To begin the divorce process as a Pro Se litigant you will file an original petition for divorce with the local court clerk. The original petition for divorce is a document requesting that the court grant a divorce.

Filling out the petition for divorce:

If you are asking for the divorce (or “filing” for it) you are known as the “petitioner,” and your husband is known as the “respondent,” or “defendant.” When you petition the court for a divorce, you state the cause of your divorce. If you are filing for specific grounds make sure you don’t go into details.

Example: If your spouse has cheated on you, you should say, “Petitioner seeks divorce on the grounds of adultery” rather than, “Petitioner seeks divorce because my husband has been sleeping with another woman for six months.”

The court isn’t interested in whether or not you hate your husband, feel he should be stricken from the face of the earth, or any other emotions you may have. Keep your feelings to yourself.

I promise you, the judge who has to read your petition will appreciate it.

Information needed in the petition will vary, but most states require:

• Identification of the spouses by name and legal address.
• Date and place of marriage.
• Identification of children from the marriage, their names and ages.
• Proof that the petitioner and her husband have lived in the state or county for a certain length of time and have the right to file for divorce.
• Grounds.
• A statement on how the petitioner would like to settle finances, property division, child custody, child support, visitation, and other issues related to divorce.

Filing the petition for divorce:

The petition for divorce, along with two copies and the filing fee (the Clerk of Court will tell you want it is), are hand delivered or sent by certified mail to the local court clerk.

If you plan to represent yourself in the divorce, or go Pro Se, you will have to be organized, know your state laws, get acquainted with your court clerk, and know your state’s rules of behavior for attorneys and judges.

Divorce is an emotional and legal event. If you have an attorney representing you, you are free to focus on the emotional aspect of your divorce. If you are representing yourself, it’s up to you to deal with both the emotional and legal aspects. To be successful as a Pro Se litigant you need to put your emotions on the back burner.

The best way to stay focused and protect your legal rights is organization and preparation.

Organization:

Knowledge will be your best friend; organization will be your second-best friend. The Pro Se litigant will accumulate a mountain of paperwork through legal research and court filings. Being organized will help you stay focused and will save time and energy.

• Purchase file folders and a filing cabinet to be used before, during, and after the divorce process.

• When doing research on state divorce laws and civil procedure, print out what you find and file it away in it’s own folder. It is reference material and you want it handy.

• Have a separate file for every document you file with the courts. In that file keep the original and a copy that is stamped by the court clerk with the court stamp and dates the document was filed.

• Keep a written log of everyone you speak with, the date you speak with them and the issue discussed. It will be a quick reference that will keep you from having to spend valuable time looking back through files.

Preparation:

Pro Se is Latin for "for himself" or "on one's own behalf." A person who represents him- or herself in court, without the help of a lawyer, is said to appear pro se.

The decision to get divorced can be difficult. You will be concerned about starting over, your children and of course, money. Money or lack thereof is one of the main reasons a person may choose to go Pro Se and represent herself during the legal process of divorce.

If you can’t afford an attorney, this articles, and the two that will follow, are for you. This is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for anyone who needs or wants to represent herself and become a Pro Se litigant in divorce court.

Before jumping into the how-to’s of the Pro Se process it’s important to talk about the level of commitment it takes to represent yourself. Not everyone is equipped to go Pro Se. You need to be resilient and tenacious.

You will also have to:

• Deal with unexpected injustices and indignities. You will be exposed to nonsense that you would never expect in a court of law. You will meet people who will stare you in the face and lie under oath. You must be able to stare back at the nonsense and injustice and keep your cool while defending yourself and your position. Keep your outrage and anger to yourself and always respond to the indignities in a dignified manner.

• Write and speak accurately and precisely. When dealing with court documents and speaking in a courtroom setting it doesn’t matter what you intended to say. What matters is that you write and say what you mean…specifically. You want to write and speak literally and leave emotions out of the equation.

This time last summer Sharon, who asked that her last name not be used, was the typical wife of an Army pilot deployed to Iraq. She was expending a lot of energy on just surviving. But like most military spouses, she supported her husband in what he had chosen to do, and for what he believed in.

Her husband’s deployment meant she was wearing two hats, both mother and father to two children, 6 and 10. She mowed the lawn, kept the house, paid the bills, and laid awake at night worrying about her husband’s safety.

But she didn’t mind the extra work.

“It was all doable because there was relief in the friendships with other women who were experiencing the same in their day-to-day lives,” she said. “We vented to each other and took care of each other. We weren’t isolated because we were there for each other.”

Sharon, 36, is once again struggling to survive, but this summer for very different reasons. She is separated from a husband she says “came back from Iraq a changed man.”

As she sits in my living room, looking anxious and worn, Sharon tries to explain what went wrong in her marriage.

“I struggle to understand what happened and make sense of it,” she says. “All I know is that once he came home he was there physically, but emotionally he was absent.”

Shortly after returning from Iraq, her husband took up with another woman. It was a relationship, he told Sharon, that didn’t demand that he deal with parenting and a wife who wanted him to share wartime experiences.

The reunion of couples after long deployments and the post-deployment processes are complex and poorly understood. So complex that many military marriages are not surviving the transition.

In a military mental health survey done in Iraq in 2006, 20 percent of soldiers interviewed (both men and women) said they or their spouses were planning a divorce; that is up 5 percent from a year earlier.

Not long ago I wrote a blog post on my blog at Divorce Support.About.com. In it, I discussed ways to keep the family court system from gaining too much control over what happens in your divorce. I had a comment left that I found very enlightening and an apt description of how adversarial divorce has become. I'm going to use the comment here in hopes of making a point.

"Does divorce ever end? The answer, predictably, is "Yes," but not until you've reached the end of your patience, logic, optimism and reasonableness. Because, you see, that's exactly the point: The divorce wars have little to do with Mediation or Courts or even which spouse is the more childish of the two. It's about power and who can manage to stand on the log longer before toppling off, into the rushing water below.

If you really want to make it to the shore of singledom without finding yourself tossed into shark-infested waters, learn the art of endurance. Exercise until the sweat gushes from pores and glands you didn't know you had; take a Yoga class and learn discipline of the mind, spirit and body.

Build up your strength from within and get ready to stick to what you want like a barnacle to a shipwreck. After you've proven your tenacity, it won't matter whether it's a mediator or a lawyer assisting you on this voyage: You'll have set your course and now all you'll need to do is steer towards your goal."

I won't argue with anything in the above statement. If you have been through an adversarial divorce, you know from experience that it does boil down to who is the weakest, who has the most stamina, and who can hire the most expensive attorney.

Our reaction to stressful events such as divorce can become so habitual that they occur without our awareness. We become so accustomed to reacting to stress in a certain way that it is second nature to us. We aren't aware that we are reacting in a way that is harmful to us until we are plagued with physical or emotional problems that we can no longer ignore.

The way we react to stress depends on the way we think about a stressful event when it happens. Have you ever known anyone who seems to sail straight through the problems in their lives? There are people in the world who can deal smoothly with issues that might cripple others emotionally. I'm sure you've met such people and have even been envious of their ability to "take it on the chin."

The one thing that enables these people to deal so well with a stressful event is the way they think about the event or issue. They aren't in the habit of jumping to the worst conclusion. They are not habitual, negative thinkers who are prisoners of their own "I can't handle this" attitude.

It wasn't until I went through my divorce that I became aware of just how much damage being addicted to negative thinking can do. I literally became physically and emotionally exhausted from worry -- exhaustion that occurred because I had no idea how to be mindful of what I was thinking and how my negative thinking was affecting me physically and emotionally.

Most people use the term "mindfulness" to express the need to stay tuned into what is going on in your life. I use the term to express the importance of staying tuned to what is going on in your head. Be mindful of those thoughts rattling around in your brain because it is those thoughts that will determine how well you navigate stressful events and issues as they come up.

In last week's article, I talked about selfishness, getting our needs met and how important that is to living a healthy, purposeful, fulfilling life. This week I'll go over the steps we need to take to make sure we are cultivating a healthy level of selfishness. Selfishness that maximizes the value of our interactions with others and at the same time keeps us from sacrificing ourselves to the needs of others.

Step One:

Saying no...this is important because it is easy to create stress in our lives if we don't turn down requests for our time and talents. Saying no is one of those selfish acts that we should cultivate. It may be the most beneficial thing we can do for ourselves. When we say no, we will be able to spend quality time on those things that bring us happiness instead of stress.

Saying no helps us prioritize the things that are important to us. By saying no, we gain time that we can commit to the things we really want to do. Things like spending more quality time with our children, or getting together with friends for drinks and a night out. Let go of the things you feel obligated to do in favor of things you feel a desire to do. Just say, No, Nope, Nah!

My college boyfriend gave me a collection of books written by Ayn Rand. One of the books was titled The Virtues of Selfishness. I remember shuddering when I read that title. I wondered to myself how there could be any virtue at all in selfishness. Why would I want to read a book about disregarding the well-being of others in favor of my own well-being?

In my mind, a selfish person was someone who took care of herself first, be damned what that meant to others. A lout who is oblivious to the needs of others and the negative consequences of her "selfishness." Nah, I had no use for a book that thought someone of that character was virtuous in anyway.

Then one day I picked up the book and read the introduction in which Rand wrote, "the exact meaning of selfishness is concern with one's own interests. Rand argued that a "virtue is an action by which one secures and protects one's rational values, ultimately, one's life and happiness. Since a concern with one's own interests is a character trait that, when translated into action, enables one to achieve and guard one's own well-being, it follows that selfishness is a virtue. One must manifest a serious concern for one's own interests if one is to lead a healthy, purposeful, fulfilling life."

While reading the book, I became more and more aware that by being selfish enough to make sure that we are leading "healthy, purposeful, fulfilling" lives we are taking care of our moral obligation to care for and love those who have expectations of us. I learned a lot from Rand's book. I haven't always put into practice what I learned. Being a divorced, single mother puts a person in a situation where it can be hard to cultivate selfishness. So, when you read this article, know that I'm not only writing it for you but as a reminder to myself.

In my last article, I wrote about things to consider before making the decision to divorce. This article deals with accepting and recognizing when it is time to "throw in the towel." Below are a few signs that you are dealing with a marriage that has gone past the point of saving...in my opinion.

Are you to the point that your spouse just can't do anything right, does everything they do get under your skin?

Shortly before my Aunt and Uncle divorced, I heard her say, "If he died tomorrow I'd have to peel an onion before I could shed a tear." Their marriage had gone on way too long. So long that she had developed feelings of animosity toward her husband. If you feel yourself moving in that direction, do yourself and him a favor and move on.

Are you tired of the trying, so tired you can't muster of the energy to even engage anymore?

Trying to solve marital problems can turn into a cycle of the wife trying to get her needs met and the husband stonewalling or dismissing her. A woman will normally try to re-engage her husband. Women are natural problem solvers who don't give up easily. She will eventually tire of trying to engage her husband in finding solutions to the marital problems. She will withdraw, stop expressing her needs; and once this happens, the marriage is headed for separation or divorce.

Does the idea of sex with your spouse cause you to shudder?

Are you like Megan, one of First Wives World's Community Bloggers? Does the idea of sex with your husband cause you to feel trapped, like you want to cry, pack your bags and never come back? If so, it is time to act on your feelings.

Has the love you felt been replaced by resentment?

Are you thinking about divorce? The decision to divorce is critical, with consequences that can last a lifetime. It is a step that should be thoroughly thought out before taken.

Below are questions you should ask yourself before making the decision to divorce.

Is there still an emotional connection?

Have your feelings for your husband faded or are you frustrated over marital problems that seem insurmountable? If there are still feelings of love, you should work on the marriage before deciding to divorce. Don't allow feelings of frustration to cause you to make a choice you will later regret. If there is love left, seeking to solve problems with a marriage counselor could put the brakes on a divorce you didn't want in the first place.

Is your desire to divorce based on an emotional reaction or true self-awareness?

A true desire for divorce means letting go of any emotional attachments you have to your husband, the good ones and the bad ones. Making the decision to divorce at a time when you are overwhelmed with emotions won't solve problems. It will generate more problems and compound hurtful feelings and frustrations.

Being able to view your husband as an individual who deserves your respect during the transition of divorce is imperative. If you can't do this, the divorce process will be riddled with anger and conflict. Divorce is not an opportunity to point fingers and blame. It is the opportunity to move on and rebuild your life. The more negative your emotions toward your husband, the harder the process of rebuilding will be.

Is it a divorce you want, or a change in marital dynamics?