Ah yes. The legal end of the process. I mostly avoided lawyers, negotiated and wrote the dissolution myself. I had a lawyer friend of mine review it to make sure I worded things well enough to protect myself. I also consulted with a lawyer to see what they thought the likely outcome would be if we went to court in terms of settlement. I substantially beat that settlement number and didn't have to pay lawyer fees. It was still a difficult battle. The trick to it to me was to understand a few things.
1) once the decision to divorce is made, the game is a business negotiation. In my case, I had pretty much zero positive regard for my ex wife at the time of separation. I can say that has not changed. I don't miss her and it would be a nightmare to me should I be somehow transported back in time or forced to live within the confines of that relationship for a day.
2) given 1, devise negotiation strategy. What are your targets? For me, we had relatively little in assets (both of us were in various stages of graduate education and low paying internships and postdocs for most of our marriage) and a rather stifling amount of debt pertaining to her doctorate education and ridiculous spending habits (she racked up about 25k in credit card debt). My goal was to pay as little of the 120k of debt as possible. Her goal was to make me "be the man" and pay all of it. I effectively walked away w 10k in debt. In court, I was at risk for being on the hook for 60k (usually student loans stay with the person, but she didn't get only student loans). In total, from the start to finish, the process took 6 months.
3) Emotion is the enemy in a business negotiation. Your opponent's emotion is a tool. Being mindful, calm and strategically in control of what you present, how you present, and as many factors pertinent to the situation (venue, definition of argument, etc) as possible is how you give yourself the best chance to get what you want. The emotional driving motivation to me was that I badly didn't want to be on the hook for paying for her graduate school and her poor financial decisions. My ex was an emotional creature, mostly devoid of rationality in that her emotions drove her views of objective reality. Fortunately, she was predictable. Her motivations would be egocentrically driven. She was narcissistic. So, what I did is, in communications with her when we separated, I projected that I was struggling (I was partying and mostly kicking arse) and I encouraged her to date (she was of Catholic origin and had familial pressures to not date while married, but she was also incapable of being alone; thus this was a huge issue for her). I did not engage her in any sort of argument. I suggested, helpfully, worst case scenarios in court if she followed through with her often uttered threats to take me to court. I projected that I didn't mind going to court. But, that it would be a headache, cost us both money, and it might turn out in a way we didn't want.
The years of living in a very stressful marriage were damaging to me on many levels that I wasn't aware of in the moment. Emotional strife is bad for you. A bad marriage can literally kill you. Getting rid of my ex wife was a jolt of life energy and completely changed my life for the good. Some things are cliches. But, they are good things. If you've slid at all, get into good physical shape. Experience new things. Basically, live well. Regardless of the outcome for you, live well now. Step back, take a look at what you're doing. What's good? What's bad? What makes you happy? I think the counseling idea is a good one.
