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As a matrimonial lawyer for almost 40 years, I have been an eyewitness to the seasonality of divorce filings. There is always a flurry of new matters walking into divorce lawyers’ offices after New Year’s Day and Labor Day. Why? Because January 1st or a new school year seems to be time when people implement their New Year’s resolutions. But recently, as I was thinking about this pattern, I wondered when the Tipping Point really occurred. I think it is the month of May. The month of May is overflowing with Milestone Events. Teens are getting ready for proms and high school graduations. Young adults are finishing college, graduate school or planning their own weddings. But this city girl thinks the seeds of discontent are being planted permanently in the ground in May, as couples negotiate the emotional minefield that Milestone Events can be for them and realize that their fantasies about these moments did not happen. When couples get married, they each seem to have different inner visions of the movie of their future life together. As Albert Einstein opined, “Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they’re both disappointed.”   I see the same problem of unrealistic expectations when a couple has a child and when that child is about to leave the nest. When a couple plans to have a child, most parents imagine that somehow they will have the Gerber baby. Unfortunately, the […]