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Signs a Divorce May Be Imminent
The realization that a marriage is coming to an end and a divorce is likely may catch many people by surprise. It is understandable to fight the reality that your marriage, which you vowed would last forever, just isn’t working.
No one goes into a marriage believing it could one day result in meetings with divorce lawyers, and discussions of alimony, child support or custody agreements. However, there are some signs that a divorce may be likely.
What are Some of the Signals of Divorce?
Whether your marriage lasted just a few months or several years, those that end in divorce tend to have one or more of these elements in common.
- No conflict resolution: Couples who can’t work together to solve problems either end up fighting as means of resolving their differences or just avoid the issues altogether.
Make Sure Your Prenuptial Agreement is Valid
When the Illinois Uniform Premarital Agreement Act went into effect it applied to all premarital agreements executed on or after January 1, 1990. So while premarital agreements, also called prenuptial agreements or “prenups,” have been in use for more than 25 years, every year a number of these contracts are voided for a variety of reasons.
Without the help of an experienced lawyer who focuses their practice on matters of prenuptial agreements, you could watch as your spouse walks off with a lion’s share of the marital assets. Understanding the basics is a good start toward protecting yourself in the event of a divorce.
What Might Invalidate Your Prenup?
While assistance from an attorney is always recommended when it comes to any type of contract, here is a summary of the main causes why your prenuptial agreement might be invalid.
Helping Your Children Survive a Divorce
While any divorce can be a stressful time for the adults experiencing it, adults generally possess the coping skills and access to resources that allow them to manage the anxiety that accompanies such an event. Children, however, react to the divorce of their parents in many different ways depending on age, gender, personality, and the circumstances surrounding the divorce.
A number of published studies indicate that children of divorce tend to experience physical, emotional and spiritual consequences as a result of their parent’s divorce. Typical among these are:
- Poor academic performance
- Diminished emotional well-being
- Changes in social habits and/or behavior
- Increased aggression or isolation
- Changes in appetite and physical care
In some cases, children of divorce may go through their daily routine pretending that nothing is bothering them and everything is normal. While that may seem ideal, bottling up one’s emotions about a subject as volatile as divorce can be just as harmful as drastic changes in mood or behavior.
Intellectual Property and Divorce
For entrepreneurial and inventive spouses considerations for divorce do not conclude with decisions regarding income to be calculated for child support or who inherits a spouse’s business debt. An often neglected, but uniformly important consideration is the topic of intellectual property
How is Intellectual Property Treated in Divorce
Intellectual Property is also called IP for short. It refers to the litany of legal rights that attach to an expressed idea. Put another way intellectual property is the legal defense of your mental work. Intellectual property can include copyrights, trademarks, or trade secrets.
When intellectual property becomes contentious, it usually rises from disagreements in valuation. Intellectual property is generally valued using the same determinations used to value real property. It is a complicated matter because of how IP is viewed legally. Intellectual property is viewed as unique and as such is appraised according to future market conditions.
Will Separate Bank Accounts Create a Happier Marriage and Prevent Divorce?
One of the most common reasons for divorce, along with cheating, is financial issues. Studies show that couples who argue about money are more likely to split. If you are considering divorce and are wondering whether your financial future may be at risk, call our Illinois divorce attorneys before making any decisions about bank accounts.
What is the Percentage of Married Couples with Separate Bank Accounts?
Although the number of married couples opening separate bank accounts is increasing (a TD Bank survey shows that 42 percent of couples have both individual and joint bank accounts), it remains taboo for spouses to maintain individual bank accounts.
However, there are several reasons that married couples should go against the grain and opt for separate bank accounts:
How your Social Media Practices Can Damage your Child Custody Case
On May 3, 2017, YouTube stars Michael and Heather Martin lost custody of their two children as a result of a video they posted on YouTube. In the video, Michael and Heather Martin spilled invisible ink on the carpet in one of the children’s rooms. They then blamed their children for ruining the carpet, and the children cried as their parents yelled and cursed at them. Finally, Heather and Michael Martin laughed and told their children it was a prank. As seen in the video, the children were not amused.
The video of the prank went viral and prompted the creation of an online petition calling on Child Protective Services (C.P.S.) to remove the children from Michael and Heather Martin’s home. C.P.S. took the children in and Rose Hall, the children’s biological mother, was granted emergency custody.
This situation highlights the impact social media can have in situations like child custody. Your use of social media should be even more stringent if you are going through a child custody battle. Electronic evidence in the form of social media posts and pictures can be used in court if the evidence meets a certain criterion.
What Is Worse: Getting Fired or Getting a Divorce?
“I think we should part ways.”
Who would you rather hear these words from? Your employer or your significant other?
Last week, What Works Center for Wellbeing and the University of East Anglia found in a study that men and women who are terminated do not fully recover emotionally. However, the researchers saw that people who are divorced do completely heal at some point in their life.
What Works Center for Wellbeing discovered that getting fired leads to a more significant decrease in life satisfaction than getting divorced or widowed does. This is because people who are unemployed are increasingly discontent in the years following their termination. With a stagnant economy, job seekers—especially those who were fired—are finding it difficult to obtain employment. This causes job seekers’ self-confidence and self-worth to take a nosedive.
Calculating Child Support When the Paying Parent Has Multiple Court Orders
While sometimes determining child support is a straightforward matter, other cases present difficulties and gray areas. In these situations, an attorney is often required to assess the financial situation of the parents and determine how much is owed for the support of the child or children at issue.
One such complicating factor is if a parent has more than one child support obligation. For example, if a father has children with two different mothers, there may be more than one child support order, which may affect the obligations owed.
Child Support Law in Illinois
To understand the mechanics of this calculation, we must first review the general law on child support calculations in Illinois. Beginning July 1, 2017, Illinois will be using the “income shares” method of determining child support. Under this model, courts will require each parent to prove their net income and then use tables to set the child support amount.
Modifying Orders in Divorce
Divorce settlements and orders should always be drafted to address the future. The reason is because the decisions made during a divorce many times controls how your family grows after a divorce. Even in cases where careful planning and consideration is used in drafting an order in a divorce, life changes may dictate that the order may need to be modified at a later date.
What Can Modified?
In order to modify an order handed down in a divorce proceeding the very first thing you must do is petition the court. This is where the help of a dauntless DuPage County family lawyer will be able to help. The types of orders that one can petition the court to modify include:
Mistakes to Avoid in Divorce
When progressing through a divorce in Illinois, spouses have to make important financial decisions. This must be done while tolerating a great deal of emotional stress. Many times this volatile situation can cause people to make unnecessary yet consequential mistakes. A substantial mistake made regarding finance is operating and making decisions without having ample information. Without the information required to make sound decisions, the outcome of a divorce can be left to chance, or even worse, the other spouse.
Budgeting Through Divorce
Another common mistake made when spouses are going through a divorce is not adequately budgeting. When spouses are married, they become accustomed to having the financial resources of two incomes. When a marriage ends in divorce, the spouses are forced to adapt their financial decision making to address the fact that they no longer have the other spouse’s income available. Not making a conscious and focused consideration about the decreased income that spouses have available to them can lead to serious financial shortcomings that an Illinois court may not be able to rectify.
Ready to Get Started?
To schedule a free consultation with Aurora divorce attorney, Matthew M. Williams, call 630-409-8184 or fill out the form below.
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