7 Tips to Avoiding a Disastrous Divorce

Litigants, fueled by emotions, jealously or bad advice, can easily snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by making poor decisions during their divorces. All your planning, strategizing and preparation will be for naught if you make one of these predictable, but easily avoidable mistakes.

Since a litigated divorce is mentally overwhelming, you could unwittingly fall victim to these behaviors, which would ensure that you would only view your divorce with regrets. By simply being aware of what not to do, you can steer clear of these mistakes.

1. Hiring the wrong attorney.
Not every divorce and every issue within the divorce need be fully litigated. To the contrary, most cases are settled. Even in those cases that cannot be settled, it is rare that every issue has to be litigated.

Hiring the bullldog attorney -- the super aggressive lawyer who promises to leave no stone unturned so that you will "win" the case and punish your spouse -- is a recipe for disaster. The bulldog attorney will needlessly litigate everything.

The only person who will definitely benefit from this hire is the attorney. He will bill you aggressively and end up with the lion's share of the marital assets.

On the other hand, you do not want to retain the overly conciliatory attorney either. The right attorney is pragmatic -- flexible enough to make a deal, but firm enough to protect your interests.

2. Failing to understand the ramifications of your decisions.
You have retained counsel and perhaps a financial advisor or planner. Ask them questions. Explore options and alternative resolutions. Consider "what if" scenarios; if one aspect of a settlement is contingent on some other event, understand what happens if the contingent event does not occur.
If you do not fully understand every decision in your divorce, you will have to live with the consequences.

3. Settling for more than you can pay or less than you need.
Understand your actual income, expenses and your budget. You have to know if a settlement will afford you the ability to support yourself and your family when the divorce is over. You should not settle a case on unrealized or hopeful expectations.

If you are the paying spouse, you do not want to commit to pay more than you can afford. On the other hand, if you are the recipient spouse, realize if your demand your ex to make payments that are not affordable, it is more likely there will be a default in payments and then all you will get is more litigation.

4. Taking legal advice from your hair stylist.
Everyone, your friends, your family and even your hair stylist, has an opinion about your divorce. They all have an opinion about what you need, what you should ask for and what you should do to get it. They also may tell you what you are doing wrong and why their friends got more.
Don't listen to them. They will only make you doubt yourself.

Ask them where they went to law school and how long they have practiced family law. The ensuing silence will tell you the value of their advice. Put differently, your divorce attorney does not cut your hair; your hair stylist should not practice law.

5. Making decisions based on anger and spite.
Avoid making knee-jerk emotional decisions. The decisions you make will impact you and your family's economic future and welfare. Avoid making rash, irrational decisions. Take time and think your positions through after conferring with your attorney.

6. Fighting for your principles.
It really is great to be right. But being right costs money, particularly when you are fighting a divorce.

For most people, preserving assets and achieving a fair settlement is more important than being right. Pick your battles and only fight the ones that really make sense.

7. Insisting that the judge decide everything.
While you may need to vent your anger or your frustration to the judge in your case, you may not really want a trial. After trial, a judge will render judgment based only on the limited facts presented to him or her, and you will be bound by the judge's decision. You will have much more control over a negotiated settlement which can be nuanced to address some of your concerns. And, of course, the costs of a trial may be astronomical.

Guided by these simple principles, you can avoid becoming one of those terrible divorce stories.

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Article source: Huffington post

A Man Reportedly Ordered To Suppot Ex-Wife's Ice Cream Habit

One of the craziest divorce stories I've heard in a while! 

According to India Today, a Mumbai man -- who, according to his ex, is worth millions of dollars -- complained in divorce proceedings that his ex had wasted all of his money on ice cream.

So what did the Mumbai family court do? The presiding judge reportedly ordered the husband to pay his ex-wife an extra 150 rupees (or US$2.50) per month to buy ice cream. This is in addition to the 85,000 rupees per month (or US$1,396.89) that he was asked to pay in spousal support. It's only fair, right?

It's not the first time a divorce court has handed down an unusual ruling. In February 2012, a judge ordered a man to apologize on Facebook for a negative status he posted about his ex-wife.

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Article source: Huffington Post

How One Child Was Affected by Parents Divorce

Children Of Divorce: How Kids Are Affected By Splits

We asked adult children of divorce to share how their parents’ splits affected their lives in the long run, for better or for worse. 

My parents' divorce would have screwed me up a lot less if they'd bothered telling me about it.
When they split up, I was in elementary school and I had no idea that there were any problems between them. As an adult, I can look back and see that I should've been able to put things together, like the fact that my mother's boyfriends magically showed up whenever Dad went on extended trips, and so forth.

But if my parents fought they hid it well -- with the sole exception of the fight they had the night they separated. (I found out as an adult that my dad had actually caught her in the sack with one of those aforementioned guys.)

That night, my father told me that we were “moving out of state” immediately and that Mom would join us "sometime." I wasn't sure why we had to be gone so fast, but I did my best to try to help with the packing. I was actually excited because I loved traveling and was looking forward to living in a new state.

I had no relationship with my mother following the move. A school year passed and I was left wondering when "sometime" would ever come. I really missed my mother. Every day, I hoped she'd come walking through the door. But I never saw her again -- no letters, no calls, nothing. All I had were memories of what I’d thought was a happy home life. The idea that my mother was in the process of relinquishing custody of me and never wanted to see me or my dad again was something I couldn't even fathom; it never even entered my mind. It can still, to this day, be difficult to understand.

Then, when I was eight, a friend of mine told me that her parents were getting divorced. I didn't really know what it meant at the time: I knew that "divorce" meant that people were somehow fighting or might have to go to court, but it was a vague concept to me. I had also been taught that divorced women were very immoral people, and I was sure that Mom wasn't one of those. My friend said that she had to choose one parent or the other. I mentioned that I was living with just one parent. She asked me if my folks were divorced and suddenly I got the creeps.

That same day, I went home and asked Dad if he and Mom had gotten a divorce. Instead of explaining anything about it, he just blew up and asked me if I were stupid. Of course, they had gotten a divorce! Was I some kind of idiot? Didn't I have any common sense? Why did I think Mom had been gone so long? What was I being sent to school for, if I were just going to come home so stupid? And so on.

I cried for what felt like a week.

As a teenager, I decided that adults couldn't be trusted to tell the whole story about anything, ever. I started wondering how much of the information I was getting at school, church and elsewhere was also a pack of lies. I became a bit of a teenage conspiracy theory nut, looking for things "they" didn't want you to know. "They" -- which to me, meant any given adult anywhere -- had a proven track record of being not only deceitful, but malicious about it when confronted.

When I was in college, I ended up putting my trust in a whole different set of liars: I joined a religious cult. This may make no sense on the surface, but you'd be surprised how much a kid whose trust has been completely eroded can believe in people who claim to have all the answers.

The people who worked with the youth in this particular cult ranged from former hippies to rigid discipline freaks, but I felt I could trust these people because they asserted that they knew more than my parents. Or so they said. They claimed to know why the world was so messed up, and how to fix it. I really wanted to put my trust in something again, and, if this screwed-up world could be repaired, I wanted to do my best to make that happen.

But after some time I became weary of the constant hate mongering, the racism, the treatment of women like cattle, and the just plain craziness of it all. Eventually, I got out.

I look back on this chain of events and see how a lot of trouble could have been avoided if my parents, my mom and dad, my dad and stepmom, would have just had the decency to tell me what was going on.

However, over the years, I've found that I can work around my own mistrust and cynicism. One thing that helped me move on in terms of why my mom and dad kept me in the dark about their divorce was when I realized how young my folks were at the time. They were just trying to muddle through as best as they could. I can't really come down too hard on scared kids for making crappy decisions.
If I had kids, I'm afraid that I might not improve all that much on my parents' performance, and that scares me to the point of not wanting to experiment with other people's lives. It just wouldn't be moral.



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Four Things You Should Never Say After Divorce

Check out this great article from The Huffington Post about four things you should never say to yourself after a divorce!

______________________

Most days, our inner critics tend to fill our heads with all the ways in which we are failing and falling short. Add the ending of a relationship, and it's like your inner critic just got carte blanche access to an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord full of misery inducing opinions about you, your life and your former relationship.

If you don't catch this nasty voice in time, it can keep you reeling for days -- filling your head with stories that may feel true, but really are just a figment of your mind. While you may not be in control of your former significant other, you are in control of the stories that you let run through your mind. Fill your mind with misery-creating stories -- the kind your inner critic loves to feed on -- and you will begin to feel more miserable. Or, trade in the self-sabotage for self-empowerment, and you'll feel peace instead of distress. And let's face it, during and after a divorce, you need all the peace you can get.

So do yourself the favor and banish the following misery-creating statements and stories from your mind. Promise never to say these things to yourself again. A good friend would never say these things to you, and right now, you need to be a best friend to yourself.

Never say:
1. "He loves her more than me."
2. "OMG, he has changed! Why couldn't he be different for me?"
3. "I am going to be alone for the rest of my life."
4. "The best part of my life is over."

Say instead:
1. "His life today has nothing to do with 'how much' he loved me." Love cannot be measured. There is no more or less when it comes to love -- love is love. Love comes in different forms, so if your former partner is in a new relationship, their love is different than yours, but would you want it to be the same? When you compare you always lose. Comparison is a toxic habit. Don't take it up. Focus on yourself and what you are creating for your life today.

2. "We weren't the right fit anymore, and that's okay." Sure he may have changed some since you ended it -- let's hope going through something as major as a divorce woke him up a little. But here's what you need to remember: At the core, he still is who he was with you, and that wasn't what you really wanted or needed. If he was, the relationship would have been enough for you, and it wasn't. It's okay that you weren't the right fit anymore. Better to stop trying to put a round peg in a square hole and get on with finding the best relationship for the great life you want to create for yourself. This is your life, and you are the only one who can make sure it's great.

3. "I am never really alone. There's lots of love in the world if I open my heart to receive it." There is nothing lonelier than being in a relationship that is void of affection, intimacy and deep connection. If that describes your past relationship, you've already experienced loneliness at a level that you never have to again. Understand that the most important relationship in your life is the one you have with yourself and you'll never feel lonely again. If you aren't having a loving, awesome relationship with yourself, now is a great time to start. Not to mention there are all kinds of healthy sources of love in the world just waiting for you -- pets, children, friends, flowers, kind strangers, dancing and spiritual centers, to name a few.

4. "One chapter of my life is complete and I have the power to write the next chapter however I want." You have the power to control your own life, and no man can tell you how to live it. This is exciting, but you must be willing to step into your own self-empowerment. Sure, grieve the end of a chapter. Then get on to writing the next one. Spend the afternoon at a café or in your home or out in nature writing about what this next storyline will entail. Dream big.


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*Article source: Huffington Post

Is Divorce Too Expensive?

Divorce Too Expensive For Poorest Americans, New Study Says

For one-percenters like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, it's easy to get the world's fastest divorce. Their legal split only took two weeks. But for the poorest of Americans, divorce is still a luxury item.
Long-term separations are an alternative for poor couples who cannot afford to legally end their marriages, new research suggests. The research was presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting on Monday.

The longitudinal study looked at 7,272 people who were surveyed on a regular basis between 1979 and 2008. Most people in the study who separated from a spouse reported getting a divorce within three years of the break up.

But 15 percent of people who separated did not get a divorce within the first 10 years and researchers said there was an economic reason for it: They simply could not afford to get divorced, especially when there were children involved. The study found that the married-but-indefinitely-separated group generally had only a high school education, were black or Hispanic and had young children.
"Those with young children may find it difficult to support themselves and their children if they divorce," Zhenchao Qian, study co-author and professor of sociology at Ohio State University, said in a statement. "Divorce may not protect them because their spouse may be unwilling or unable to provide financial support."

In the past, separations were usually linked to strict divorce laws that required one spouse to prove the other did something wrong -- they could have cheated or abandoned their partner. But today, as laws around "no-fault" divorces have become more lenient, researchers from the study suggested long-term separations are mostly done to avoid the financial stress of going through a divorce.
There is no definitive cost to getting a divorce -- the cheapest ones can cost as little as several hundred dollars. Hiring a lawyer, who might charge anywhere between $200 and $400 per hour, to sort out child support payments can add up to thousands of dollars. But the financial costs and benefits of divorce extend beyond the lawyers and the paperwork. Married couples, especially those with children, get substantial benefits from filing joint tax returns or sharing health care coverage.
But estranged marriages may not be limited just to low-income couples as the study indicated. A 2010 article in The New York Times suggested a new trend toward long-term separations among older professional-class couples who appear less inclined to get a legal divorce -- though perhaps more by choice rather than by necessity.

Financial reasons such as shared real estate, retirement savings and health care coverage appeared to be the primary motivation for staying married by living apart.

"People split up and have these God-awful joint custody agreements, so you would think that they stay separated for the kids' sake, but I am not seeing that," couples therapist Toni Coleman told The New York Times. "It usually comes down to the money."

While there are some financial benefits to long-term separation, there are also risks in remaining legally married, such as being liable for a spouse's debt or having to share earnings (even windfalls like a lottery win) that are considered community property in some states.

But for couples who think that a separation only makes the heart grow fonder, the Ohio State study also revealed some disappointing news: 5 percent of couples who separated attempted to get back together -- but half of those ended up getting a divorce anyway.

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*article from Huffiington Post 

Getting Back into the Dating Game: Life After Divorce

Life after divorce can be overwhelming for the average divorcee. Some become serial daters for a few years followed by a committed, long-term relationship. Others jump out of the frying pan and into the flame by walking down the aisle right away. My piece of advice is plain and simple: get out there. As simple as it may seem, many men and women do not know where to start. Men and woman begin this process differently.

Women: You need to piece yourself back together! Anything you let fall apart when you were married, mend it. Love yourself again for who you are. Once you begin to love yourself again, men will follow suit. If you exude confidence, you can attract any type of man you want. The biggest turn on is confidence.

Men: Be a typical guy, jump into bed with all the girls you meet and get it out of your system. Falling into "lust" is not going to find you a wife. Once you've "sown your oats" then you should be ready for a committed relationship. Be aware there will be a band-aid and she will unfortunately be the one to get hurt. Soon after that, you will be ready to seriously start dating. Eventually, you will find her -- when the timing is right.

You may be asking yourself, so how exactly do you suggest I put myself out there? Putting yourself out there can be as easy as widening your interests or finally doing that one thing you have always wanted to do but never had the chance. Join a club or a new gym. If you do this, you're bound to meet people -- even if it's just friends. By making friends, you meet their friends and consequently you are continually widening your circle, which can eventually lead to finding "the one." If you are still a bit shell-shocked or shy, the best thing you can do is try online dating.

Online dating allows you to be the person you want to be. The screen allows you to say -- or type -- the things that you may be scared to say in person. It allows you to bring out the real you, without any insecurities holding you back. Online dating allows you to sit in the comfort of your home, in your pajamas, eating ice cream, while getting to know new people. Best of all, you're putting yourself out there.

Rip off the band-aid that is holding you back and take a leap of faith. Put yourself back together, exude confidence and try something new -- whether it's signing up for an online dating service or asking out that person you've been eyeing. Life is about timing; when it's right it will happen and you will find the right person.

 

 

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Article source: Huffington Post