Getting divorced is tough enough as it is without an overbearing spouse complicating matters. Yet, all too often individuals are forced to deal with unstable spouses who come across overly aggressive and domineering. When this happens, some individuals feel compelled to settle their divorce more quickly simply to avoid conflict. But rushing the marriage dissolution process can leave you in a difficult post-divorce position since you’re much more likely to cave on important issues.
That’s why you have to know how to hold your own during settlement negotiations and litigation, even if your spouse inundates you with an enormous amount of pressure. Let’s look at some ways that you can do that while reducing the amount of stress and anxiety that you experience throughout the process.
How to deal with a domineering spouse during divorce
It’s easy to feel like you’ll never be able to get a handle on your divorce when your spouse is aggressive and demanding. But there are some steps that you can take to make it easier to get through the marriage dissolution process while still protecting your interests. This includes doing the following:
- Keeping your cool: Your spouse’s behavior might rile you up, but you can’t let them get the best of you. After all, if you become frustrated or enraged by your spouse’s actions, then you could wind up saying or doing something that comes back to bite you in your divorce proceedings. Viewing their emotional outbursts as reflections of their inner turmoil may help you avoid taking their actions personally and center you in your responses to their demands.
- Listening for what your spouse wants: Your spouse’s domineering stance can make it difficult to decipher what it is that they really want out of the divorce. So, try to ask clarifying questions to see if you can gain a better perspective of where they’re coming from. This can help steer settlement negotiations.
- Avoiding personal attacks: When you’re spouse is coming at you with issues unrelated to the legal issues at hand, it’s easy to strike back with hurtful statements about your spouse’s character or things that they’ve done during your marriage. But these attacks don’t do anyone any good. In fact, they can cause the negotiation process to spiral out of control, making it difficult, if not impossible, to find resolution. If that happens, then your divorce will have to be litigated in court, which can be costly, time-consuming and contentious. It also takes away any control that you may have had over the outcome of your divorce.
- Finding effective means of communicating: If meeting with your spouse face-to-face creates a lot of drama, then you’ll want to avoid those types of interactions. Instead, it might be more effective to reduce communications to writing. That way you can take your time thinking about what you want to say and how you want to respond to your spouse’s aggressiveness. This type of communication also allows you to retain records of what’s been said so that you don’t end up in a he-said, she-said situation in court.
Navigate your contentious divorce with confidence
Walking through the marriage dissolution process can be nerve-wracking and downright frightening. But you don’t have to let it get the best of you. With a strong legal strategy by your side, you can enter negotiations with the competence and confidence needed to drive towards fair and favorable resolution. It’s not always an easy road, but you might be able to quell some of your fears by continuing to read up on divorce strategies and how to protect your emotional and psychological well-being throughout the process.