Yawn. Here we go again. Another conservative commentator who has no experience with divorce pontificates about how the real problem is that divorce is too easy. Here’s the latest from somebody called Nathan Tabor. My favorite statement in his piece is that “Bitter child custody fights are often part of the cost of no-fault divorce.” Huh?

Mr. Tabor, I don’t know your experience with divorce, but I know my own. I’m in the trenches every day with tired men and women who are trying to end their marriages so they can move on with their lives. I don’t know a one of them, not a one, who would say that “divorce is too easy.” Divorce is expensive and unimaginably painful. My clients have tried every solution they can think of before they come to me.

There’s no question that divorce hurts children too, but I have no indication that divorce hurts children more than constant conflict between parents in an intact home. Come spend some time looking into the eyes of my clients, Mr. Tabor. Preach your sermon to them, and listen closely to those bold enough to answer. We all have much to learn from them.

Is divorce getting easier? This article from AP seems to be saying so in describing the proliferation of sites offering online divorce document preparation. What’s fascinating to me as a divorce lawyer is that my charge for a lawyer-assisted uncontested divorce (complete with personal legal advice and the handling of all filing from complaint to finished Final Judgment of Divorce) is less than most of these web sites are charging. What gives? I’m obviously doing a lousy job of marketing.

Is it getting too easy to get a divorce? People often ask me that. My usual response is to ask them whether they’ve been through a divorce themselves. Most who have can answer this question easily: absolutely not.

By the time people actually make it to my office to file for divorce, they’ve been through unimaginable misery. I don’t know many at all who would say the process is too easy.