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Post-Divorce Check List
Once a divorce is granted, there are still many things a person has to do to ensure all official and/or legal connections with their now ex-spouse are taken care of. The divorce decree ends your marriage, but you still need to make contact with various entities to ensure that your ex-spouse no longer has access or benefit of things to which they are no longer entitled.
The best way to do this is to make a list of the particulars you will have to change. Some of the items that may be on your task list include:
- All testamentary documents that you have drafted will need to be updated. Make sure you change the beneficiaries on any will and trusts you have, otherwise your ex-spouse would still be able to inherit your assets and property if something should happen to you.
- If there are any other entities where your spouse is named beneficiary, those should be changed as well. You will want to remove your ex-spouse as a beneficiary from insurance policies, bank and stock accounts, and any other financial accounts you may have. The only time this should not be done is if the divorce settlement says differently. For example, if you are paying spousal support, the judge may have ordered you to keep your spouse as a beneficiary on a life insurance policy for the duration of your alimony obligation. There may also need to be changes made to retirement accounts, such as a partial roll over into one spouse’s name, depending on the divorce settlement.
Hold on Tight: Tips for Surviving the Holidays as a Blended Family
Although many strive for a personal rendition of the idyllic Norman Rockwell holiday when the winter season comes, those facing the challenges of a blended family may only revisit feelings of loss, sadness and even anger, often emotions associated with a recent divorce or remarriage.
Noted professionals offer numerous suggestions to ease the tension between blended families during the holiday season.
Fran C. Dickson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Communication at Eastern Kentucky University and featured contributor to Communications Currents, a publication of the National Communication Association, offers the following advice to blended families as means for exhibiting better behaviors throughout the holiday season.
Bridging the Generation Gap
Dickson believes that the best way to avoid disagreements over holiday expectations or visiting schedules between the younger family members and their elders is to present clear and concise expectations. This advice may also serve custodial parents who plan on interrupting an ex-spouse’s child visitation schedule to suit personal holiday expectations or planned family events.
The Power Within Marriage: Tips for Maintaining a Balanced Marriage
Ike and Mamie, Franklin and Eleanor, Ron and Nancy, Bill and Hillary are all examples of power couples who have made their mark on America’s political landscape. How do these political front runners, as well as other industry power couples, maintain marital balance and avoid consulting with a high power divorce attorney?
As per a recent article published by The Huffington Post, power couples tend to do marriage a bit different than the rest of us, although their marital strategies may offer some helpful hints for all marriages.
Brainstorming Together
As noted in The Huffington Post article, Microsoft entrepreneur Bill Gates mentioned that he highly values wife Melinda’s opinion, both on a professional and personal level. By doing so, he is eliciting the opinion of a partner who has his best interests in mind or one who will actually tell it like it is.
Divorce By Publication
If you need to end your marriage but cannot locate your spouse, a divorce by publication may be the answer.
In order for any court to act, it must have jurisdiction over both the case and the parties. In Illinois family court, a judge has jurisdiction over a divorce if the couple was legally married and at least one spouse resides in the state. The court must also have personal jurisdiction.
Typically, this means each party has filed a written document with the court or has formally waived service of citation.
Substitute Service
It is not at all unusual for a person to relocate to another address without leaving any contact information, even if the person has a spouse. A divorce can still be granted in these situations, at least under some circumstances.
To obtain service by publication, the respondent’s current whereabouts must be unknown and the petitioner must have been "diligent" when trying to find the missing spouse. While the petitioner does not need to hire a private investigator or go to great lengths to find a missing spouse, the court does require some concerted effort:
How Do Teens Handle Parents' Divorce?
Statistics show that by the time they turn 16 years old, almost half of all teenagers will have experienced their parents divorcing. Fifteen percent of teenagers will deal with divorce more than once because of parents’ remarriages and subsequent divorces. For teens of unmarried parents, 25 percent will experience their parents’ breakup.
Adolescence can be an extremely emotional and difficult time. For many teens dealing with their parents’ divorce, the feelings are similar to coping with a death in the family and they will show all the signs of grieving. These feeling can especially intensify during special events and holidays.
Signs that a teenager is struggling with difficult emotions about the divorce include aggressive behavior, guilt, and anger. Physical signs include any changes in sleeping or eating habits, complaints of frequent headaches and stomach aches.
Protecting Inheritances in Divorce
For the majority of people who get married, the assumption is that it will be "’til death do us part." Despite the high rate of divorce, most couples think they will beat the odds and live happily ever after. Typically, all the assets a couple acquires during the marriage are pooled – income, gifts, inheritances, etc. are all shared between the two spouses. The reality is, however, that at least half of marriages do end in divorce, with an even higher rate if the marriage is a second or third marriage.
Most divorce negotiations involve how finances and property will be divided between the couple, but what happens with the inherited assets? Unfortunately, in many circumstances, unless there was an agreement in place before the divorce, those assets just may be included in the marital estate. A person may be able to keep that expensive piece of jewelry their grandmother left them, but the value of that piece becomes part of the marital estate and the other spouse is entitled to receive something of equal value in their share of the marital estate. The same may be true for inherited real estate property, stocks and bonds, and cash.
Establishing Joint Custody Routines to Ease Split-Family Tensions
Recently, Fox News Magazine revisited the question, "do 50 percent of marriages really end in divorce?" Unfortunately, the answer is still a resounding yes. Not only does this startling statistic involve the couple, but as numerous studies support, divorce often has a life-long effect on the children struggling with the breakdown of the family.
So how can both parents work together to ease the child’s anxiety during this transition? If you and your separating spouse have been discussing joint custody with your respective divorce attorneys, there are ways to establish a successful "kid shuttle" plan.
DK Simoneau, speaker and award winning author of the children’s book, "We’re Having a Tuesday," offers several ways of assisting a child cope with a split-family lifestyle. As a divorced mother of two, Simoneau has become a strong advocate of making the hectic split-family syndrome less hectic. The following are just a few of her suggestions:
Birth Parents: Surviving the Emotional Complexities of Adoption
Celebrating 50 years of protecting and supporting families, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has successfully assisted with the adoption of more than 17,000 children over the past decade. By providing these children the opportunity to find love and permanent homes, there lies perhaps an even more personal story hidden behind the scenes. For every child adopted through the DCFS, there is a birth parent experiencing an array of emotions.
Adoption.net, a relatively new informational adoption source, recently opened a forum discussion targeting the difficulties facing birth parents. The forum offers advice for compartmentalizing the emotions often associated with this life-altering decision. Feelings of intense loss, shame and guilt often proceed resolution over making this difficult decision.
The site offers an informative and constructive fact sheet highlighting the following topics, all of which may prove helpful to all the parents involved in the adoption process.
Illinois Right of First Refusal
Changes to the Illinois family law that went into effect in January mean divorced co-parents will need to notify their ex-spouse any time they plan to leave their children with a caregiver for more than four hours. This could have a serious impact on long-standing child care arrangements, particularly in situations where a couple has been divorced for a longer period of time.
According to Illinois HB 2992, parents who share joint custody of their children must offer their ex-spouse the opportunity to care for the couple’s children temporarily before seeking third-party care for any period more than four hours. As long as the co-parent lives within a reasonable distance, they must be offered the opportunity to provide care before a babysitter can be hired and before the child can be left with grandparents or at a daycare facility.
What is the Cost of Adoption?
According to the U.S. government, it will cost approximately $245,000 to raise a child in this country. However, if that child is adopted, the Child Welfare Information Gateway says parents should add on up to $40,000 – the total amount it could cost to adopt a child.
The Child Welfare Information Gateway is a division of the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. The agency provides information for people who are looking to adopt. According to their statistics, the average cost to adopt can be anywhere between $8,000 and $40,000. For foreign country adoptions, the cost can fall between $15,000 and $30,000. Parents who are seeking to adopt an older child through foster care can anticipate costs from $0 to $2,500.
The largest expense in adoption is usually the adoption agency fee. Adoption agencies match parents to babies and their fees vary greatly. Some agencies will charge a large up-front fee which has everything included. Other agencies will charge a smaller fee, but charge extra for many of the same services agencies that charge larger fees include in their totals.
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