Marietta Family Law Blog

You may be one of the few for whom careful planning was a large part of the financial success of your family. Creating a budget, saving without compromise and taking advantage of ways to maximize your wealth may have allowed you to weather many storms throughout your marriage and come out with your finances intact. On the other hand, you may be among the many who never bothered with a financial plan and built your success on sheer luck.

Whichever is your style of managing money, if you are facing a divorce, adopting a new method of financial planning is critical for you. While you may be going through an emotional phase that has you thinking more about your past, you will not want to wake up one day after the divorce is final and wish you had put a strategy in place.

As much as you may have wanted to settle your divorce out of court, you find yourself facing litigation. Perhaps certain issues were too important for you to compromise, or your spouse may be digging in and refusing to cooperate. Whatever the reason, you may feel intimidated by the process -- and with good cause. Some couples feel they lose control of their divorce once the courts get involved, so it will be helpful if you understand as much as possible before moving forward.

One of the first steps in the divorce process is the discovery phase. During this time, your attorney and your spouse's attorney will attempt to gain a complete picture of your marriage, particularly concerning your finances and your goals for child custody, if applicable. Discovery is critical if you expect to get a fair share of property division.

Every marriage has its complexities, and yours is no exception. Unfortunately, what makes your marriage complex is the control your spouse has over you. If you are the victim of physical or emotional abuse from your spouse, you may also be the victim of financial abuse. Many spouses are not aware of the control their partners have over them financially until they try to leave the marriage.

One way in which a spouse can manage the actions of a partner is to prevent the partner from having any financial freedom within the marriage. Without access to money or earning power, a spouse has few alternatives for a future outside the relationship. If you find yourself in this situation and plan to divorce your controlling spouse, you would do well to seek experienced legal assistance.

Raising children takes a lot of work under the best of circumstances. Each phase of their lives provides new challenges for parents. During the good times of your marriage, you had each other to lean on when times got tough.

Now that your relationship has deteriorated and you are contemplating divorce, you wonder whether you can continue to present a united front to the children, even though you no longer live together. Co-parenting after your divorce does not have to be fraught with contention and chaos. Instead, you could take steps to make sure that you have the best start possible.