At Divorce Expo: Advice and Solace

Several hundred people passed through the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea this weekend for what organizers were calling New York City’s first-ever modern divorce expo, “Start-Over Smart.”

Similar to a wedding expo, vendors hawked their wares, experts offered advice and anxious attendees sought guidance. But here, with divorce as the topic du jour, the hall had a self-help feel bringing together misery with company.

“It’s not one-size fits all and yet that’s all people think,” said Francine Baras, a family and child therapist, and the event’s co-founder along with her daughter Nicole Baras Feuer, a divorce mediator.  “All people think about is, ‘Oh my God, I’m getting divorced I’m going to call my attorney. No, that’s not really the first thing you can do.”

Instead, Baras suggested people try a divorce coach, a good therapist or someone who can help deal with the emotional upheaval that comes with the process.

Helping people seek out these types of solutions was part of the genesis for the event. Baras said she and her daughter realized that people didn’t have the information they needed to get them through the divorce process in the best way possible. So the duo put together a board of advisors and carefully curated the presenters and exhibitors.

Barry Berkman, a divorce lawyer with the firm Berkman, Bottger, Newman & Rodd, led a session called “Collaborative Law: What is it? Where did it come from? Who should utilize and why?”  Berkman explained collaborative law is a process similar to mediation, where both parties try to find a mutually satisfying resolution to their dispute, but in this case both parties keep legal counsel throughout the process.

He said this event was helping bring divorce out of the shadows.

“For a long time, divorce was something that people would try to keep quiet, keep undercover, not talk about.  There was an element of embarrassment; there was an element of shame about it,” he said. “It’s a fact of life: half the marriages end up in divorce.”

For Joe Mulroe, 49, a father of two from Roseland, New Jersey, the event was less about getting expert advice and more a chance to seek solace among his peers.

“You spend 25 years with people who change their minds. It’s weird,” said Mulroe, who has already talked to lawyers about the process but came anyhow, “just to commiserate with other people doing the same thing.”

While he found the $75 admission steep, Mulroe said it’s nothing compared to cost of divorce itself. “It’s not exactly a party.”

Muni Tahzib, 42, and the mother of three children ages 5, 8 and 10, has been feeling very alone going through this process. “After two years, friends kind of don’t know anymore what to say to you,” she said. She believes events like this are an important counterbalance to country’s obsession with wedding culture.

Tahzib said the reality is, divorce can be a difficult and painful process.

“It’s been so romanticized on television, like ta-da, everything is resolved in a day or two and that’s not the case,” she said. “You’re not prepared for that, I mean who is prepared for divorce? I don’t know but I certainly wasn’t, I mean, I didn’t even know my husband was divorcing me.”