Divorce can be very simple and very cheap, you do not need a lawyer or another “professional” to divorce or separate. All information is available, even do it yourself kits at staples or chapters, or FOR FREE at the court house.
Stay out of the court system if possible. Our significant observations and experience has been that the legal and related professionals involved in family breakups are costly and seldom result in better outcomes. Come to our meetings and we can provide you with information how to work with them in ways that are low cost and effective.
Be amicable, stay cool even in high conflict situations.
Document important and relevant events always. Things can happen very fast and a record of history for yourself and others is important.
Even if you and your ex-spouse/partner write up an agreement, file it with court to prevent any issues in the future! This is easy to do. Let us tell you how.
If you deal with mental health issues, get help, do not wait, we can refer you to good professionals or other support groups.
Do not self-medicate. Ie. Use alcohol or drugs to try and make yourself feel better.
Seek help. Don’t face these challenges alone.
Dealing with conflict, a simple tip : Do not reply to an email, text or other form of communication within 3 hours, but within 24 hours. Only discuss one topic. Most issues do not need to have immediate attention, of course there are exceptions (life and death situations).
There are helpful service available to deal with legal, payments, and life change issues. We can help you get in touch with them.
If you make payments to your ex-spouse/partner and not go through MEP, pay by cheque and write on the cheque what payments are for, keep copies. Banks in Canada do not standard provide information of the required legal data for proof of payments to your ex-spouse/ partner when you transfer digitally. To request such evidence, banks often charge large sums of money.
Start being organized right in the beginning. Keep records, have tabs on copies in binders, keep digital copies just in case. You’ll be happy you did this in the future.
Harsh but reality be careful not to get confronted with and avoid all violence. Many of our members do not recognize their ex-spouse/partner and their behaviors.
Be aware of and learn how to cope with emotional and psychological abuse which is often not recognized by others due to it’s non overt nature. But it is just as damaging in the long term.
Sometimes you have to document daily events, come to our meetings and we can provide you with information how to do that and validate it for court.
Maintenance Enforcement Program ( MEP) will not go away by ignoring it. The only way to change that is changing a Court Order. We can provide you with information how to do that, and get temporary relief from MEP. You do not want to lose your driving license etc. and dig the hole deeper.
Did you know you can get Transcripts of court proceedings, request a CD for $10? Come to our meeting and we can help you with this.
If your lawyer has not done a good job you can recover some or all of the monies paid. If they acted improperly we can help you make a proper complaint so that the profession can correct and improve itself.
