Posted on September 27, 2017 in Domestic Violence

Domestic violence between spouses can lead to or result from divorce. A person may choose to end his or her marriage because his or her spouse is abusive. In other cases, asking for a divorce may trigger a spouse’s threatening behavior. Either way, domestic violence changes how a divorce is settled. The divorce court will likely favor the victim in matters of allocation of parental responsibilities and division of property.

Order of Protection

With any case of domestic violence, the victim’s first responsibility is to protect him or herself, as well as other victims. A victim spouse should immediately seek an order of protection against the abusive spouse. The order includes several benefits for the victim spouse, such as:

• Forcing the abuser to leave the marital home;
• Prohibiting physical or electronic contact with the victims; and

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 Posted on September 25, 2017 in Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements

Creating a premarital agreement is negotiating aspects of your divorce before you get married. If you have been through a divorce before, you remember how complex those negotiations were. If this is your first marriage, the process may seem overwhelming and intimidating. When thinking about your premarital agreement, it helps to remember its purpose. You and your future spouse are determining how your properties would be divided in a theoretical divorce without the animosity of the divorce clouding your judgment. When making a premarital agreement, you should anticipate financial decisions that would need to be made during a divorce.

Premarital Properties

If you divorce, your properties would be classified as either marital or nonmarital. Your marital properties would be divided equitably between the two of you, while you would keep all of your nonmarital property. Distinguishing between marital and nonmarital property becomes more difficult when spouses have been married for several years. The clearest distinction is which properties were purchased before the marriage. Your premarital agreement can identify and protect your nonmarital assets, such as:

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 Posted on September 22, 2017 in Divorce

Despite its general acceptance in society, some couples view divorce as an unacceptable choice during their marriage. To them, divorce means quitting on their relationship and admitting that their marriage has failed. They believe it shows more strength to try to work through their differences or tolerate the parts of their marriage that make them unhappy. Other couples are bound to their marriages because of a moral conviction that divorce is a sin. However, staying together at all costs does not make a marriage a success. Couples need divorce to be an option during unhappy marriages.

Stable but Unhealthy

During their wedding vows, couples often promise to be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives. Thus, they may believe that staying together is the best indicator of a successful marriage. With such a standard, a marriage is guaranteed to be successful if the spouses refuse to ever consider divorce. However, it is debatable whether a marriage is a success if the relationship is marred by:

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 Posted on September 20, 2017 in Divorce

Parties negotiating a divorce settlement must walk a fine line between protecting their interests and cooperating with the other side. A person who acquiesces too often may end up with an unfavorable settlement. However, being uncompromising can prevent the sides from reaching an agreement. When spouses are unable to settle their divorce on their own, a court is forced to make important decisions for them. The resulting divorce settlement may leave both parties unsatisfied. If you plan to divorce, it is in your best interest to reach an agreement with your spouse on a settlement. You can improve your chances of a healthy negotiation by planning your approach to the process:

1. Identify Your Priorities: Arguing every aspect of your divorce will slow down negotiations and create a combative atmosphere. Before negotiations start, you should determine which aspects of the settlement are most important to you. Save your arguments for those aspects, and be more willing to compromise on other aspects.

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 Posted on September 18, 2017 in Divorce

A popular myth about marriage in the U.S. is that half of all first marriages end in divorce. Data says that the divorce rate peaked at 40 percent in 1980 and has been declining since. Thus, it is false to assume that a marriage is just as likely to fail as succeed because it is a first marriage. However, there is a demographic that is more likely to divorce from their first marriage. They are people who:

• Marry when they are younger than 25;
• Do not have a college education; and
• Are in a lower income class.

These characteristics identify people who are getting married when they are still immature.

Marriage Is Work

Young people are excited when they fall in love for the first time. They feel a mixture of physical attraction, pure adoration and enjoyment in having fun together. A young couple may believe that these feelings are enough to support a long-lasting marriage. However, people with this immature view of marriage do not understand how it works. People in a marriage must:

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 Posted on September 15, 2017 in Divorce and Finances

Spouses share their debts during a marriage. When they decide to divorce, those debts are split between the two sides, with each spouse taking responsibility for paying a portion of the debt. However, creditors hold divorced spouses equally liable for their marital debts, regardless of the terms of the divorce settlement. If one divorced spouse fails to pay his or her share of the debt, the creditor will go after both spouses. A couple facing overwhelming debt can file for bankruptcy to either discharge the debt or create a repayment plan. Bankruptcy may allow a divorcing couple to reduce or eliminate the shared debt that will tie them together after their marriage has ended. Couples should consider filing for bankruptcy before they divorce.

Types of Bankruptcy

People most commonly file for either chapter 7 or chapter 13 bankruptcy. The differences between the two may determine which type a divorcing couple prefers and when they want to file:

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 Posted on September 06, 2017 in Divorce

When you are starting your divorce, you may take comfort in the belief that you can rely upon your friends to provide emotional support during the process. Unfortunately, your divorce can change your relationship with your friends. Some may try to distance themselves from you by:

• Treating you coldly;
• Declining social invitations; or
• Not inviting you to social events.

You may feel betrayed because these friends have abandoned you when you need them. Before completely writing these people off, you should understand how divorce can affect people’s friendships.

Staying Impartial

Spouses often share friends during their marriage. When someone is the friend of both people in a divorce, he or she is put in an awkward situation:

• If the friend sides with one spouse, he or she may lose the friendship with the other spouse; or
• If the friend tries to maintain a relationship with both spouses, he or she may become a conduit for the spouses’ continuing arguments.

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 Posted on September 04, 2017 in Child Support

In July, Illinois enacted a long-anticipated overhaul of its child support payment law. Whereas the previous system always placed the financial burden on the party with less parenting time, the income shares model more equitably splits the parenting cost between the parties. The court combines the parents’ net monthly incomes and calculates the percentage of the combined incomes that each parent’s individual income accounts for. The court consults a chart that quantifies the expected monthly child-related expenses, based on the number of children and combined incomes. Each parent is responsible for paying for a percentage of the child-related expenses that equals the percentage that his or her income makes up of the combined incomes.

In most cases, the parent who is allocated a majority of the parenting time will still receive child support payments from the other parent. However, the amount will vary more than it did under the previous system, depending on:

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 Posted on August 29, 2017 in Cohabitation

Society has become more accepting of couples who cohabitate without marriage, but laws do not yet treat them equally. Some states, including Illinois, prohibit common law marriages, in which couples act and present themselves as married but never obtain a legal union. While this may limit a couple’s rights when they are together, it also affects them when their relationship ends. Illinois laws state that couples who dissolve their marriages or civil unions are entitled to an equitable division of their shared properties. Because Illinois does not recognize common law marriages, cohabitating couples do not have the same property rights unless they created their own separation agreement.

Legal Precedent

Illinois’ Supreme Court has twice decided that cohabitating couples are not required to equitably divide their properties after their relationships end:

• A 1979 decision on the case of Hewitt v. Hewitt said that a person in an unmarried relationship does not have a legal claim to an equal share of his or her former partner's property. An appeals court later stated that it believed the decision was made to discourage cohabitation and children being born to unmarried couples.

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 Posted on August 24, 2017 in Divorce

Going through a divorce can dominate all aspects of your life, including your job. You may have previously tried to keep your work life separate from your personal life. Your problems from home should not be brought to work, and vice versa. With the exception of the death or illness of a family member, a divorce is the most time-consuming and emotionally draining personal issue you can have. If you have a full-time job with a heavy workload, your divorce is likely to decrease your work productivity.

Effects on Work

Several researchers have tried to measure the monetary cost to employers when employees are going through divorces. The exact number varies by study, but the average company loses at least tens of thousands of dollars each year due to reduced productivity from divorcing employees. There are many ways a divorce can affect you at work:

• Divorce meetings and hearings can interfere with your work schedule;

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