Your Heart May Be Broken In Your Divorce; Don't Let Your Wallet Be

The average cost of an uncontested divorce in Canada is $1,845, but a contested divorce can cost anywhere from $6,145 to $87,974, with the average being $13,638, according to Canadian Lawyer’s 2015 legal fees survey. But this doesn’t factor in moving fees, new living expenses, the division of your assets and debts, and possibly child and spousal support.

In this blog posting Melissa Leong offers 13 tips to having a money smart divorce:

BEFORE THE DIVORCE
1. Educate yourself about your finances
2. Make yourself a budget
3. Check your emotions
4. Don’t do stupid sh*t that you’ll pay for later
5. Consider your options for the divorce process

DURING NEGOTIATIONS
6. Understand how much you may pay or receive in child support
7. Be aware that spousal support is not a given
8. When you split up, you split everything, including debt
9. Be mindful when choosing your half of the pie
10. Don’t anchor yourself to your home at all costs
11. Consult an expert about legal and financial issues

AFTER THE DIVORCE
12. Be aware and live within your means
13. Don’t be afraid to revisit the agreement terms

Children of Divorce Deserve Special Holiday Attention

We all know the holiday season is fraught with stress, overwhelm and pressure for parents. But we are not alone. For children facing their parents’ divorce or who are experiencing their first holiday season post-divorce, this can be an especially tough time of year.

For children coping with divorce and its aftermath, our challenge as parents and co-parents is to create new traditions and activities that can replace the memories of family holidays in the past. In this blog posting Rosalind Sedacca offers some suggestions for helping your children through the holiday season in the best possible spirits.

• Show compassion
• Model Responsible Behavior With Your Ex
• Start Creating Wonderful New Memories

Finding A New Kind Of Partnership Through Divorce

When you're facing a major life change, it helps to talk to someone who's already been through it. All Things Considered is connecting people on either side of a shared experience, and they're letting us eavesdrop on their conversations.

In this conversation, Sarah Weeldreyer, 37, is a stay-at-home-mom with two kids, has been married for 11 years, and is going through a divorce.

But she's not looking for a fight.

"There's this expectation that you want to hurt this other person, that you want to damage them and leave them forever, and I just don't think that, at least for me, is true," she says.

Instead, Sarah wants to go through a divorce in a way that "rebuilds a relationship that's different, but still healthy and helpful for everyone going forward."

Melissa Smith was in a similar situation last year — and blogged about it. After making it through her own divorce amicably, she's able to offer Sarah some advice on how to get through the worst of it.

The 4 Elements of Divorce

When most people are going through a divorce they don’t think about the various elements that come into play during this difficult process. They are often overwhelmed with emotions that come up during this extremely difficult time of their lives. In this excellent blog posting, Susan Ingram writes that they often become stuck in the disputed details of their lives, and are unable to see the Big Picture of what is in play and thus understand the essential interaction between the 4 elements of divorce.

Those elements are:

• The legal divorce
• The financial divorce
• The children's divorce
• The emotional divorce

If you or someone you know could benefit from assistance in decision making during a divorce, contact Falmouth Mediation at 508-566-4159 for a free, no-obligation, private, confidential consultation. We will be happy to discuss the key details of your situation, address any concerns, and help you decide if divorce mediation would be beneficial.

7 Steps to Balance Financial Inequality Between Co-Parents

During the early stages of separation a fear many of our clients voice is that their children will prefer being with their more affluent parent because of his/her superior financial capabilities.  While it is true that the more affluent parent, either by income or family largesse,  is able to provide more and differently than the less affluent parent, the effect this has on the child’s relationship with this parent has more to do with how he/she handles the differences than the differences themselves.

In this blog posting Lisa Brick offers seven steps to provide a way forward that can maintain the love and closeness you have and want to continue with your children while you adjust to your changing circumstances.

1. Recognize that all that glitters is not gold.
2. Put your bitterness towards your circumstances and your ex away when you are with your children.
3. Recognize that the love and opportunities your children have in their lives is a blessing for them, regardless of the source.
4. Focus on what you can provide your children rather than what you can’t.
5. Be innovative with how you procure what you and your children need and want.
6. Educate yourself about money and finances using the plethora of information available on the web, in libraries, and in bookstores.
7. Look inside yourself and explore the ideas you inherited around money and finances.

By following these seven steps to balance the impact of the income and resource difference between you and your ex you will meet your new circumstances with greater equanimity, teach your children the power in using resources respectfully and  effectively, and provide them with solid and useful information about earning, saving, spending, and investing.  

Spousal Maintenance (Alimony) and Retirement

In Massachusetts the spousal maintenance (alimony) statute provides an advisory schedule, based on the length of the marriage, for the court to consider in determining the term of maintenance. Paradoxically, however, as Clare Piro writes in this excellent blog posting, a longer-term marriage, which would typically result in a longer term of support, may in fact do just the opposite. Why? Because the paying spouse may be likely to retire before the end of the term.

In court, the retirement of the paying spouse, if known, could be considered in deciding the duration of maintenance. If it is not known at that time, the paying spouse would need to go back to court to seek a modification if he/she wishes to decrease the length of the support.

In mediation, you can have a discussion that takes into consideration all of the relevant factors without anyone having to petition the court, such as:

• The age and health of both parties;
• The likelihood that the paying spouse will work beyond a typical retirement age;
• The parties’ retirement plans before they decided to separate, and whether they need to be revised after a separation.

A balance needs to be struck between:

• The need of the spouse receiving support to have sufficient income; and
• The desire of the spouse paying support to retire at a reasonable age and reap the benefits of a long career.

How To Help Your Kids Through a Divorce

Dissolving a marriage takes an emotional toll on everyone involved, including (and especially) the children. In this excellent blog posting, Roseann Vanella writes that kids react in a number of ways to divorce, depending on their age, personality, and the specific family dynamics and circumstances. Initially, the reaction is often one of shock, anger, worry, fear, sadness, frustration, uncertainty and similar emotions. Over time, most kids learn to adjust to their new reality, but there are sure to be some ups and downs during the adjustment period.

To help kids cope with the divorce, it is important to be proactive early in the process. Try to understand what your children are going through, and be sensitive about their feelings. Here are some other steps parents can take to help children more easily adjust to their new circumstances:

• Break the News Together
• Keep the Routines of the Children as Consistent as Possible
• Do NOT Argue in Front of the Children
• Do NOT Speak Negatively of the Other Parent
• Stay Involved in the Lives of your Children

Yeah Right. Court Will Make Things Better.

How you go about resolving the conflict between you and your spouse could change everything.

If you have 3 minutes, watch this excellent video by Garry Direnfeld and consider what is surely one of your biggest decisions.

The Main Benefits Of Mediation In Divorce Cases

When faced with the prospect of an impending divorce, most people immediately think about going to court. However, the thought of dragging your personal life before a judge can often be terrifying for many individuals, and can add extra stress, anxiety and upset to a situation that is already tense and in some cases, unwanted.

In this excellent article, Brandon Jones writes that many married couples who are planning to end their marriage do not realize that there’s actually a calmer, less daunting alternative to the courtroom in divorce mediation. Mediation is performed by an unbiased third party, known as a mediator, who will help the couple to come to agreements on various issues in a safe, secure environment outside of the courtroom. Mediation can make divorce cases much easier to deal with for all parties if they do go to court, and in many cases, mediation can even help couples to avoid dragging their divorce through the court altogether.

Less Daunting

With the help of a trained third-party, you and your spouse will both be able to speak without arguing and address the most important issues that you will both need to face during this stressful time, such as decisions about finances or children that you have together. Divorce mediation will allow you to speak clearly and openly, encourage you to compromise, and help you to get the results that you need.

Better for Children

For many married couples who have children, divorce is a stressful ordeal for all of the family. Since mediation is a much less aggressive, calmer method of working things out, it’s not only good for parents’ stress levels, but it can be a far better choice for your children, too.

Cost Effective

Another benefit of choosing mediation over going to court when it comes to getting divorced is that it almost always costs less than litigation.