This is it…the last post in the Divorce Series. I’ve spent the last five weeks focusing on several elements of divorce that I think are important to research and understand. This final week, I’m revealing the most eye-opening revelations I’ve had, or the mistakes I made.
ALL ABOUT MONEY
How do you handle expenses and finances during the separation? This one is tough and I never really received a clear answer or explanation from my attorneys. But now that I’ve been through it, my advice is to freeze all money, you each live on your separate income until the divorce is final, and then request backpay if necessary.
The funds will be split 50/50 after the judge signs the final decree for dissolution of marriage, which means that if you are separated for 1 year going through this divorce, anything you are saving will have to be disclosed and he or she will get half. I met with several lawyers and they all said that it is very rare to get more than 50% of the martial assets, even in the most extreme cases. One lawyer told me the most they’ve seen is 60/40 split and that case involved extreme circumstances. So even though you’ve been paying the way and doing all of the saving over the years, prepare to give half of everything you’ve worked hard for to this other person. SIDE NOTE: this is another reason I believe in divorcing someone as soon as you realize they aren’t the one. Don’t waste time to eventually split even more of your money with them.
One thing that I will advise you to do is to spend your money during the separation. Luckily, I was living with my parents so I didn’t pay rent, which means I could really stack back cash. However, what’s the point if half of it is going to my unemployed lazy estranged husband? With a 2 month old, I had a lot of expected expenses. To avoid saving a dime, I bought formula, diapers, wipes, clothes that I knew she “would be needing” down the road. I kept my bank account at +$20 during the entire divorce process. I didn’t buy garbage though. I bought all necessary items basically paying my baby bills up front. I also got the occasional mani/pedi because it’s time to feel good about myself after living in misery and abuse for years. So get that facial or massage girl, you deserve it!
Back to how to handle bills during a separation. Once you’ve filed for divorce, I recommend you immediately freeze/cancel all joint accounts. You each need to apply for a separate credit card and once you’ve both received your cards, cancel all joint cards. The cash in the bank needs to stay put until you’ve settled the divorce and divvied up the funds. I struggled so much with this. I spoke with several lawyers and they all said “cut off all funds” and “stop paying the bills”. But this is so much more difficult in the moment than you would think. I had sole control of the finances, because my ex did absolutely nothing. As you’ve read in many of my posts, my ex was so lazy that I even paid all of the bills. Therefore, he had no idea where our money was. This is why I had trouble cutting off all joint funds… I felt like the judge would view me as the problem if we went to court. But now looking back, I wish I had done this. My ex quit his job just two days after I filed for divorce. Why? Well it is my responsibility to support my “spouse” regardless of the circumstances. When I questioned my lawyer on this, she said “it is your legal duty to support your spouse until the divorce is final.” Wow! Is that scary or what? I think we all go into marriage a little more naïve than I think is healthy or practical. It’s so important to really understand what could happen if your relationship takes a turn for the worst.
The problem that I encountered was that my ex quit his job and was charging his meals and entertainment purchases on our credit card and I was paying all of the bills. I kept track of all expenses, and he cost me…drumroll please…$11,000 in 9 weeks.
So cut off all joint accounts! Freeze them all and live separately. This means that if you have children and are the primary caregiver, you will pay for the children’s expenses for the time being but will seek retroactive child support and alimony if you make less money than your spouse. The only problem with this is that if your ex also has access to your accounts, they may keep using credit cards and taking cash out of joint checking/savings accounts. Keep track of all of your accounts. The judge will take note of this behavior and your spouse will likely need to pay back some of the funds he or she spends during the separation.
If you happen to be a stay-at-home mom and do not have income to support yourself and your children, you will not be able to follow these guidelines and that is absolutely okay. Keep using your joint funds as this is the only way for you to provide for your family. It’s a sticky situation to navigate and I still don’t know all of the laws associated with separation of finances. Just be aware that you very likely will not receive any backpay for their frivolous spending.
ALL ABOUT CUSTODY
Agreeing on a fair custody plan may be the most difficult part of your divorce. In an ideal world, both parties would have their child(ren) 100% of the time and no one would have to pay child support. However, this isn’t how most divorces go. I want to share a couple of concerns with you that many people have never considered.
What is your home situation like right now? Are you the primary breadwinner? I can see this working against you in a couple of ways. From a financial perspective, if you make more than your spouse, you will likely be paying more child support. Additionally, if you’ve been married longer than 3 years, you will also pay alimony (spousal support). From a parenting perspective, you may have trouble getting equal parenting time if your spouse has been the primary caregiver. This really is a double doozy. Not only are you missing more time with your kids because you’ve been financially supporting the family, but now you will likely be paying even more money in child support if you have fewer overnights than your spouse.
ALL ABOUT VICES
If you had the unfortunate luck as I did and found out your spouse was doing drugs, you should demand a drug test immediately upon filing for divorce. I suspected my husband was doing acid, but I didn’t have proof. He proved it to me by shaving his entire body once my lawyer alerted the opposing counsel of my drug concerns. I shouldn’t have procrastinated on this. I should have immediately requested a drug test for acid use as soon as I filed for divorce. If you have any suspicions, please do not hesitate. Time is of the essence as drugs will eventually be flushed out of their system.
ALL ABOUT LEGAL
If you do hire a lawyer, don’t email at every whim. THAT. IS. EXPENSIVE!!! If you’re divorcing a narcissist, you’ll need to lay back and let them derail. Otherwise, you will quickly owe $20,000 in attorney’s fees as I did.
My ex was still gaslighting and trying to bully me. I panicked and allowed him to stress me out and each time, I emailed my lawyer the details. This really cost me a lot of money. My advice, sit back and let your ex drive himself/herself right off the track. Additionally, my ex would stress me about something and then tell me to check with my lawyer. This was something he would want to know and would basically have me pay my lawyer to discover the answer. If your ex does this to you, always just use a simple answer “figure it out.”
ALL ABOUT CHILD SUPPORT
Watch out for the Income Withholding for Support Order (IWO) form. If you’re working with a lawyer, specifically ask about this. About a month after my divorce was finalized, my ex said his paycheck was garnished the amount of child support. We didn’t know the reason behind it so I told him to contact his lawyer (I finally realized I’m not going to contact my lawyer for these little things). His lawyer sent us a copy of the IWO form that my lawyer signed and filed with the courts. I had never seen this form before. I think it is odd that someone can file a form like this on your behalf without your signature. This form requires that my ex-husband’s employer withhold child support from his paycheck each month and send the funds to an agency called the Family Support Registry (FSR). The FSR then sends the payee a check for the amount of child support collected, or if the payee sets up direct deposit, they directly send the funds to the payee’s bank account. It took three months for me to finally receive child support for those first couple of months after the divorce was finalized. If I wasn’t such a good saver, I’m not sure I would have been able to pay my credit card bills on time. If you’re already tight with cash, this could really put you in a financial bind.
Initially, I was pretty angry that my lawyer set this up. I never contacted her about this because sending that email would have cost me $500-$600 in attorney fees. But I do believe she had good intentions. Throughout the entire divorce process, she heard about my ex refusing to pay child support so I think she was concerned that after we finalized everything he just wouldn’t pay me and I would have to spend more money to take him back to court. The other thing I think she was thinking was that this ensures I receive the money on time and he can’t drag his feet on paying me month to month. If the system works well, it’s probably a really good thing, but in my case, the FSR struggled with their role in this. So please make sure you question your lawyer about this and whether or not they are planning on filing the form with the courts. Be direct and clear about whether or not you want or need to go through the FSR to receive payments.
ALL ABOUT DIVISION OF PROPERTY
During the divorce, not only will you divide time with your child(ren), you will also be dividing marital assets and property. One thing that I fought for was sole responsibility and ownership of my daughters stem cells. I made the decision to freeze them based on the fact that if I can cover all of my bases, I feel more secure day-to-day. When I was in college, I worked in cancer research. I saw children daily who were being treated for all different kinds of cancer. It’s devastating to see such innocent little lives derailed due to this disease. So I knew right then that when I had a child one day, I would do everything in my power to keep them safe and for me right now, I feel safer having her stem cells stored. My ex signed the paperwork granting me sole ownership of the stem cells. I am also solely responsible for paying the annual fee for storage and I am 100% okay with this.
The reason I did this was to prevent my ex from using them. I’m not sure what could happen. If he had access to them, perhaps he could use them for his own health issues one day. Now I have the discretion to deny it.
I’m happy I did this because lately, he’s been questioning me a lot on stem cells and where they’re stored. Just last week he tried to convince me that they aren’t necessary so I don’t have to continue. And when I disagreed, he then said he would be happy to help me pay for it each year. You might be wondering why he’s suddenly so interested. I was too at first, but then I had to get into his weird mindset. He is also a scientist and I believe he pitched some wild idea to his advisor to pursue with stem cells. His advisor was likely against it or didn’t want to pay for stem cells, so he’s wanting me to hand over my child’s stem cells so he can waste them for another one of his harebrained ideas. Amazing right? I never would have believed such selfish people existed, until I saw him for who he truly is.
I’m so glad I fought for rights to her stem cells. She is safe and protected with me.
That wraps up my six-week series of divorce. I genuinely hope all of my experiences, tips, and advice help you in your own divorce. Please feel free to reach out to me for any reason. I want to help others and while I may not have the exact answer to your situation, I may know of something that could help. I will continue to share my experiences along the way, but I wanted to create a condensed series all about divorce that would be easy for my readers to navigate. Good luck!
