MEREL MINUTE: WHAT I TELL MY FRIENDS AT DINNER PARTIES

There’s a predictable moment at every dinner party. Someone asks what I do, I say, “divorce attorney,” and the table goes quiet for exactly two seconds. Then the questions start, usually in a lowered voice, and usually beginning with “asking for a friend.” After more than 20 years, I’ve heard them all. Here are the ones that come up between the salad and dessert, along with the answers I give.

“Is it true half of all marriages end in divorce?” Not quite. That figure has been outdated for years, and divorce rates have actually been declining. What I tell my friends is this: statistics say nothing about your marriage. The couples who struggle most aren’t the ones with problems. They’re the ones who stopped talking about them.

“What’s the number one thing that ends marriages?” Everyone expects me to say infidelity. It’s not. In my experience, it’s drift: two people who managed careers, kids, and calendars so efficiently that they forgot to manage the marriage. The affair, when there is one, is usually a symptom, not the cause.

“Should everyone get a prenup?” Yes. I say it that plainly because every married couple in Illinois already has one. It’s called state law, and it dictates exactly what happens to your property if the marriage ends. The only choice you really have is whether to write your own terms or accept the ones the legislature wrote for you. Put that way, the answer is clear: sit down, have the conversation, and put your future into your own hands, not a judge’s. The eyerolling usually stops right about there.

“If I ever got divorced, would I lose everything?” No, and neither would your spouse. Illinois divides marital property equitably, based on the full financial picture. The horror stories you’ve heard almost always involve someone who hid assets, ignored advice, or turned the process into a war. The process itself is far more rational than its reputation.

“How do the kids turn out?” This is the question people ask most quietly, and it deserves the most honest answer: it depends far less on the divorce than on the parents. Children are remarkably resilient when their parents keep conflict away from them. What damages kids isn’t two households. It’s being made a messenger, a confidant, or a prize.

“Don’t you find it depressing?” Just the opposite. I meet people on the hardest day of their lives and help them get to the other side. I’ve watched clients rediscover themselves, build genuinely cooperative co-parenting relationships, even become friends with their exes. Endings are part of the job. So, it turns out, are beginnings.

And then dessert arrives, and we talk about something else. Which brings me to my last piece of dinner-party advice: whatever is worrying you, don’t let it wait for a party to come up. Ask early. Information is calming. Folklore never is.

Merel Family Law is located at 440 W Randolph Avenue, 5th Floor, in Chicago; 595 Elm Place, Suite 225, in Highland Park; and 40 E Hinsdale Road, Suite 202, in Hinsdale. For more information, call 312-408-7000, visit merelfamilylaw.com, and follow @merelfamilylaw on social media.