divorce

6 Common Mistakes That Can Negatively Impact Divorce

December 20, 2018 by David Betz

When it comes to divorce, some mistakes are more common than others.

What makes highlighting them so useful is that doing so stands to save a significant amount of people from making errors when going through a divorce. This can protect them from monetary costs, wasting time, and experiencing many negative emotions. The following are six common mistakes that will very likely negatively impact your divorce case.

parents fighting in front of their child

Not Accounting For Assets

Marriage makes you and your partner one legal entity. One result of that is you sharing financial assets. It is crucial to understand every one of these accounts and items before you finalize your divorce. If you do not, you could end up losing a hefty portion of what you deserve. An excellent way to avoid this outcome is hiring a financial professional to assess your situation.

Fighting With Your Ex

Fighting with your ex will only lead to more bitterness and a slower legal process. Not only will you pay for this behavior in negative emotion, but you will also quickly amass legal bills. Neither of those outcomes is preferable, so you should always do your best to be collaborative.

Involving Your Children

While you should communicate with your children about the divorce, you should never use them to try and get back at your ex. Doing so will be a negative experience for everyone involved and could lead to long-term relationship damage. Instead, try to do what’s best for your kids, no matter how bad your relationship is with your spouse.

Being Rude to the Judge

If you end up in court for your divorce, you’ll have to see a judge. That person will listen to your case, provide some guidance, and make crucial decisions if needed. One mistake people often make is being rude to the judge. This kind of behavior can come back to haunt you later on, as that person wields a significant amount of power over your future.

Not Being Actively Involved

As good as your lawyer might be, you won’t get the divorce results you want unless you play an active role. The reason is that legal professionals aren’t mind readers. You’ll have to communicate with your attorney if you want negotiations to go as planned.

Settling Too Quickly

Deciding when to settle and when to fight for more is best discussed with your lawyer. What this choice will come down to is the offer on the table and your priorities. No matter what, you should never take a bad deal. It is usually much better to spend a bit more time negotiating and get better terms as a result.

While your St. Louis family law attorney will shoulder a significant portion of the responsibility in your split, you will still play a vital role. Part of it is resisting the temptation to be disengaged, be rude to the judge, fight with your ex, or exhibit any other behavior we detailed on this list. If you can manage to do so, you increase your chance of a better outcome.

Dec 20, 2018 @ 12:02 am

The 7 Steps to Take Immediately After Deciding You Want a Divorce

November 9, 2018 by David Betz

Though deciding to divorce is emotional, you can prepare yourself for the road ahead by carrying out the 7 steps on this list.

Spouses splitting up is rarely a happy experience. Still, people that are about to undergo this legal process can make things easy on themselves by taking some preliminary steps like educating themselves, figuring out logistics, speaking with an experienced divorce attorney, and more. Here are seven steps to take immediately after deciding you want a divorce.

Accept Your Decision

Sadness, regret, and other negative emotions often follow the decision to get a divorce. If this happens to you, you must do your best to forgive yourself and accept your choice. Doing so can be tough, but remember how difficult marriages are. Try not to blame yourself or anyone else.

Obtain a Foundation of Knowledge

If you have no prior knowledge of divorce law, your next move will be educating yourself. That could include reading legal articles, browsing divorce blogs, and maybe purchasing some books. Doing so will give you a foundation of understanding that you can utilize throughout the divorce process. Your lawyer will pick up the slack eventually, but knowing critical information on your own is both useful and empowering.

Straighten Out Your Priorities

The overarching goal of divorce is to reasonably split up everything you share with your spouse. Still, you and your lawyer will prioritize some terms over others. One good thing to think about before the process begins is what you want the most. That answer could include your home, financial accounts, custody, or any other crucial matter.

Figure Out Logistics

You will figure out long-term logistics in the divorce proceedings, but you need a short-term plan too. What you need to decide on are matters like where you will live, where your children will live, and how often your kids will see each spouse.

Collect Financial Documents

As we mentioned above, going through a divorce is essentially splitting up everything you and your spouse own. One of the most important aspects of that process is your finances. You’ll want to collect documents like tax returns, pay stubs, and mortgages so that you have your own records of all the things you share.

Plan a Time to Talk to Your Family

You’ll need to inform your family about your plans before proceeding. First, break the news to your spouse. Once you do, you can collaborate on a strategy to tell your children. Both of those conversations will be difficult, but necessary. Make sure you prepare accordingly.

Find the Right Lawyer

At this point, the official divorce process is about to begin. Now it is time to hire an experienced lawyer and move forward with your case.

Couple generally don’t go into a marriage planning to divorce, but it is sometimes their only option. Though making this decision is emotional, you can prepare yourself for the road ahead by carrying out the 7 steps on this list.

Call for a FREE 30 Minute Phone Consultation

(314) 801-8488

Nov 9, 2018 @ 9:38 pm

How to Tell Your Children About Your Divorce

November 1, 2018 by David Betz

Here are 5 tips to make telling your children about your divorce as easy as possible.

Deciding to get a divorce comes with a significant amount of tasks to complete. You may be seeking a divorce attorney, split assets, negotiate over custody, and much more. One of the hardest of those tasks is telling your children about the divorce. Here are 5 tips to make it as easy as possible.

Work Out the Logistics Beforehand

When you tell your children about your divorce, they will likely have a few logistical questions right away. They might ask you which parent will be moving out of the house, who they will live with, who will take them to school, and more. Knowing the answers to as many of these questions as possible will make your talk go much more smoothly. Though you won’t have every detail of your divorce settled, you should know what the next few weeks will look like.

Tell Them as a Team

The best way to talk to your children is as a team. That way, they do not make assumptions based on which parent speaks to them first. Doing so can be difficult for some couples, as they are already at a point where they don’t want to see each other. While that emotion is fair, you should do your best to make this particular talk a team effort. If you cannot, try to make your conversation with your children about your relationship, not the faults of your former partner.

Choose a Quiet Location and Calm Time

One of the worst things you can do in this situation is to talk to your children in a public space. You never know how they are going to handle it, so it is best to have this discussion in a quiet location. The best is doing it in your home, where your children can retreat to their bedrooms if needed. Secondly, have your talk during a calm time, like a quiet weekend afternoon. You don’t want to put them through an emotional rollercoaster and then send them to school or activities. Doing so will give them time to process the news before facing the world again.

Don’t Blame Anyone

People’s natural inclination in situations like this is to blame. For a child, they will usually look to one of their parents or themselves to assign fault. You must do your best to avoid this trap. If they develop negative feelings for you or your spouse, that will splinter an important relationship. If they blame themselves, they could experience much more pain than necessary.

Keep the Details to Yourself

No matter what conditions surround your divorce, you should keep the details to yourself when talking with younger kids. This is true even if you feel that one party was clearly at fault.

Telling your children about your divorce is never easy. Still, following these tips can make it much better than the alternative.

Call for a FREE 30 Minute Phone Consultation

(314) 801-8488

Nov 1, 2018 @ 6:32 pm

The 4 Most Contentious Issues in Divorce

October 22, 2018 by David Betz

If you are considering a divorce, it is important to understand where you may hit a snag in your proceedings.

If you pay attention to popular culture, you may think that divorces are always stressful and frustrating from start to finish. Fortunately, this is not always the case. In reality, many splits are relatively straightforward, aside from a few terms causing strife between the two parties. Still, those issues can sometimes derail a divorce entirely. Here are 4 of the most contentious aspect of divorce cases.

Child Support

When you and your ex-spouse decide on a monthly child support sum, the paying party is almost always expected to send money every month until the child turns 18. As you can imagine, this extended length of payment makes the stakes incredibly high. The United States Census Bureau has found that the average child support payment is $430 per month. Depending on the age of your children at the time of divorce, there might be hundreds of months before all of your children become adults. Additionally, certain factors can raise that monthly payment significantly, making this term even more contentious.

Alimony

Everything that we wrote about child support applies to alimony too. Because one party is required to pay the agreed upon amount over and over again for many years, couples often argue heavily about the sum. An additional factor that makes this term so combative is that the money is not designated to the children. The result is that the paying party is especially unhappy because they feel their ex is getting all of the benefits.

Splitting Physical Assets

While often antagonistic, splitting dollar amounts and deciding on monthly pay are relatively straightforward processes. When it comes to physical assets, negotiations become much more complicated. The reason is that you cannot split these items down the middle. Instead, both parties feel emotionally attached to their shared possessions, and deciding who gets what is a difficult process. The most prevalent issues in this category are usually high-value items like houses and cars, as well as sentimental ones. Splitting assets is an area where both parties need to stay in control of their emotions to prevent negotiations from getting out of control.

Custody

As we go down this list, the terms get more and more complicated. First, there were two forms of payment. Next, splitting up expensive and sentimental items. Last, we have the most frustrating of all: Your children. If the two parties involved in a divorce can respect each other and settle on a fair deal, everybody wins. Unfortunately, the opposite frequently occurs in the form of one or both parents trying to take too much of their child’s time.

If you are considering a divorce, you should know where you may hit a snag in your proceedings. While that could be anywhere, child support, alimony, physical assets, and custody are the most likely to cause friction. That being said, hiring the right St. Louis divorce lawyer will do wonders for your case. Give us a call at (314) 801-8488 and see why many St. Louis residents trust the Betz Law Firm.

Oct 8, 2018 @ 5:47 pm

5 Tips on Handling a Divorce That Goes to Court

October 8, 2018 by David Betz

Here are some important tips you should keep in mind if you will be going before a judge.

Divorce attorneys and their clients often prefer to settle outside of court, rather than taking up more time and energy by seeing a judge. Unfortunately, there are times a favorable settlement cannot be reached and it is recommended that you go to court. Here are some important tips you should keep in mind if you will be going before a judge.

Trust Your Lawyer

If you and your lawyer decide to go to court, it is often because your case is especially difficult. If it were not, you would have likely settled outside of court long ago. Now that you are taking this step, you will place even more trust on your lawyer. The reason is that going to court often comes with a significant amount of complexity. The language may at times change to legal jargon, your lawyer speaks on your behalf the vast majority of the time, and there are hundreds of best practices that should be followed when seeing a judge. For these reasons, it is important to trust in your lawyer more than ever.

Prepare to Make a Statement

Though your lawyer will handle the vast majority of your dealings in the court, you may testify on your behalf. When you do, there are a few guidelines you should follow. First, speak loudly and clearly, as you do not want any misinterpretations. Second, get to the point quickly, so you do not waste time with extra information. Last, you are legally obligated to tell the truth, so make sure you do so at all times.

Dress Appropriately

In a perfect world, the details of your case would be the only things that matter in court. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Instead, you must present yourself in an appropriate manner by dressing appropriately. If you are unclear on what that means, ask your lawyer and they will be happy to tell you. The silver lining of this guideline is that you can get into a judge’s good graces by dressing well and showing respect to their courtroom.

Decide on What is Most Important

Judges have limited time for your case, so you should only bring the most important matters to them. A typical example is child custody specifics, which is one of the crucial aspects of a divorce settlement. On the other hand, even if you are passionate about a relatively insignificant term, you may want to keep it out of the court.

Keep a Cool Head

One of the worst things you can do for your case is losing your temper. If your ex-spouse is especially difficult, there may be times when you want to. Still, you must resist. Staying calm and collected throughout the proceedings will impress your judge and increase your chances of obtaining a favorable ruling.

While going to court may sound like a dramatic and stressful experience, it usually is not. More commonly, it will be relatively smooth and straightforward. Still, it isn’t always easy. There are some things you need to prepare for to give yourself the best shot at getting the deal you deserve. Once you do, you can let your St. Louis divorce lawyer take care of the rest.

Call for a free 30 minute phone consultation

(314) 801-8488

Oct 8, 2018 @ 5:08 pm

What Is a Collaborative Divorce?

August 7, 2018 by David Betz

Nobody gets married thinking they will need to get a divorce, but if it comes to that, a collaborative divorce is the way to go.

There are a lot of ways a divorce can go wrong. The parties involved may hate each other, they may fight over petty differences, the process may take an unnecessarily long time, and both sides may come out with an incredible amount of frustration. Fortunately, this is not always how all divorces go. In fact, divorces that are characterized by respect and empathy are so common that they have their own name: Collaborative Divorce. Nobody gets married thinking they will need to get a divorce, but if it comes to that, a collaborative divorce is the way to go.

Mindset

What makes many divorces so negative is the mindset that people bring into them. They are often angry with their spouse and how their marriage dissolved, and the result of the anger is trying to “win” the settlement. In a collaborative divorce, the mindset of both parties is vastly different. Instead of trying to win, they try to collaborate, problem-solve, and come to an agreement that is fair for both people.

Advantages

Many advantages come with collaborative divorce. The most significant of them are listed below.

Save Time – When you have a collaborative mindset, you do not get hung up on petty issues. Instead, you push your ego aside and work disagreements out promptly.

Save Money – The time you are saving is also the time that you need to pay a lawyer for. The quicker a divorce is, the fewer legal fees you will pay.

Smooth Negotiations – Divorce negotiations are often characterized by intense fighting and frustration. When both parties pledge to be fair, these discussions are much more relaxed.

A Fair Deal – The end goal of your divorce is to split your lives up in a fair manner. That includes your finances, assets, and time with children. A collaborative divorce is more likely to give both parties the best deal possible.

The Process

The process of a collaborative divorce is a lot like a regular divorce, except every stage is smoother and friendlier. First, both parties hire a lawyer. Next, they start to negotiate the terms of the divorce point by point. Inevitably, you will come to an area of disagreement. When this happens, both parties remember that they want to be collaborative and adopt that mindset. If they do so effectively, they will be able to compromise on every issue until the negotiations are finished. If done correctly, a collaborative divorce may never have to go to court.

Your divorce does not have to be the kind of nightmare that you see on TV and hear about from friends. Instead, you and your spouse can agree to adopt a collaborative mindset. When you do, you will save time, save money, have a smooth negotiating process, and get a fair deal. Ultimately, combining a collaborative mindset with a skilled St. Louis divorce lawyer eliminates a significant portion of the pain involved in the divorce process, and everyone involved is better for it.

St. Louis Divorce Attorneys At Work

Hundreds of questions come to mind as the stark reality of divorce settles in. As a firm, our goal is to help you find the answers to those questions and to begin the next phase of your life with as much ease as possible. We are dedicated to providing our clients and their families with kind, personalized, and professional legal representation throughout the entire divorce process.

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Contact The Betz Law Firm today for a free 30 minute phone consultation by calling (314) 801-8488 or by filling out our online contact form.

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Aug 7, 2018 @ 5:02 pm