Posted on April 01, 2021 in Child Custody

When couples break up or divorce, it is generally not on good terms. When minor children are added into the mix, that can bring out even more raw emotions and conflicts. Some parents may be so vengeful that they engage in parental alienation tactics.

You should know that parental alienation isn't looked upon very fondly by the court, no matter your reasoning. Acts of parental alienation can even result in a family law judge depriving you of custody.

What is parental alienation?

Parental alienation is any instance in which one parent purposely attempts to turn their child against their other parent. It's not uncommon for one parent to constantly tell their child negative information about the other parent to put emotional distance between the two of them. A mom or dad may also falsely accuse their co-parent of child abuse or domestic violence to alienate their child from their other parent.

Extended family members, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, may all become the target of the alienation campaign as well.

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 Posted on March 24, 2021 in Divorce

When you first file for divorce, you may not realize that you can file either for an uncontested divorce or a contested one.

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which both parties are able to agree to end their marriage and there are no outstanding issues that need to be resolved by the court. A contested divorce is one that has to be litigated, often due to issues over things like spousal maintenance or child custody.

When an uncontested divorce may be an ideal option

Many divorcing couples are eager to see their marriage dissolved from the moment that they decide that they can no longer remain in the relationship. Many spouses opt for an uncontested divorce whenever possible as those are generally quickly resolved.

The costs associated with pursuing an uncontested divorce also tend to be less as there's minimal need for court intervention or lots of intervention by an attorney.

An uncontested divorce can also preserve your privacy. Much of what happens in a courtroom in a contested divorce becomes part of the public record. Most negotiations in an uncontested divorce occur between attorneys behind closed doors and thus never makes the light of day.

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 Posted on March 10, 2021 in Child Custody

If you are going through a divorce and are also struggling with a mental health diagnosis, you may be concerned that your diagnosis could be used against you to interfere with your right to parent your child.

This fear is, unfortunately, rooted in reality. The rates for loss of custody of their children for parents with mental illnesses are in the range of 70-80%. In fact, two-thirds of children of parents with serious mental illnesses are reared by someone other than that parent.

How custody can play out in court when mental illness is involved

If your spouse decides to use your mental illness diagnosis to attempt to strip you of custody of your child, here are a few things to realize:

• Not all diagnoses are equal. A schizophrenic parent who is non-compliant with their prescribed medications and who experiences hallucinations could be a threat to their children’s health and well-being. This is a much different scenario from a parent struggling to manage their anxiety or who is suffering from mild or situational depression.

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 Posted on March 07, 2021 in Child Custody

Custody orders usually include broad terminology so that they remain appropriate and effective even when personal circumstances change. You and your spouse or the courts probably tried to create a custody order with terms that would still work for your family even when your children got older.

Sometimes parenting plans don't adequately reflect the needs of a family's situation after some time. If any of the following three scenarios apply to your family, it might be time for you to consider asking for a custody modification to update your parenting plan.

Your ex doesn't abide by the terms of the custody order

If your ex has stopped coming to pick up the children or often cancels their parenting time at the last minute, you are the one scrambling to change your plans to accommodate them. If one parent has made it clear that they don't intend to follow the terms set in the custody order, the courts might approve a modification with terms that more closely reflect the current division of parenting time.

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 Posted on February 21, 2021 in Divorce

People going through a divorce are often angry and hurting. Those intense emotions can produce irrational and cruel behavior in people who are usually kind and reasonable adults.

One of the many ways that people can try to twist divorce proceedings to hurt their spouse involves financial manipulation. People lash out at their soon-to-be ex by trying to deprive them of their fair share of marital resources during the divorce.

You need to be on the lookout for three of the most common ways that people play financial tricks on their spouse in divorce proceedings.

Watch for signs of undeclared or hidden assets

You will want to look over financial reports and the inventory provided by your spouse carefully. If there is income unaccounted for or if you notice obvious omissions, like their classic car collection, from the property inventory, that could be a sign that you need to dig deeper.

Hidden assets unfairly alter the outcome of property division by limiting the pool of property that the courts no they can divide.

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 Posted on February 17, 2021 in Divorce

At least 50% of Americans who marry end up getting divorced. While many divorcing couples understand that they'll have to divide their tangible marital assets such as houses, furniture or cars when they divorce, they seldom discuss what becomes of their digital ones.

It's essential that divorcing spouses take steps to protect their online presence, though.

Digital assets you may need to address during your divorce

One of the first things that you should do after splitting from your spouse is to create an inventory of any online accounts that you two may have shared. You'll then want to go through and update all of their passwords.

You may want to start by updating the passwords that you typically accessed on shared or synched devices. You may also want to clear their cache or factory reset them so stored passwords or commonly visited websites aren't accessible. You'll want to be careful that the new password that you use isn't too predictable since it's likely that your ex will know your typical go-to ones. You may even benefit from using a random password generation tool in such instances.

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 Posted on February 11, 2021 in Child Custody

It's become increasingly popular for family law judges here in Illinois and across the United States to award parents joint custody. Research in recent years continues to show that it's beneficial for kids to have both parents regularly present in their kids' lives.

This research fails to point out that while joint custodial arrangements may be beneficial for kids, such arrangements can also be very stressful. Children thrive on stability and moving between two homes and two different parenting styles can be rough for them.

How can you minimize the stress of joint custody on your children?

You have to consider your child's age and unique needs when looking for a good approach.

Younger children, for example, often have strong attachments to one parent. They may suffer from separation anxiety if they have to spend too much time away from them. As a parent, you can help your child adapt to this newfound reality by shortening the amount of time between trade-offs to minimize the impact separation has on them.

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 Posted on February 11, 2021 in Divorce

When you’re going to go through a divorce, you’ll start getting lots of advice. Friends and family members may mean well, but it’s also likely that they’ll share untruths about divorce with you.

You shouldn’t fall for those myths. Here are four that come up often that you should ignore.

1. Proving adultery means you’ll get everything

The first myth that you shouldn’t believe is that adultery automatically means that the faithful spouse wins everything in the divorce. If the faithful spouse can prove that assets were used, spent or given away to the person they had an affair with, then they may be able to seek a greater portion of their marital assets. That doesn’t mean they’ll get everything, though.

2. Your spouse can deny the divorce

There is no way for any spouse to deny the other a divorce. In a contested divorce, your spouse may argue against it, but if you go through the separation period, you can continue with the divorce anyway.

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 Posted on January 31, 2021 in Divorce

For decades, you have gone to the same job and put in countless hours. You may have picked up overtime or even gone in unpaid as a favor to the boss. You have slowly but steadily watched the balance of your pension account increase and have probably always planned to spend those golden years of retirement with your spouse.

Unfortunately, divorces among those close to retirement age are increasingly common. You might realize you aren't happy or wind up blindsided when your spouse suddenly files for divorce. If you don't have a prenuptial agreement, can your spouse try to claim part of your pension in an Illinois divorce?

Pensions are often vulnerable in divorce

Like most other states, Illinois has adopted the equitable distribution standard. The income, assets and debts you and your spouse acquired during the marriage belong to both of you as marital property. The courts will try their best to find a fair way to split them up if the two of you don't agree about what is reasonable and fair.

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 Posted on January 27, 2021 in Divorce

Your spouse has always been very controlling with money, and they never let you spend it on the things you wanted. That’s not the entire reason for the divorce, but it’s something you’ve always resented.

No that you’re getting a divorce, you feel like you’re free of that control. You decide to go out and make some big purchases. You just want to have fun and enjoy life, and now you can. Are there any potential issues here?

Dissipation of assets

You want to be very careful with spending during divorce proceedings. Excessive spending can be seen as dissipation of assets. That’s a trick often used by those who want to keep marital assets from their spouse.

Sometimes this is just done out of spite. Both people are really losing assets, but the spouse who is unhappy doesn’t care. They just do it to get even.

Sometimes, though, that person can benefit. Buying physical assets doesn’t help, as those can be sold or divided, but not everything can retain its value. For instance, say you and your spouse have $100,000 to divide. If it was split in half, you’d both get $50,000. Before dividing it, though, you go on a vacation alone (or with someone else) and spend $10,000. There’s no way to get that back. You split the remaining $90,000 for $45,000 each, but your spouse still feels like you spent $5,000 of their money.

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