[This story from the TImes Daily, a newspaper in Northwest Alabama, talks about two judges and an in-court marriage counselor who are offering counseling to couples who file for divorce]
Published: January 21. 2007 3:30AM
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2006 divorce/marriage statistics by county. |
Time, faith and attorney bring couple back together (January, 21, 07)
For more than two decades, Jimmy Sandlin has acted on his personal conviction to help keep families together, first as an attorney and, for the past two years, as a circuit court judge in Lauderdale County.
"I always have in my mind that this couple before me has a salvageable marriage," he said. "I ask them if they're sure this (divorce) is the only option or if counseling would be an option."
In 2005, married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.
But for Sandlin, it's not business as usual when couples appear in his court to end their marriage. If they agree to counseling, it happens immediately. There is a volunteer marriage counselor in the courtroom waiting to speak with the couple.
It's a program that Sandlin began a year ago. It's one of several such programs under the Shoals Family Council.
The group's diversified programs are ongoing throughout Lauderdale County and always focus on the family, marriage or, in the case of divorce, being involved co-parents.
There were 606 petitions for divorce filed in Lauderdale County in 2006. It's statistics like that that concern Sandlin.
At 62 percent, Lauderdale's divorce rate is higher than many areas around the state, Sandlin said.
Alabama has the sixth highest divorce rate in the country at 6.2 per 1,000 couples, according to a joint report by Nick Stinnett of the University of Alabama and John Hill of the Alabama Family Alliance.
Sandlin knows exactly when the number spiked -- not just locally but statewide.
"In 1970, when no-fault divorce came about, there was a 300 percent increase in the divorce rate," he said. "I call it 'no thought' divorce, (which) means that couples don't have to have a real reason for divorce.''
Stinnett's report shows that the divorce rate is 40 percent higher now than it was in 1970.
As the top five reasons for divorce in Alabama, the report cites incompatibility as the top reason, followed by adultery, abandonment, imprisonment and crime against nature.
Amid the bad news on crumbling marriages, there is a bright spot. Among the 606 divorces filed last year in Lauderdale, 31 couples dropped their petitions after the initial courtroom counseling session.
"You can see the pain on their faces," Sandlin said of most couples seeking divorce in his court. "I certainly don't push anyone into counseling, but, if it's an option, I suggest they explore it because this pain is magnified greatly when children are involved."
If the couple reject the idea of counseling and insist on divorce, Sandlin moves forward, while hoping to dispel any bitterness and anger the couple may have for each other.
"The message here is that you can make an unhealthy marriage healthy again," he said.
Marriage and family counselor Drew Jamieson is a volunteer in Sandlin's courtroom.
He remembers working with four couples on his first day. Other days, no one agrees to counseling.
"If there's a couple that's hesitant about going through with a divorce, this is an opportunity for them to take a break and just talk it through with an unbiased party," Jamieson said. "I don't try to make it more than it is. I just try to be a calming voice of reason with the couple."
Sometimes, the couples are merely experiencing communication breakdowns, Jamieson said.
"If I can plant the smallest seed of doubt that divorce is the only answer, I do it," he said. "I try to show them there are options to divorce."
Locally, Lauderdale's is the only court system that has volunteer counselors on hand, but judges elsewhere share Sandlin's concerns about families in crisis and subsequent high divorce rates.
It's the divorces among couples who have been together for 15 or 20 years that especially concern Colbert County Circuit Judge Hal Hughston.
"I don't know why this is happening," he said. "But I always inquire whether reconciliation is an option and ask if they'd like to go through counseling," something they'd have to do outside the courtroom setting, he said.
Hughston said the stigma once attached to divorce is gone. But he and Sandlin agree that divorce affects society as a whole as well as children's behavior.
"We talk about how Hollywood affects our children and that family is a joke among celebrities," Sandlin said.
"Yet, when I talk to children in juvenile court about their ideas and philosophies, they tell me their parents have influenced their decision-making and behavior. They are definitely impacted by their parents' marriage relationship, or lack thereof."
Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735 or [email protected].
-- this article originally posted at http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/NEWS/701210343/1011
3-16-09 Lauderdale County, Alabama Circuit Court Judge Jimmy Sandlin, who ran for his office on the "Family" platform, is quoted in several articles as stating that his personal mission is to save marriages within our county. It is now public knowledge that Sandlin had a long term adulterous affair with a CITY employee (adultery is illegal in our state). Once caught, Sandlin left his own family and obtained a divorce. This is undisputed since Sandlin publicly confessed his adultery in front of hundreds of people at his own church. Sandlin then avoided his own required Trans-parenting Course, mediation, and counseling which he requires of other couples before him in court. His rulings in this county have hurt good and decent families, and his hypocrisy is overwhelming. His actions reveal his own instability. Sandlin should resign or be removed from office for his unethical, immoral, and illegal behavior.
Posted by: Patricia Locker | March 16, 2009 at 09:33 AM
I checked elsewhere online and the report of the affair seems to be accurate. I still think the work described in the article is very good work and I hope others will carry it on and emulate it.
Also online were the typical array of comments that people make about all family court judges, with many people not liking his custody and support decisions, reporting that he ruined their lives, etc. Yes, folks, every family court in this country leaves a lot of people feeling cheated, angry, and sometimes completely devastated and incapacitated. That's the net effect of divorce, even after 40 years of my profession working to improve divorce and its fallout.
There was also one family that said Judge Sandin had forced the couple to live together while their case was pending. I am a family lawyer, although not in Alabama, and I did not know that it was possible for a court to make an order like that. I just want to make clear that I do not advocate that kind of thing, and I do not know of anyone who does advocate it. Divorce laws and procedures can be changed to reduce the incentives to leave, to give people time, tools and opportunity to work on their marriages, but no one is talking about the law forcing people to live together.
Posted by: John Crouch | September 23, 2009 at 10:15 AM