How did you finance your divorce?

This is not something I’m experiencing, as I’m not getting a divorce because I’ve not ever had the pleasure or the pain of being married.

A friend is going through a divorce. They’re in the early stages of it, but already, she has spent 5k on her attorney and her husband has spent over 7k on his attorney. They have some property and one of them has a pension and one of them works, but they quickly spent down the money in the accounts, paying the attorneys, the mortages and then the husband signed a lease on a fancy apartment. She is in her early 70s so she won’t be working a whole lot longer.

Since the accounts are now spent down and all the household bills have to be paid, along with the two attorneys’ fees, which are paid out of the joint account, my friend is wondering how people actually pay for their divorces. The husband’s attorney fees are higher than my friend’s because apparently he is talking to his attorney more than she is.

How does it work when one spouse’s attorney is more than the other attorney?

One of my friends got divorced recently but it wasn’t contentious so they used a mediator, which in total cost them about 7k. I understand that’s pretty inexpensive as far as divorces go.