The foundation for this article is based on the belief that life should be joyful and to encourage couple’s personal happiness while being a role model for their children.
Way too many clients tell me that their marriage has been over for many years before coming to my office. When these clients come to my office, they are usually impatient and want to be divorced yesterday. These kinds of clients are the ones who settle for less in order to get out faster. So, to understand what’s happened here, let's rewind to the point where the couple believed the marriage was over.
I would like to present a version of a child who observes both parents fighting…
As a child of a divorce, I remember that I would rather have my parents be divorced than fighting all the time. First, it is unpleasant o be someone who's fighting all the time. It also creates a poor example for a child’s future relationships that is hard to overcome without many years of therapy and working through it.
- So, parents who think they are staying for the sake of their children are actually setting a poor example for their future relationships and creating more psychological problems for them later.
- Another negative effect happens when, for example, a father wants to leave but doesn't for the sake of the children. Then what happens? More likely than not, this father is going to be working more hours than he otherwise would be working in order to come home later to avoid confrontation. By doing this, the children will see that father as disconnected, withdrawn, and they might fight when he's home.
- Subconsciously, staying together for the children’s sake could lead to more stress for both parents, more health problems for the child and the whole family, more drama, and potential infidelity.
- It can cause a whole ripple effect of events that actually create worse results when couples stay together because of the children.
My suggestion is for couples to dig deeper because I do believe that staying together for the sake of the children is a paradigm that might have been brought up in our childhood, our religion, or somewhere we didn't analyze the actual facts.
From a legal perspective…
Let’s continue using the same example, with a father who overworks and makes more money. That parent will not feel that it's fair to divide assets equally because if, in their opinion, the marriage was over for the last five years, then there most likely isn’t a strong enough bond to make 50/50 division feel right. However, community property law doesn't care if the marriage was happy or not.
Community property law says from the date of marriage until the date of separation, everything accumulated is divided 50/50 for spousal support purposes. If the marriage was a short-term marriage, meaning under 10 years, then the length of spousal support is half of the length of the marriage. If the marriage was over 10 years, then the duration of spousal support is no longer attached to the length of marriage. So, spousal support could be until either parent dies or the other parent remarries.
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