I Just Want This Done

"I just want this done."

I hear some version of that from almost every client, usually in our first or second conversation. Sometimes it comes out tired. Sometimes it comes out angry. Sometimes it's a question: How fast can we get through this?

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I understand it completely. When your day-to-day life feels like it's on hold, every week in limbo feels like a week taken from you. You want your home, your schedule, your finances, and your head back. You want to stop picking up your phone with a knot in your stomach. You want to go back to feeling like yourself. You want to get to the other side.

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And while that instinct makes sense, it's also worth a closer look, because the urge to rush is one of the most common places I see capable people make choices they later wish they could take back.

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Here are three reasons a steadier pace will ultimately serve you better than a fast one.

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1. Strong Emotions and Smart Decisions Don't Often Happen at the Same Time

I often say it’s a brutal irony that we have to be at our decision-making best during divorce, despite the reality that we are operating at our emotional worst. When you're overwhelmed and everything feels like a 10 - the email from your attorney, the text from your ex, the question about Thanksgiving, and the financial form you don't fully understand - urgency tends to win over thoughtful, strategic thinking.

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Under consistent strain, our thinking narrows. We start looking for whatever will make the discomfort stop fastest. But unfortunately, fast relief rarely leads to the best decisions.

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I see this play out in small ways and big ones:

• Agreeing to a parenting schedule that doesn't fit your life or your kids' lives because you're tired of arguing about it
• Letting go of something that matters to you just to end a negotiation
• Signing something before you understand what it means for you five years from now

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You may relieve some stress in the moment, but these decisions often make things harder later.

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Slowing down gives you room to prioritize. Some decisions need your attention this week. Some can wait a month. Some don't need your energy at all. When you're moving fast, those categories blur together. When you slow down, you can see which is which.

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The next time you feel pressure to decide something quickly, ask yourself two questions. Is this deadline real? And what happens if I take 48 hours to think it through? Many people don't realize it's sometimes possible to ask for more time. Your attorney can tell you whether that's an option in your situation.

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Then ask the question that tends to cut through the noise: a year from now, which version of this decision will I be glad I made?

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2. Even Good Change Is Hard

My therapist once said something to me that I've repeated to clients more times than I can count: even good change is hard.

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Divorce changes nearly everything at once. Where you live. How you parent. What your money looks like. Who you spend holidays with. Which friends call. What a Tuesday night feels like when the kids are at the other house. Even if you wanted this divorce, even if you know it's the right decision, that's a lot of change to absorb in a short period of time.

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Rushing doesn’t let you skip the adjustment. It just postpones it. In my crisis communications career, we reminded clients: you control the message, or someone else does. Feelings work the same way. If you don’t make room for them now, they’ll show up on their own schedule, often at the worst possible moment: in the middle of a child exchange, at the first holiday on your own, or the night the final paperwork arrives and you didn’t expect to cry.

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Your kids are adjusting too, often on a different timeline than you are. When the pace is frantic, they feel it. A steadier pace gives everyone in the family a chance to adjust more thoughtfully as things come up.

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To be clear, I’m not suggesting you have the luxury of sitting still or waiting until you feel perfectly ready for everything. But I do see significant benefits when you give yourself permission to let some things be unsettled for a while. If you notice yourself racing toward the finish line, it's worth asking what you're hoping to leave behind by getting there faster. 

Sometimes the answer is uncertainty, or closure. Sometimes it's a feeling you'd rather not sit with. Both are understandable, and both will still need some attention on the other side.

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3. The Work Itself Takes Time

Set the emotions aside for a moment and look at the to-do list. It's long.

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There are financial disclosures to complete, which means gathering bank statements, tax returns, retirement and investment accounts, debts, and insurance information. There's a budget to build for two households instead of one. There's a parenting plan to work out, down to the details people don't think about until they're in the middle of them: school breaks, sports schedules, travel, who pays for camp and braces, and how you'll handle the expenses nobody thought to list.

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These are important decisions that you'll live with for years. The parenting plan you write now should be able to carry you through the next couple of years, so it’s important to consider how your kids’ needs will change. Vague agreements written in a hurry, like "we'll just split the extras," tend to create more conflict later, not less. And going back to fix an agreement after the fact usually costs more, in money and in stress, than getting it right the first time.

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This part of the process deserves your best attention, and your best attention needs time. Give yourself enough of it to:

• Gather everything you need instead of guessing
• Ask questions until you understand what you're agreeing to, including the ones you worry sound basic
• Bring in the right professionals, like a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst for the long-term financial picture, before you sign rather than after

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One practical suggestion: keep one folder and one running list. Work through it one item at a time. Progress you can see is steadying in a way that racing through everything at once never is.

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Intentional, Not Rushed

Wanting this to be over isn't wrong. Dragging a divorce out has real costs too, and I'm not suggesting you stall or avoid the decisions in front of you.

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Slower isn't the same as stuck. The people I've seen come through divorce well rarely moved the fastest. They moved steadily. They knew what mattered most to them, made decisions from a clearer place, and gave the big things the time they needed.

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You do not have to do divorce perfectly. You do need to do it thoughtfully. Your future self will have to live with the choices you make during this process, and so will your kids. So instead of asking how fast you can get through this, try a different question: if you looked back a year from now and said, "I handled that well," what would that look like? Let that answer set your pace.

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If you're feeling the pull to rush and want help sorting out what needs your attention now and what can wait, that's exactly the kind of thing I help clients work through. You don't have to figure out the pace on your own.

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Let's talk about your situation