Prince Frederic Von Anhalt of Munich, Duke of Saxony, and 26 year resident of California, has tossed his hat, not crown, in the ring for governor of our fair state. All in the divorce industry should support him; he and his wife are testimony to our great offices and services. His 1986 marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor was his seventh marriage. and Zsa Zsa’s eighth. Such optimism is refreshing.

Where there is conflict, chaos is a close companion. While in other aspects of life it may be advisable to avoid this unpleasantness, disorder must, in a sense, be embraced when it comes to dealing with conflict. Clarity and resolve can only be achieved by accepting the disorder and chaos that comes along with conflict.

“Stakeholders” in the culture of divorce are multiplying. The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts will host 115 mental health professionals, 63 lawyers (some dual degrees) and 32 judges to ponder “alienation” and high-conflict parental break-ups. One woman told me, “The system forces you into conflict.” Start with the initial papers you have to file to get a divorce in California; you have to choose a form of “custody” and “visitation.” You are starting out with fighting words from the beginning.

Do you wish you had negotiated a property agreement before you had gotten married? It’s not too late to clarify your intentions regarding property rights. Husbands and wives can make valid agreements during marriage to change community property to separate, separate to community, or to alter the status of their earnings. What you earn from work during marriage is community property. That’s the default rule. But you can change that with a written agreement. It is advisable to create a written agreement with the help of a mediator, who will be able to assist with the negotiations.

To be effective in mediation, it is necessary that you be willing to disagree. Disagreement can be painful. People feel tension with conflict. Conflict can be especially painful in personal matters such as: children, homes, property, income, and debts.Do not try to avoid the messiness of conflict because then you avoid clarity, resolve and the self-determination at the heart of the process. Actually, the ability to disagree opens possibilities of agreement.

I just received a mailing from a psychologist advertising his “custody evaluation” business. His new associate will do a “flat fee basic” evaluation for $5,000. The extensive evaluation runs to $9,000 and includes allegations of sexual abuse, domestic violence, mental issues. If the parents get along well, but disagree on some of the child’s “best interests,” he will do a “fast track” evaluation in one day for $2,000. Or if you did not like the first evaluation you had from someone else, he will give you a second opinion, cost not stated.

Add the costs of the lawyers at $450 an hour each to shepherd you through this process, then represent you in court and cross-examine each of you and a psychologist or two–all this so your children can grow up, become independent and leave home without their college money, which went to the psychologists and lawyers.

Parents also suffer “separation anxiety” in a divorce. Children might worry that if one parent moves out, will the other leave also? This is before they know that the moving parent will continue to be in their life, maybe even more than they were before.

But parents now are no longer part of “The Joneses.” They may suffer a loss of identity as a member of a family, a marital system and as such, a part of the community. Now each is just a mother or a father. And so they fear the loss of the child-parenting identity.

No wonder parents can get so obsessive about having control over the children, so obsessed with what the other parent is doing “wrong.” They lose sight of their parental jobs as being to raise the child to go off, leave them, and become independent from them.