My time with the 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne) exposed me to some pretty unique experiences.  I also learned a great deal from observing, and sometimes participating in operational planning.  One of the more useful and simple planning and preparation frameworks was known as PACE.

In planning and preparing for any undertaking, every effort was made to have a PRIMARY plan, an ALTERNATE plan, a CONTINGENCY plan, and an EMERGENCY plan.  With regard to divorce planning and family law in Mobile, Alabama, a sound plan framework might look something like this:

Primary :  Stay married.  Get counseling.  Scale back spending to avoid fights over money.  Be sure your children get the love and positive attention they need.  Avoid situations where there are temptations to commit adultery.  Save money for attorney fees.  Keep a regular journal of what’s going on with your spouse and your children.  Take pictures.  Don’t post anything to social media but the most benign, basic information to share with friends.  Remember, there is always someone out there willing to take a screen shot and email it to your spouse.

Alternate : Separate, either informally, if you can agree, or formally through the Court.  Get a taste of what it is like to establish another household, pick up and drop off your children with your estranged spouse, live without your partner.  Separation does not require divorce and should not be undertaken in a vacuum.  As strange as it may sound, the point of separation should be reconciliation.  You’ve got to keep going to counseling and working on laying the foundation for reunion.  Divorce planning can help you sort through the issues.

Contingency :  For whatever reason, one spouse has stepped off the reservation and you need to file for divorce first and ask questions later.  There’s rage, or deception, or big hurts of one kind or another.  Even in contingency, however, you’ve got to remember to focus on the idea that your children need to maintain regular contact with the non-custodial parent.  If you are the non-custodial parent, make every reasonable effort to spend as much time with your children as possible.  If you are the custodial parent, don’t let your anger toward the other parent  control how you deal with visitation.  It’s in your kids’ best interests to maintain that relationship, so it is in your interest as well.

Emergency :  There’s physical violence or abuse.  If your spouse harms you or your children in any way, call the police.  Get to safety.  Call the lawyer you’ve been consulting with and get the Court involved through a Divorce Petition.  If you suspect that this is a possibility, you can plan for the worst by identifying community resources that are available, giving your immediate family the heads up that you may need to call on them for help, and confiding in your counselor and asking for help with the planning.

Again, every family and marriage are different, but you may generally use the framework above for developing your own plan.  The theory is that, in the absence of abuse, having a plan increases the chances of successfully saving your marriage.

Two of my favorite planning and preparation quotes are, “No one plans to fail, they simply fail to plan,” and “No plan survives first contact.”  The former notes that, while planning and preparation cannot guarantee success, one is in a much better position when one has a plan than when one does not.  The time to plan is before first contact.  Contact in this setting is the first big fight, the first evidence of adultery, the first notice of a new emotional connection outside of the marriage.  Having a plan makes it less likely that one will simply react out of emotion or fear and make a decision that might later prove regretful.  The latter expresses the idea that no plan is perfect and one must be able to move through the spectrum from Primary to Emergency with short notice.

If you need help with the process, please contact me at 251-445-0891 or ron@mcbaylaw.com.

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