Legal Question in Family Law in Idaho

Re: Husband stalling procedures

I know this sounds rough.... but if you REALLY cared about minimizing the trauma on your kids, you would not get divorced.

Unless the kids are going to be called as witnesses in court, ot are called on to tell the court which parent they want to live with, it's not going to make much difference to the kids in terms of trauma whether you and their dad agree to the terms of a divorce or whether you go into court and slug it out with each other.

If YOU are showing the effects of added emotional stress coming from a contested divorce in court, then that might reflect on the kids, but otherwise it makes little difference.

The bottom line is that you have already decided to turn the kids's lives upside down by getting a divorce... concern with how you go about getting the divorce is like focusing on the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic -- the position of the chairs doesn't matter much when the ship is sinking.

Re: Husband stalling procedures

I practice in Montana, so my state law might be different from yours. See an attorney, especially because you have children.

I agree with Mr. Beard that divorce can be like the Titanic. Having been on that ship myself (with two kids), I agree that it can be traumatic. However, high conflict in a marriage can be worse than no conflict after a dissolution. Reduce the conflict between you and spouse as much as possible, even if it means avoiding him. Leave the deck chairs alone. Make sure the kids have lifeboats -- check out books, attend parenting classes that deal with divorce, make sure your kids have someone other than their parents to talk to. My kids talked to lifelong friends who had been through dissolution.

In Montana, once the petitioner files for dissolution, the respondent has 20 days to answer. The respondent cannot prevent your dissolution, but s/he can stall by arguing about property division, debt division, and parenting (custody/visitation in some states). Often the stalling is due to not really wanting the dissolution, not being able to deal with it emotionally, etc. An experienced family law attorney can help with those stall tactics.