in a divorce judgment that both parties won’t like.

While there is a time and a place for thorough litigation, it is a mistake to go to trial over issues that could be resolved through negotiations or mediation. Employing these alternate dispute resolution methods can save your family time, money, and emotional strain. Settling your divorce action also decreases the chances you’ll be back in court later to enforce the judge’s decision. Before you demand your day in court, be sure what you are holding out for is worth the risk.

Avoid These Top 5 Mistakes in Divorce by Talking to an Experienced Connecticut Divorce Attorney

The Connecticut divorce attorneys at Lawrence & Jurkiewicz, LLC represent divorcing spouses and parents throughout the greater Hartford area and the Litchfield County area. We can help you avoid making these and other mistakes during divorce, getting the best resolution for you and your family. We offer consultations by in-person appointment, phone conferences and zoom meetings. Please call us at 860-264-1551 or contact us to schedule a confidential consultation to see how we can help you.