If you were not fortunate enough to settle your divorce case on acceptable terms, you now or soon will likely find yourself preparing for trial. Trial will be the day(s) that the world finally learns about how evil, irrational, obnoxious, and greedy your spouse is. You finally get to “tell your story” and “say your piece”. You and your lawyer are going to expose your spouse for the terrible person he/she is, right?
Wrong. Well, not entirely wrong, but still mostly wrong.
Your story may have some relevance to resolving the issues to be tried in your case, but trial is not a place for you and your spouse to sling mud at each other.
If your spouse is a liar who causes financial harm as a result of his/her lies, that is relevant.
If your spouse physically abuses you or the children, that is relevant (emotional abuse is relevant too, but it’s extremely hard to prove whether emotional abuse was in fact committed).
Typically, the lesser character flaws are not an issue in divorce, or even if it is, it is not a major issue in most cases. Whether your spouse is or is not a jerk, or insensitive, or stupid has little impact on how the marital property will be divided or how responsibility for the payment of marital debt will be apportioned. Even though moral character is a factor in determining child custody, just being a pain in the neck or self-absorbed isn’t the kind of moral failing a court will find terribly concerning or relevant.
Slinging mud can hurt your case by making you seem petty and vindictive, deluded, and dishonest. It can make you appear as though you can’t handle being an adult, as though you can’t or won’t take responsibility for yourself, and as though you lamely blame everyone and everything else for your plight. And if you believe that the proper response to mud slung at you by your spouse is to sling even more mud back at him or her, at best, all that usually does is lead the judge to believe you’re both terrible people.
Is your husband an alcoholic? Is your wife a passive aggressive shrew? The question is not whether this stuff matters to you, it’s whether it’s relevant to proving or disproving a claim raised in the divorce case. Is it relevant to parental fitness? Is it relevant to whether alimony is awarded? Is it relevant? That’s the key. If it’s not relevant, don’t bring it up, no matter how much it may matter to you personally. When you testify at trial, stick to the facts, not your feelings. Feelings are rarely relevant at trial. Contrary to popular belief, whining on the witness stand and sick burns don’t help your case. All it usually does is bore and irritate your judge.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277