How to Protect Your Job When Going Through a Divorce

Getting a divorce can affect more than your private life; it may also affect your work life. Divorce often has far-reaching consequences in the workforce. Employees who are going through the process of getting a divorce are more likely to be late or absent from work, perform poorly, and produce less than their coworkers. They’re also frequently absent psychologically or emotionally, even while they’re actively at work.

Here’s what to know about how getting a Long Island divorce can impact your job and what you can do to get the help of an experienced New York family law attorney.

Will You Need to Get a Job to Support Yourself After Divorce?

After a divorce, many spouses and parents who, during their marriage took care of marital home and children or pursued other passions, need to resume working to earn a living to cover the costs of their own housing, food, clothing, and other necessities.

Spousal support may be awarded in the divorce case, but it may only be short term or insufficient to fully meet the basic needs of the formerly unemployed spouse. Even returning to part-time employment might be difficult, especially if you’ve not been employed in a long time. This may be easier if you have a degree or previous work experience, but either way, you will likely have to sharpen your skills to compete with others in the workforce.

Will Income & Parenting Responsibilities Force You to Change Your Hour?

The process of dissolving your marriage can be costly, particularly if you have to start paying for your housing or are ordered to pay alimony to your ex-spouse. You may need to work longer hours to make more money just to pay for the divorce.

On the other hand, you may need to reduce your hours or your responsibility if you share custody and visitation of a child with your ex-spouse. For example, you might need to leave work early to get your child from daycare or school or go into the office later in the morning for the same reason. Employers may or may not be accommodating to these changes.

Will the Psychological Distraction Cause You to Lose Your Job?

If your employer cannot give you more hours or a raise when you need a higher income to cover divorce expenses, or if they won’t accommodate your new need to be more flexible around your family, it is entirely possible you could lose your job. Depending on what your employer fires you for, you may or may not have the right to pursue a wrongful termination claim.

You could also get fired for being mentally “checked out” at work. For example, if you make lots of mistakes as a result of being cognitively preoccupied with the divorce, your employer may decide that you are not producing enough and that you ought to be replaced.

Your Workplace Environment May Get More Stressful

If you work primarily during the weekdays, you will likely have to take calls from your divorce lawyer or fill out forms while at work. Juggling these new responsibilities along with your current tasks can be difficult, if not impossible. It may result in you getting fatigued faster at work, not meeting performance goals, or having a bad attitude. Your patience may wear thin and if you work with customers, you may “snap” more easily when dealing with complaints.

Stress Can Cause You to Make Poor Decisions

If your job requires you to make fast, important decisions, you may find this challenging while going through the process of divorce. Your mind may be going over what you could have done differently to avoid a divorce or what might happen to your children once you move out of the marital home and these preoccupations, in addition to the added emotional and psychological stress, could keep you performing at peak levels.

As a result of being mentally preoccupied with the dissolution of your marriage and its details, you may fail to make critical decisions with your usual quickness while at work. Imagine if a surgeon found it harder to make a tough call quickly because they are distracted by their divorce.

Contact a Long Island Divorce and Family Lawyer Now for Help to Protect Yourself

At Hornberger Verbitsky, P.C., we understand how challenging the process of dissolving your marriage can be. We know how it may impact your life, your job and how to work around potential challenges to the best of our ability. We do our best to take the stress our of your divorce so you can concentrate on the important things in your life. Contact us today for more information or to schedule your free initial consultation by dialing 631-923-1910 or fill out the short form on this page.