By Jill H. Breslau

Divorce lawyers sometimes finds themselves being part time social workers in dealing with the problems in family law.  Harvard Medical School is having a series of programs for psychologists, but the titles remind me of issues that family lawyers deal with daily.

1.  What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Updates on the Neurobiology of Attraction and Attachment. What? Love is just about the brain? And it causes so much suffering?  Divorce lawyers frequently have to deal with the underlying mystery in intimate relationships.

2.  Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Therapy: Female and Male Perspectives. Divorce lawyers, especially in “fault” jurisdictions (like Maryland, Virginia and DC), have to learn more about your sex life than is comfortable for anyone.

3.  Working with Couples Around Financial Issues. Interesting to consider this occurring during a marriage rather than at the end.

4.  Domestic Violence: Challenges and Opportunities for Intervention. Sadly, people in abusive relationships tend to forget what behaviors are acceptable and where to draw the line. Violent relationships tend to get worse without intervention. Yet people are often so ashamed that they don’t even tell their lawyers about it.

5.  Behavioral Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. When the client tells us about a spouse who is using drugs or abusing alcohol, do we go full speed ahead with the divorce? Or do we have resources to provide  information about the possibilities of rehabilitation, so the client can better assess his or her options?

6.  Stepfamilies: Ways to Live with Each Other. We talk about “blended” families, but divorce lawyers often see them as more like oil and water that don’t mix.

7.  Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Partners. Getting a divorce doesn’t change your difficult partner into a reasonable person.  If you have children, you still have to deal with them.

8.  Understanding High Conflict and Emotionally Distant Couples. While the traditional divorce lawyer may be able to avoid understanding these folks, a mediator, collaborative professional, or parenting coordinator could  benefit from knowing what drives high conflict and what creates emotional distance.  Both of these factors make shared decision-making during and after divorce a real challenge.

Divorce lawyers are not psychotherapists, but they need to know something about psychology and human behavior to be successful working with people going through a divorce.

Words are the tools of a lawyer.  Words can be used to persuade and convince.  Words can be used to build relationships or harm relationships.

Discounting is the label I give to words that harm relationships.  It means you show by your words you do not respect the other person or their opinions and beliefs.  In fact you disrespect them and have contempt for them.

You can listen to, and acknowledge, an opposing point of view without agreeing to it.  Or you can discount it.  Here is an example of discounting in a letter I received from an opposing counsel in a divorce case recently.

“Jim:  This needs to stop. You are doing a disservice to your client. This is beyond ridiculous. If your client would stop this nonsense, sign the agreement I sent last night she would get a check the next day and this would be done.  Instead, you are making changes that make no sense, conflict with each other and costing my client (not to mention yours) unnecessary fees.  I will be tied up all day Monday and will be leaving the office early, out of the office on Tuesday and am leaving at 5:30 today and have deadlines I have to meet before then.”

Divorce lawyers have to develop a fairly thick skin in the heated exchanges of a litigation practice.  But do you really think that a letter like this ever persuades anyone to do what you want them to do?  Our response was to file suit.  Discounting never works.  As the Good Book says, A kind word turneth away wrath.

Scientists have found a gene they say is linked to an increased risk of breakdown in relationships, according to an article in the Telegraph by Roger Highfield today.

The researchers found that men with one version of a gene – called the “334″ version, or allele, had low scores on a Patnership Bonding Test and were less likely to be married or reported having marital difficulties.

“Women married to men who carry one or two copies of (the gene) were, on average, less satisfied with their relationship than women married to men who didn’t carry it,” said Hasse Walum, one of the scientists.

The discovery, reports Highfield,  raises the highly speculative possibility that scientists could one day develop drugs to target the gene in an attempt to prevent marriages from falling apart.

And if that happens, divorce lawyers will need to find another line of work.