Staying married and working on your relationship is easier than getting divorced.
In most cases, this fact is true. If you and your spouse have children, this particular fact can be considered the truest of them all, because even if you are both able to rise above your differences and work together for the benefit of the children, they will still be affected by the split.
And in almost every instance, men remarry within 1 to 3 years following a divorce, and women within 5 years, if at all. In each case, parties stated that if they’d known how difficult the divorce process would be, financially and emotionally, they would have worked a lot harder at their marriage and made the changes to stay together.
Remember, whatever you refuse to deal with in your marriage, will still be there after your divorce. You will have to look at it, and deal with it, before you can have another relationship with someone new anyway. Why not make the attempt to change what needs changing and see what happens before giving up completely? If you and your partner can obtain counseling before the marriage is at the point of no return, do so.
You are going to have to consider selling the house.
This is true more often than people realize, and depending upon what state you live in, the Court may even order that the marital domicile be sold with the proceeds split; particularly if one spouse cannot buy out the other in equity.
If you and your spouse can come to an agreement that the Judge will allow, and you can each afford to maintain an adequate and comfortable lifestyle both for yourselves and any children involved, you may be able to work something out that allows one party to stay in the house (typically with the children), while the other helps with mortgage payments until the remaining spouse is able to either obtain their own mortgage or come up with an equity payment to give the other partner.
It is very rare for a Judge to both award the house and children to one spouse and require the other spouse to pay the mortgage and child support as well. If you cannot afford to keep the house on one paycheck and still live comfortably, you are going to have to sell the house.
You will go to jail for failure to pay child support.
There are a lot of people out there falling on hard times between unemployment and dwindling jobs in certain areas of the country. If you have a court order that states you must pay a certain amount of child support to your spouse, or if your support is court ordered to be removed from your wages, and you fail to pay in either instance, you will be in contempt of court.
In the situation where the amount is simply paid to your former spouse, you can, perhaps, work out an agreement that will not require court intervention to allow you to pay a smaller amount every week, and catch up at a time when you are in a better position to do so.
However, if you have a garnishment, or your payment goes directly through the court, if you do not file a motion with the court to reduce or suspend your child support during periods of unemployment, you will create an arrearage of back support that will need to be paid or you will be arrested and put in jail until you are able to pay. When the court discovers that your payments have not been made, they will issue a warrant, and you will be arrested for non-payment of child support.
Getting Both Alimony and Child Support is a Dwindling Statistic
This is another true statement. In almost 85% of divorce cases, alimony, or spousal support, is not awarded. And if you are receiving child support payments, you can expect the amount you might receive to be reduced by that amount as well.
There are some exceptions of course. In cases where a wife has put a husband through school for instance, or has stayed home to care for children in a marriage of at least 10 years, the wife will have a chance of collecting some alimony. That is, at least until she can re-enter the workforce full-time or retrain with new skills. And if she has paid his way through school, and has proof, she will be reimbursed in almost every instance for her contribution to his education, whether there are children in the marriage or not.
With the cost of living being so high, and so many women not even receiving full and regular child support payments, alimony has become a definite ‘luxury’ item decision in divorce cases involving minor children. The Court’s stance seems to be, everyone can work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have questions about this posting or are interested in Divorce, Immigration, or Estate Law in RI or MA contact Massachusetts and Rhode Island Divorce Lawyer Rui P. Alves at 401-942-3100 or CONTACT him via email.
No comments:
Post a Comment