By Henry S. Gornbein

Q. Consider a situation where you have been married for 20 years. You have three children one of them is in college and two other are still in high school. As a man, you have been the principal breadwinner since the children were born; as a woman, you have been out of the job market for a number of years and perhaps lack education or training to compete successfully or have been working on a part-time basis for several years and do not have the economic wherewithal to be self-sufficient. Suddenly a divorce is thrust upon you. What do you do?

A. The traditional approach has always been to contact an attorney. This is only one part of the solution because the legal system will get you divorced but will not address many of your other needs. With the team approach, a therapist is involved. The reason for going to a therapist is threefold.

1. to see if a marriage can be salvaged through marriage counseling or work with the therapist;
2. as part of a support system while going through a divorce; whether you are a man or a woman it is important to have as much support as possible;
3. Last, but not least, you will learn about yourself and hopefully be prepared for the future so that if you ever remarry or get into a serious relationship you not will pick the same type of individual. Without counseling I have learned over the years in my practice that people who are married to abusive spouses will marry the same type of person again. People married to alcoholics or drug abusers or people with certain personality profiles will tend to repeat their mistakes. For these reasons, counseling is critical.

The next factor is an economic part of the team. This may be an accountant who would be advising you on tax ramifications, it may be someone who is evaluating a business or professional practice, it may be a financial advisor who is helping you prepare a budget and deal with financial planning for the future. Other people who are important may be educational consultants, realtors can be important if a home is to be sold as part of the divorce settlement. There may be also be a need for private investigators along with others to advise you both during and after a divorce. There can also be insurance agents for the purpose of modifying or increasing insurance which changes as a result of a divorce as well as the fact that insurance can be used to protect payments of child support and/or alimony as well as property payments. For these reasons, along with the goal of encouraging communication between professionals to assist you through the process, we have developed a team approach so that all of your needs can be met. If you have further ideas and thoughts we welcome them, because we are trying to develop a complete team to assist you, whether you are in Maine, California, or anywhere in the United States.