Posted on June 07, 2019 in Divorce and Finances

Dividing debts from your marriage can be one of the trickier parts of a divorce agreement. As an equitable division state, Illinois requires divorcees to split their debts in a way that is fair to both parties. Giving each spouse half of the debt may not be an equitable agreement, and a divorce court has the right to divide debt in a way that it deems to be equitable. For instance, a spouse with greater assets after the divorce may also receive a greater share of the debt. Divorcees also must consider whether a debt belongs to an individual or both parties.

Individual Debts

A debt belongs to an individual spouse if the creditor holds only that spouse liable for repaying the debt. You can usually identify an individual debt if:

• It was created before you were married or after you were legally separated; or
• The debt contract lists only one person’s name as the owner.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 04, 2019 in Child Custody

People often think of being a single parent as a hardship that both parent and child must overcome. To be sure, it is optimal for children to grow up in a two-parent household. Being a single parent after divorce means no more sharing parental tasks when the children are with you. You have complete responsibility for the children during your parenting time. You will likely have a tighter budget because you are primarily relying on your own income. Your children may have a difficult time adjusting to living in a different home with each parent. You can help yourself through single parenthood by understanding that there are still some advantages:

1. Your Home Can Be Less Hostile: A bad marriage puts stress on yourself and your children because there is frequent tension that prevents people from relaxing. Simple tasks can become daunting because they start an argument between you and your spouse. You and your co-parent will each be happier apart, which will create a healthier home for you and your children.

   Continue Reading ››

 Posted on June 01, 2019 in Divorce

Losing your job while in the middle of divorce will cause great upheaval in the process. Your regular income helps determine many parts of your divorce agreement, such as the division of property, child support, and spousal maintenance. It can be difficult to establish your income when you are still looking for a new job. Sudden unemployment should not halt your divorce process, but you will need to consider how losing your job changes what you need from your divorce.

Impact of Unemployment

While losing your job threatens your financial security, it can give you leverage to ask for more in your divorce agreement:

• Because Illinois equitably divides marital properties during divorce, you can receive more than half of the marital properties to make up for lost income;
• A lower income can lower your share of the child support obligation – at least until you get a new job; and

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 30, 2019 in Spousal Maintenance

Though modern households often have two working parents, it is still not uncommon for one parent to stay home and take care of the children. Stay-at-home parents face a unique set of worries with it comes to divorce. If you are a stay-at-home parent, your spouse may have provided you with a sense of stability, but as that disappears, you are likely facing a great deal of uncertainty. Now, you may find yourself worrying about things you never thought you would have to worry about, like where you and your children will live and how you will be able to provide for your children.

Fortunately, there are ways you can address these issues when going through your divorce. Specific issues that other divorcing parents may not have to deal with, such as spousal maintenance, suddenly become extremely important to your divorce case. Even issues that most divorcing couples have to deal with, such as property division and child support, can be different when one spouse was a stay-at-home parent. Here are a few tips that may help stay-at-home parents better navigate divorce:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 29, 2019 in Children and Divorce

Divorce puts an emotional strain on the children in the family, which can affect their behavior. Teenage children can be particularly troublesome because they can be exposed to bad influences that could get them into serious trouble. In the worst scenarios, an emotionally distraught teen may become involved in criminal or dangerous activities. As a parent, you are responsible for protecting your children and teaching them the difference between right and wrong. You can utilize your parenting time and allocation of parental responsibilities to help your teen through this difficult period.

A Parent’s Role

Being a parent after a divorce means more than providing for the basic living needs of the children and making sure they are attending school. Parents have an irreplaceable role in their children’s emotional development by:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 26, 2019 in Child Support

Becoming permanently disabled does not eliminate your child support obligation after a divorce, but it can change what you pay. People who live off of disability benefits typically have less income than before, which allows them to modify their child support payments. If you are receiving Social Security Disability Insurance, your children may be eligible to receive SSDI dependent benefits as well. In shared parenting situations, these payments would go directly towards child support.

What Are SSDI Dependent Benefits?

The purpose of SSDI dependent benefits is to help a disabled parent support his or her children who rely on the parent’s income. A child can qualify for SSDI dependent benefits if he or she is:

• Younger than 18 and unmarried;
• Younger than 19 and enrolled full-time in a secondary school; or

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 23, 2019 in Divorce

It is understandable and maybe even expected that you will start dating again after your divorce. How soon depends on how quickly you are able to move past the pain of divorce. It can take months to years for someone to be emotionally ready to enter a new romantic relationship. Dating after divorce is different for many people because they may have children from their previous marriage. You need to understand how your dating decisions may affect your children and your ability to be a parent. Here are three tips for dating as a divorced parent:

1. Be Honest with Your Children About Dating: You may be worried about how your children will react to your decision to start dating, but not telling will make them more upset when they eventually find out. Before going on dates, you should talk to your children about the decision and what it means for them. Be honest in telling them that you are lonely in a way that only a relationship with another adult can satisfy. Emphasize that being their parent is still your most important job and that no one you meet will replace them or their other parent.

   Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 23, 2019 in Family Law

The number of babies born to unwed mothers has dramatically increased in the past 50 years or so. According to the Pew Research Center, around 5 percent of births in 1960 were to unmarried women. Today, the number of babies born to unmarried mothers is somewhere around 40 percent. While the acceptance of birth outside of marriage has grown, many mothers now find that they must go about other ways of establishing paternity for their children.

In the state of Illinois, paternity can be established in one of four ways: through assumed paternity, through a signed and completed Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity, through an Administrative Paternity Order or through an Order of Paternity.

Assumed Paternity

One of the most common ways of establishing paternity is through assumed paternity. The state of Illinois assumes that when a child is born to a married mother, the husband is the father of the child. If the mother was married or in a civil union when the child was born or within 300 days before the child was born, the husband is legally presumed to be the father of the child. If the mother was not married during that time, she must go about establishing paternity through one of the other ways.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 20, 2019 in Alimony / Maintenance

You and your spouse may have paid for life insurance during your marriage to financially protect each other in case one of you died. Now that you are getting divorced, what you need from a life insurance plan has changed. It makes sense to remove your spouse as a life insurance beneficiary because you do not want him or her to profit from your death. You can make your children the sole beneficiaries of the plan or cancel the plan if you do not have children. However, keeping a former spouse as a life insurance beneficiary can provide financial backing for spousal maintenance payments after a divorce.

Monetary Security

A court awards spousal maintenance when one spouse was reliant on the other to pay for their accustomed standard of living. If you will receive maintenance after your divorce, being a beneficiary on your former spouse’s life insurance policy will assure that you will be financially supported in the event of his or her untimely death. Your former spouse may change the life insurance plan to reflect the fact that you are divorced, such as:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on May 16, 2019 in Child Custody

Getting a divorce when you have children is much different than getting a divorce when you do not have children. Couples who divorce and have children often face a more complicated and stressful situation than couples who do not have children. With the addition of children, there are many different things that must be addressed before you can finalize your divorce. In the state of Illinois, couples are required to have a parenting plan in place before their divorce can be completed. A parenting plan is a document that details the agreement between the couple and outlines many of the issues and procedures relating to the children, including how parenting time will be allocated and how decision-making responsibilities will be handled.

Before you go to court about your parenting plan, you must first attend mediation. Illinois courts believe that families benefit from the use of mediation when issues need to be settled, but they also understand that mediation does not work for everyone. If you and your spouse cannot come to an agreement during mediation, you will have to take your case to court where a judge will make determinations about your case.

Continue Reading ››