What is the reason you've filed for Legal Separation and not Divorce? Meanwhile, here are a few warning posts I've made in years past that may be helpful to some extent in your state, province or country.
Court is The Real Authority... . Yes, judges are reluctant to make informed and insightful Solomon-like rulings, but at least with Court you are less unlikely to be treated as unfairly. Generally there are only two options, Legal Separation (impractical in our high conflict cases) or Divorce.
My now-ex and I started out our separation with temporary protection/restraining orders. After a few months they were eventually were dismissed and we were told to find a more permanent resolution. That was either Legal Separation or Divorce. Religiously divorce was not my first choice but by then I accepted the reality that I was facing significant false allegations and I had to protect myself and what parenting I could. So I filed for divorce. (For a year or two before our separation she would rant and rage that she was going to divorce me or I divorce her, so the concept of divorce was no stranger to either of us.)
Getting the data for filing, getting a divorce attorney all took time. So did waiting for the scheduled initial hearing for setting temp orders. In all, I didn't see my preschooler for over 3 months, she wouldn't even let me even talk to our preschooler. (And no, court didn't scold her nor give me make up time in the temp order.)
Fortunately, though, I had documented her behaviors and she apparently didn't feel able to claim DV against me. That still left her free to allege child abuse, child neglect and child endangerment. If your documentation of her behaviors is sparse, see what you can do to document her poor behaviors well going forward. Review past incidents for ways to document them sufficiently well so they aren't seen as mere "he-said, she-said" and ignored.
Try to get the best temporary order you can from the very start. Temp orders have a tendency to morph later into final orders, judges may not be interested in changing what in their view seems to be working.
My lawyer had told me that he has almost never done separations. The reason (in my area) not to do a legal separation with an acting-out disordered spouse is that the first time (separation) you go through the custody process, she may misbehave before the court and evaluator and you will be seen as the better parent resulting in favorable parenting time for you. But if you later decide to take that final step and seek divorce, you may have to go through the custody evaluation all over again and the second time around she may know how to hide her behaviors and she might get more custodial responsibility and parenting time.
I've posted about this topic a few times before, it's probably a good time to mention it again as it teaches a lesson: Experience is not the best teacher, it is the harshest teacher. So, if you can, learn from others' experiences.
My lawyer warned me to avoid a trap a prior client had fallen for. His client was divorcing his wife and the reports had come out well for him, his wife's behaviors were that concerning, he was going to have custody of his children, all that was needed was for him to sign. One last signature. That's all. No response to his letter to come in and sign, so he called (probably his secretary) and guess who answered? The wife. Yes, they were back together again. The husband dropped the divorce. Six months passed. Then the husband came in wanting a divorce yet again, his wife really hadn't changed after all. This time around his wife knew which behaviors the court and evaluators scrutinized and which she should avoid during the custody evaluation (or it might have been the court's cheaper parenting investigation) and the second time around the reports recommended the children stay with her. You see, the second report had little or nothing to do with the first one, dropping the first case and starting over in court had triggered a Full Reset.
My lawyer wanted me to avoid a similar mistake. He told me that even if she came and danced on my lawn naked, I should think with my big head and not my little one.
One question that I feel is the most important indicator whether the marriage should end or not... .
Has she started therapy, real therapy and not just a few visits for window dressing, is she applying it diligently in her life and making solid progress toward recovery for a significant length of time? Anything less and I worry that all you have is a temporary truce, a shaky one, if you choose to take a half-meansure. Beware, if she's not solidly on the path to recovery, there is a virtual certainty there will be more conflict. And as noted in my quote above you better believe that the second time around - if professional evaluations are done a second time - she'll know which behaviors to keep hidden and perhaps even manage to frame you for worse behaviors. Maybe I'm jaded, but it's better to be jaded and in reasonable control of your life than fooled, taken to the cleaners and on the outside looking in.
So that comes around to my question again, What is the reason you've filed for Legal Separation and not Divorce? Many here, myself included, pondered both but in extreme cases half-measures aren't advisable. :)oing both LS and D is likely to be double the expenses and risks losing a good order. However, in many places you can start with Legal Separation and then later during the process either spouse can decide to amend it to divorce.
