SMO-AutoPilot

My parents sometimes talk about getting a divorce.  In fact, as kids my sister and I knew that they were only staying together for us kids, and that once we were out of the house they would probably get a divorce.

My sister and I have both been out of the house for years now, though, and so far it hasn’t happened.  There’s always another excuse as to why they’re staying together for a little longer.  My dad (who was laid off after 9/11 and never found another job) needed my mom’s health insurance; my mom was waiting until she moved back to Pennsylvania, where her family comes from; etc.

I actually think that the two of them are too used to being together to ever get a divorce.  My mom likes having someone to support her so that she can save the money she makes at her job for her retirement, and my dad likes having someone to cook for — even a vegetarian is better than no one at all!

The question of what to do about the house is also making them hesitate, I think.  My mom feels — and I agree — that even though my dad’s income paid the mortgage for all those years, the fact that she was home raising us kids ought to count for something.  She wants the proceeds from the house to be split evenly between them, but he disagrees.

When the time comes, they will probably to look into divorce mediation.  There is something called collaborative divorce in Phoenix, where the two of you basically work everything out between the two of you (and your mediators, of course), thereby avoiding a lengthy, and invariably expensive, court battle.

Technorati Tags: collaborative divorce in Phoenix, divorce mediation, vegetarian