Posted on April 11, 2018 in Finances and Divorce

When we think of divorce, many of us initially only consider the personal and romantic relationship which is coming to an end. However, divorce is not only the end of a romantic partnership, but also a financial relationship. Finances are usually merged when two people get married and move in together. Divorcing couples who cannot agree on how to split their accumulated assets will have that decision made for them by the court system.

Hiding Assets or Lying About Finances Will Only Drag Out Your Divorce

In order to make decisions about things like child support, spousal maintenance and property division, courts use each divorcing party’s self-reported financial information. For example, when a judge needs to decide how much spousal maintenance a person must pay to their ex, he or she will consider things such as each person’s income and future employability. Sometimes, in order to game the system, a spouse will lie about how much money they make or what their debts are. Doing this can significantly delay and complicate the divorce process. In order for a divorce to go smoothly, both spouses must be willing to be honest regarding their finances.

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 Posted on April 09, 2018 in Divorce

Addiction issues have affected most people in some way or another. Whether they are the friend or family member of someone who fights addiction or they themselves have struggled with addiction or substance abuse, addiction can be devastating to the people whose lives are impacted by it. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that 21.5 million adults and adolescents experienced drug or alcohol addiction in the U.S in 2014 alone. If you or someone close to you struggles with addiction, you know that addiction can become all-consuming. If you are married to an addict, you may have considered ending the marriage through divorce. Only those in marriage can know what is the right course of action for them, but if you are unhappily married to an addict, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Are You Being Abused?

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 Posted on April 06, 2018 in Alimony/Spousal Support

In generations past—or so television and movies tend to depict—the average American family relied on a single income provided, in most cases, by a breadwinning father. The mother was primarily responsible for staying home, maintaining the house, and raising the children. Such is no longer the case for the “average” family, as more and more households need two working parents to maintain an acceptable standard of living. Some families, however, have the means and desire to allow one parent to stay home, and many decide to just that. For these families, a divorce can have a dramatic impact on the parent who stayed at home, often leaving him or her struggling to become self-sufficient.

Asking for Maintenance

Maintenance, also known as alimony or spousal support, is one the tools that a court has at its disposal to help a stay-at-home parent during and after a divorce. According to Illinois law, the court may award spousal support if it finds that such an award is appropriate and necessary to alleviate the financial effects of the divorce on an economically-disadvantaged spouse. When deciding on the appropriateness of maintenance, the court will take many factors into account. A spouse’s role as a stay-at-home parent is part of the equation, but it is not enough, on its own, to make support necessary.

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 Posted on April 03, 2018 in Divorce

Have you recently filled out an application that asked about your marital status? Do you remember what the some of the checkbox options were? Most such questions include answers like “single,” “married,” and “divorced,” but some have additional options such as “single, never married” and “widowed.” Perhaps the least common is an option for “separated.” Depending on the purpose of the application or question, the precise definition of “separated” may not be all that important, but if you are in the process of getting divorced, it is important to know what the law in Illinois says about separations.

Two Different Meanings

The word “separation” is generally used in two very different ways in the context of divorce. The first is rather casual and is often used by the spouses themselves to describe their situation while their marriage is coming to an end. For example, if your spouse recently moved out, you might tell your friends that you and your spouse are separated. This type of separation, however, is not considered a “legal separation.” Instead, it is considered a period of living separate and apart.

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 Posted on March 29, 2018 in Annulment

Annulment is a legal procedure which “nullifies,” or cancels, a marriage. In the state of Illinois, annulment is called a “declaration of invalidity of marriage”. A marriage which has been successfully annulled is not recognized by the state any longer. Legally, an annulment makes the marriage as if it never happened. This process is much different from a divorce and is only available in certain circumstances.

Who Qualifies for Annulment?

In Illinois, there are only four lawful reasons someone can annul their marriage:

1. One spouse did not or could not consent to the marriage. This includes situations where the spouse was under the influence of drugs or alcohol during the marriage proceedings. If one of the spouses was mentally incapacitated due to mental illness or disability, the marriage may be annulled. A spouse who was forced to get married will be able to seek annulment as well. Finally, if the marriage is fraudulent, or meant to help evade U.S. immigration laws, it can be annulled.

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 Posted on March 27, 2018 in Divorce

Although we rarely think of it this way, marriage and, consequently, divorce are business decisions as much as they are personal decisions. When a marriage ends, it is not only the spouses who separate but also the lives they have created together. This includes the home which they share together, their property, assets, debts and more. Undoing a marriage through divorce can be a tricky process. If you are planning to divorce, make sure to avoid these classic mistakes.

Overestimating Your Future Income

As the old saying goes, “It is better to be safe than sorry.” When you are deciding how the marriage will end, try to be conservative when picturing your life as a single person. Sometimes people overestimate what they will be able to afford on their own. For example, they may want to stay in the family home for sentimental reasons, but are not ready for the burden of the mortgage payments. If you are the lower-earning spouse, it is possible that you will receive spousal maintenance payments as part of your divorce settlement, but this is far from guaranteed.

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 Posted on March 22, 2018 in Child Custody

If you are a parent who is planning to divorce your spouse, it is likely that one of your biggest concerns is how the divorce will affect your children. The transition from nuclear family to sharing children between two homes can be challenging and no two co-parenting arrangements are the same. Parents who plan to share custody of their children after a divorce will be expected to create a parenting plan or parenting agreement and submit it to the court. A parenting plan is not only required for divorce involving children in Illinois, but is also a great way to make sure parents are on the same page regarding how they will raise children after the divorce is finalized.

Things to Consider When Making a Parenting Plan

Because every family is different, every parenting plan is different. Some divorcing couples feel that they can roughly outline a custody and visitation schedule and plan little else while others go into much more detail about how their children should be raised. If you worry that you and your spouse will have trouble agreeing to parenting decisions in the future, it is best to be very specific in your parenting agreement. Take the time to prevent problems before they arise by making sure you and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse are in agreement about parenting responsibilities.

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 Posted on March 16, 2018 in Divorce

If you are planning to get divorced, you are probably wondering how you and your spouse’s property will be divided. Since Illinois is an “equitable division” state, marital property is divided equitably, but not necessarily evenly. While some states split marital property 50/50, Illinois courts have the freedom to award more marital property to one spouse than the other if such an arrangement is found to be fair. When the court is dividing marital property and debt, there are specific guidelines they must follow.

How Property Decisions Are Made

Illinois courts look at twelve main factors when making property division decisions in a divorce. The first factor is each party’s contribution. More specifically, the court must consider how each spouse contributed "to the acquisition, preservation, or increase or decrease in value, of the marital or non-marital property.” Each spouse’s income is considered as well the non-monetary contributions the spouses made to the marriage including homemaking and child-rearing. Courts will also consider any dissipation, or wasting or hiding of assets, when making decisions about property division. For example, a spouse who used martial funds to finance an affair during the marriage may receive less of the marital property. The value of the property which is assigned to each spouse is also taken into consideration.

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 Posted on March 14, 2018 in Divorce

It is no secret that many marriages end as a result of infidelity. About 41 percent of married people admit to having either a physical or emotional affair. Even more surprising, 57 percent of men and 54 percent of women admit to cheating at some point in their life. When an affair is one of the factors which ends a marriage, it may affect your divorce, but not in the way you might think.

Illinois is a No-Fault Divorce State

Illinois has been “pure no-fault state” since the start of 2016. This means that the state does not require divorcing couples to state their specific reasons or “grounds” for ending the marriage through divorce. Before the 2016 change, grounds like adultery or repeated mental or physical cruelty could be used as the cause of the divorce. Today, those seeking a divorce in Illinois only have one ground for filing for divorce: “irreconcilable differences.” According to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, a judgment of divorce will be issued only if “irreconcilable differences have caused the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and the court determines that efforts at reconciliation have failed or that future attempts at reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best interests of the family.” For most couples, infidelity will not affect their divorce in any meaningful way.

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 Posted on March 08, 2018 in Alimony/Spousal Support

Sometimes referred to as alimony, spousal maintenance or spousal support refers to payments which one spouse pays to the other to help them transition to life as a single person. Maintenance payments are generally made by the spouse with the higher income and paid to the spouse with the lower income.

The purpose of spousal support is to restrict any one-sided negative financial effects of a divorce by providing an ongoing source of revenue to a spouse who earns less than his or her partner. The rationale behind spousal support is that one spouse—often the wife, but stay-at-home husbands are more common than ever—may have chosen to sacrifice a career to care for the family. Someone who has been out of the workforce and suddenly gets divorced will need time to acquire new skills and employment support himself or herself. Maintenance may also be appropriate to help an economically-disadvantaged spouse maintain a similar standard of living as compared to the one established in the marriage.

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