Will a painful divorce help or hurt your career? That’s the question Marcia Heroux Pounds answers in a recent Sun Sentinel article.
Pounds notes that lawyers and mediators believe divorce can do wonders for your career or kill your career. The stress of a divorce is an obvious hurdle. Your employer could be subpoenaed for information or your chance for a promotion could be gone. In many states, law requires that divorced parents with shared responsibility for children cannot move them more than a certain distance from a residence at the time of their agreement. This might prohibit someone from taking a promotion post-divorce if it would require a relocation.
Divorce can also take an incredible amount of time. Check out this divorce timeline to see how long the process usually lasts. If you are in business with your spouse, that would be a lot of time to have tension in the business.
Despite all the heartache and stress, Elinor Robin, a family mediator, said people often do better in their careers after divorce. The focus is off the marriage and the fighting, and you can now focus on your career, she says.
Divorce will help some careers and hurt others. If you face a divorce, hopefully you’ll be able to move past the stress and allow the situation to actually help your career in the end.
