When your decision to divorce doesn’t go over well

It’s a new year, and you may have decided that you don’t want to end another one married to your spouse. Regardless of what your issues are, you are not alone in this thinking. Many people here in New Jersey and elsewhere are of the same mind.

What you are not sure about is whether your future former spouse will take the news well. If you have any hesitation that he or she will simply accept your decision, you may want to prepare yourself for a battle.

Your spouse could use one or more of these tactics

When it comes to divorcing a disgruntled spouse, you could encounter one or more of the following potential roadblocks, annoyances and inconveniences that will make your divorce process more of a challenge:

• Your spouse may file for sole custody of the children even if he or she believes joint custody would be the better option just to get at you.
• He or she could remove all of the money from your joint bank accounts.
• Your spouse could decide not to pay anymore of the household bills in order to make you feel as though you have no choice but to agree to his or her terms in order to begin receiving financial help again.
• He or she could also withhold support payments until the last minute in order to coerce you into an agreement.
• If you have joint credit accounts, he or she could max them out to keep you from having access to any of that credit and/or to increase the amount of debt you will walk away with after the divorce.
• Your future former spouse may refuse to sit down and work out a settlement with you in order to force you to go through lawyers, which will make the process more time-consuming and expensive.

If you are thinking that taking these steps would also make it financially difficult on your spouse as well, you are probably right. However, he or she is thinking more with emotion and about hurting you rather than looking toward the future. If you are uncertain whether you can talk some sense into him or her, then you may want to take steps before your announcement to protect yourself.

One step that could help you in this endeavor is to talk to an attorney before you tell your spouse you want a divorce. You can learn about your rights under New Jersey law and develop a strategy for dealing with any obstacles that may come your way during the divorce process.