Unfounded Criminal Charges -

Doing this escalates the conflict in your case one thousand fold. You might as well throw gasoline on a fire. After you have your spouse arrested and/or thrown out of the house for no reason you can pretty much kiss your hope of amicably settling your case goodbye.

If it comes out that you lied to the authorities, YOU can get prosecuted. Enough said.

Once you lie to the court on one issue, you destroy your credibility on all issues. Judges realize that emotions run high in divorce. They will overlook a fair amount of “bad behavior.” But, lying to the court never goes down well – and judges have long memories!

Your spouse can’t pay support while in jail. If you are relying on your spouse to support you and the kids while the divorce is pending, getting them locked up will wreak financial havoc on you.

Growing the court fight costs you money. All of the extra court hearings this kind of activity causes takes time and costs money. If your spouse has to hire a criminal attorney, that costs even more money. While you may think that paying all those attorneys is your spouse’s problem, if the money is coming from the marital estate, that means that you are paying for it too.

If you did all this to make your spouse look bad to the kids, you might end up with the kids being taken away from you. If your spouse is a real danger to the kids then, YES!, you need to keep them away. Absolutely! But, if your spouse is not abusive, and you just don’t agree with their parenting style, separating them from the kids by fabricating charges against them can give a judge grounds to take the kids away from you. Plus, legalities aside, this is just a horrible thing to do to your children.

Karma happens. Your divorce will pass. Even if it doesn’t seem like it right now, your case will end someday. But what you do in your divorce, how you act and react, will follow you for a long time. You can choose to believe that or not. I’ve seen karma in action. What goes around, comes around.

Written by Karen Covy (Divorce Lawyer, Mediator & Educator – USA)

Posted by Sinta Ebersohn (Creator of fairdivorce.co.za – Stellenbosch RSA)