AFEH

2Daughters

Don’t know if you know much about negotiation. Three Rules:

Aim High.
Never concede anything without at least an equal or greater concession in return.
Always be prepared to Negotiate.

With the 75/25 your wife is “aiming high”, probably put in by her attorney. She’s put a stake in the ground and more than likely expects that to come down to 50/50. But to do that she’ll be looking for you to “concede something else”. This something else is something she knows about but you don’t, as yet.

In my career I used to be a high level negotiator. I can’t see there’s much difference in a divorce other than the emotions involved with children, finances, “objects”, self images etc.

The thing with negotiation is that you need everything “on the table” before the negotiation, basically trading one thing for another, begins. This is something you can do for yourself, write everything down, it will be a good start for when you meet your attorney and will save some time therefore money.

When you’ve written everything down stand back a little and determine what you want out of the divorce. This is your starting point for negotiating. When writing down what you want two things to think on. First is Aim High. Second is it’s your wife who started this whole thing off so Aim Even Higher than you would have done if it was you who initiated the divorce or if it was mutual.

This is not the time to “be the nice guy”. This is a once off settlement so make it the best for you and the best for your children that you are able to.

Buy a few books on negotiation.

Bob