Posted on September 26, 2016 in Children and Divorce

If you have been divorced for many years, you are probably fairly comfortable navigating the world of parenting after a divorce. If you are recently divorced, you might still be trying to determine what works and what does not work in this field. Co-parenting is a collaborative effort and the decisions you and your former partner make are generally driven by your child's academic, social, and medical needs. For many Illinois families, a young adult attending college after high school is one of the events that requires careful planning and cooperation between divorced parents.

Although your son or daughter is legally an adult at this age, it is not uncommon for you and your former partner to continue to support him or her financially. In fact, there may be a clause in your divorce settlement requiring one or both of you to contribute to his or her college expenses. But even if the financial aspect of your roles as parents in your child's college education is squared away, there are other issues you need to clarify. Who will drop your child off to campus? In which home will he or she stay during school breaks? How will expenses outside tuition and fees that your child incurs be handled?

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 21, 2016 in Child Custody

As divorced parents, it is your job to cooperate and work together for your child's benefit. But what if you and your spouse disagree on the course of action that would best benefit your child? For example, if your child suffers from a mental or physical health problem, you might want to research alternative treatment options or a specific type of therapy, while your former spouse wants to stick to traditional treatment methods. Watching your child suffer can be heartbreaking and fighting with your former spouse about how to help your child can be frustrating.

Parental Responsibility Allocations Determine Each Parent's Say in the Child's Treatment

In Illinois, the court develops a parenting time agreement and an allocation of parental responsibilities for divorcing couples with children. These replaced the terms “legal custody” and “physical custody” when the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act was revised in 2015.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 19, 2016 in Child Custody

No two school years are the same. As your child grows, his or her academic, social, and personal needs change and as he or she moves through different grade levels and schools, so do the schedules with which he or she must conform and the opportunities he or she can pursue. As a parent, it is your job to facilitate your child's academic success. If you have a parenting time agreement with your former partner, be sure to discuss the following with him or her as the new school year starts. Having these discussions beforehand can prevent confusion and conflicts later.

Extracurricular Activities

Your child might be interested in a new extracurricular activity, which might change his or her schedule or need for financial support. Talk to your former partner about this activity to determine whether it would be feasible for your child to pursue it and if so, how you will need to alter your existing schedule or child support agreement for it.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 15, 2016 in Divorce

When you file for divorce, your whole life changes. You might move out of your home or have to cancel your credit card and bank accounts, then reopen accounts in your own name. During the court processes of a divorce, it can be easy to ignore your personal needs, especially your health.

Going through a divorce can take a toll on your physical health as well as your mental health. In fact, certain specific health problems are linked to divorce. If you are considering filing for divorce or you have already done so, you may be susceptible to developing any of the following conditions. Speak with your healthcare provider about the divorce and any changes to your health so he or she can properly address them.

Cardiovascular Disease in Women

If you are a divorced woman, you have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than a married woman. This phenomenon is linked to your increased stress level, which can cause you to suffer from inflammation for a prolonged period of time.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 13, 2016 in Divorce

There are a lot of factors that affect a couple's likelihood of divorcing. These factors include the age of each partner when the couple married, each partner's education and income level, and whether the couple has the same socioeconomic and cultural background.

Other factors are not quite as obvious. For example, the genders of the couple's children. You might not think that your child's gender has any effect on your likelihood of divorcing, but research has found that parents of daughters have a slightly higher divorce rate than parents of sons.

Do not assume that just because you have a daughter, you will get divorced. Correlation does not imply causation, when whether your marriage will end in divorce or not hinges much more greatly on your ability to communicate effectively with your partner to resolve the conflicts that arise. If you are experiencing problems in your marriage, speak with an experienced divorce lawyer to determine all of your options. If you have exhausted all efforts to repair the issues you face, filing for divorce might be the healthiest option for all members of your family, regardless of their gender.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 07, 2016 in Child Support

When a couple with children divorces, the court determines numerous issues related to their children's care after the divorce. These issues include a parenting time schedule, allocation of parental responsibilities, and an appropriate amount of child support. Child support is money paid from one parent to the other to help to cover the costs of caring for the child. Generally, this is paid to the parent who has the majority of the parenting time with the child.

If you have been ordered to make child support payments, you probably want to know what the money is allocated to cover. Certain expenses, such as childcare and healthcare insurance, may be ordered outside of your child support order. Below are a few examples of what child support may be used to cover. If you have evidence that your former partner is not using the child support you send on these items and instead, on his or her own personal expenses, speak with a family lawyer about modifying your child support payment or altering how the money is disbursed to ensure it reaches your child.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 05, 2016 in Divorce

Following a divorce, many Americans fall in love again and choose to remarry. This is normal. Although many divorced individuals have a few reservations about entering into a second marriage, the desire to spend one's life with a romantic partner often overrides these reservations, resulting in a second marriage and potentially, more children for one or both parties.

One thing that does differentiate second marriages from first marriages is that it is much more common for individuals to sign prenuptial agreements when entering their second marriage. This is for two reasons: often, an individual has more assets when he or she enters his or her second marriage when compared to the assets he or she held at the start of the first marriage, and because many individuals who saw their assets be divided between themselves and their former partners in their first divorce want to avoid having to go through that a second time if they divorce again.

It is actually more common for one's second marriage to end in divorce than their first marriage. This is due to multiple factors, such as the stress of blending two families and the failure to learn from the mistakes of one's first marriage. If you find yourself unhappy in your second marriage and you are considering divorce, know that it will not be exactly like your first divorce for the following reasons:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 26, 2016 in Children and Divorce

If you are a parent considering filing for divorce, you are probably concerned about how your divorce will affect your children. Divorce affects every member of the family and in many cases, individuals outside the family like the couple's parents and siblings. Regardless of their age, children are affected by their parents' divorces.

Certain factors can color how a child is affected by his or her parents' divorce, such as the child's age and gender. Children of both genders can become anxious and dependent following a divorce, but there are specific ways that each gender tends to work through these emotions. A child's gender can also play a role in how the divorce continues to affect him or her years later, even into adulthood. As a parent, it is important that you minimize the effects your divorce has on your child by remaining emotionally available to him or her and working with your former spouse to co-parent your child effectively, regardless of your child's gender.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 24, 2016 in Child Support

The recent revisions to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act clarified the rules regarding parents' obligations to help their children with college expenses. Specifically, they give the court the right to order that divorced parents contribute to their children's college expenses if the child or one of the parents petition for such an order before the child's 23rd birthday. The amount of money a parent can be required to contribute is limited to the cost of attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the parent may not be required to continue to contribute past the student's 25th birthday.

Parents are also permitted to dispute orders for financial contributions to college costs. The language in the law states that parents may be required to contribute “except for good cause shown.” There are multiple reasons why a parent might feel he or she has good cause to not be required to contribute to his or her child's college bill, one of which is the sense that the money would not be put to good use.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 19, 2016 in Divorce

Getting divorced can be expensive. Between the meetings with your attorney, the time spent out of work to attend court hearings, and the added expenses of reaching a fair settlement, such as hiring a child custody evaluator or a real estate appraiser, your divorce can quickly become a money pit. For some couples, there is no way to get around these expenses. But for others, there are a few viable ways to reduce the expenses of ending a marriage.

Talk to your lawyer about ways you can save money on your divorce. A good lawyer wants to save his or her clients money and will work with you to find ways to make this possible.

Consider Mediation or a Collaborative Divorce

One of the greatest expenses divorcing couples face is the expense of litigation. When you involve the court system in your divorce, your expenses can spiral out of control very quickly. If you have an amicable relationship with your spouse, though, you can save money by either working with a mediator to reach a fair divorce settlement or by collaborating to draft your own settlement. In either of these scenarios, it is still important that both party retain his or her own lawyer.

Continue Reading ››