During a recent winter weather event, I was walking down a short flight of stairs that had become slippery with ice. I had walked on ice and down plenty of slippery stairs in my lifetime, so it didn’t seem that risky. Well, as they say, pride comes before the fall and, in this case, my pride was almost immediately met with a fall.

As my feet began to depart from underneath me, I instinctively reached my arms out to the railings on each side of me, desperate to stop what seemed like an unavoidable drop onto my rear end. Remarkably, I was able to catch not one, but both railings. I was saved. No sore tailbone, no embarrassment from the unexpected tumble. That feeling was quickly and sharply replaced by the sensation of pulling and straining in my shoulders, arm and back muscles that were giving every last nanometer of elasticity to hold me up from falling. My feet and the ice underneath them did not care that my arms had saved the day. What I hadn’t expected in trying to prevent myself from injuring my lower body, was that the cost of preventing the fall from happening was pain throughout my upper body that would last for days.

In reflecting on these unforeseen consequences, the lesson from this incident seemed appropriate for many other situations in life. If I had just landed on my backside, sure I would have been a little sore, but I wouldn’t have been as sore as I ended up from trying to catch myself.  In other words, sometimes trying to avoid problems just leads to more problems than the problem you are trying to avoid.

This can certainly be the case in divorce and family law. It’s not that anyone wants to go through the pain and frustration of one of these cases, but oftentimes trying to avoid that discomfort can lead to more heartache and unforeseen consequences that are much worse than the pain that they were trying to avoid. While it is certainly wise to try to solve problems, it’s similarly wise to be mindful of the costs of the possible solutions so that you’re not choosing an even more destructive option.