Posted on July 13, 2018 in Divorce

Mediation is often presented as a great alternative to a litigated divorce — and it can be! However, it does have its limitations. There are times when all the good intentions in the world aren’t going to help you avoid litigation and mediation is simply a waste of money, time and effort.

So, how do you know when it’s better to skip mediation altogether? These are the signs:

Your spouse is only doing it to please the judge

Some judges heavily encourage mediation, but a spouse that doesn’t want to be there can make his or her demands so outrageous that there’s really no point. What they want is to go back to the judge and say, “I tried it.” They’re not really interested in an actual resolution.

You feel intimidated by your spouse

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 Posted on July 05, 2018 in Child Custody

Joint custody often sounds like a nightmare to divorcing parents. The idea of working together with your ex-spouse on anything, let alone the kids, can sound just about impossible.

These days, however, joint custody agreements are generally preferred by the courts. There’s been a lot of evidence presented that shared custody is beneficial for the children — and that’s the guiding principle behind the judge’s decisions in a case.

Experts suggest the following to help make joint custody work:

1. Treat the situation like a business deal.

If you view your ex-spouse as a caregiver to your children and nothing more, it may be easier to separate your feelings and get down to the business of simply taking care of the kids. View your ex-spouse as an asset to your time management and childcare needs, not competition.

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 Posted on June 27, 2018 in Family Law

Prenuptial agreements used to be something that only the very wealthy had. However, many couples from all economic backgrounds consider them today, partially because there are so many young people who are actively engaged in operating their own businesses. They want to make certain that their romantic entanglements don’t end up inadvertently destroying everything they’ve worked so hard to build.

Unfortunately, signing the wrong prenup can be just as bad as not signing one at all. If you’re heading into a marriage that involves a prenuptial agreement, here are three things you need to consider carefully.

1. Don’t sign a fidelity clause without careful consideration

Most people probably think that a clause that punishes a spouse financially in the divorce for cheating is fair, but you need to review the agreement carefully.

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 Posted on June 26, 2018 in Firm News

If divorce is in the wind, you are probably beginning to wonder how the family breakup will affect your children. It is an important issue, and you want to be prepared.

Raising your children in a post-divorce world will require a good parenting plan, but when problems pop up, do not be discouraged. Remember that there is a learning curve to the job of co-parenting.

Planning

The first order of business is to develop a plan, a paper outline of responsibilities so you and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse can refer to it. Parenting plans have been a requirement in the state of Texas since 2005. The purpose is to establish the duties and rights of the parents and to foster a close relationship with the children.

Scheduling

You have work schedules. The children have school and activity schedules. These will form the foundation concerning who will be responsible for what child at what time. You will also want to make schedules that will allow the children to fall into a routine. It will help them to know, for example, what time dinner will be each night, what time they will need to do their homework and what time one of you will pick them up to go to the movies.

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 Posted on June 22, 2018 in Divorce

Some couples can’t seem to let go of a bad thing. That’s certainly the case in involving a billionaire couple who ended their 32-year-old marriage on acrimonious terms. Apparently, they still can’t get enough of fighting with each other, and neither seems willing to move on.

The resulting inferno has swept up just about everyone in its wake, including the siblings and other relatives of the 68-year old ex-wife and the employees of the 74-year-old ex-husband. Even people just trying to make deliveries to their homes have been caught up in the ongoing drama.

Soon, a judge will decide whether or not the restraining order obtained by the ex-wife can be made permanent and extended to cover her siblings and others that are involved.

Both ex-spouses allege a pretty extensive list of complaints against the other. The ex-wife has accused the ex-husband of leaving the home he was required to vacate an absolute disaster. She alleges he even used bottles of foul-smelling novelty products to make the house unbearable.

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 Posted on June 14, 2018 in Divorce

Most couples go through their divorces rather quietly. They instinctively know that it’s better to work things out than battle it out in court. The financial expense of a court battle alone is intimidating enough — and that’s before you get to the fact that going to court means letting a stranger (the judge) control your life.

Not so, the narcissistic spouse. They generally have a need to punish their husbands or wives for failing to live up to their standards or for leaving — and they want the whole world to witness it (and agree with them).

If you’re reading this, the odds are very good that you already know your spouse is a narcissist. The question is how you can get through a divorce with your sanity and life reasonably intact. Here are some tips from the experts:

Anticipate the narcissist’s behavior

You can generally expect the narcissist to engage in the following actions:

• Public blaming
• A refusal to negotiate

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 Posted on June 08, 2018 in Family Law

One of the biggest problems parents often face during the summer is what to do with their children. Childcare options are expensive and often limited. Couples sometimes split shifts — with one parent working days and the other nights in order to make sure that their child is supervised. Single parents hire sitters or pay relatives to watch their children.

At some point, however, you may start wondering if your child could be old enough to stay home alone for a while — and what the laws are on the issue.

In Texas, there is no specific law regarding “how old is old enough” to be left alone. However, that doesn’t mean that a child of any age can simply be left alone. If you don’t use good judgement, leaving a child alone at home for even a short while can result in your arrest and charges of neglect. It could also quickly propel you into a battle for custody with concerned relatives, including ex-spouses or grandparents.

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 Posted on June 04, 2018 in Divorce

Divorced people are at a higher risk for early deaths — but science hasn’t really understood why marital status and mortality were related until recently.

It turns out that there may be a simple underlying cause for the connection: behavioral and lifestyle changes after divorce. In specific, divorced people are more likely to smoke and engage in less physical activity than their married counterparts.

In a study that involved both married and unmarried participants over the course of more than a decade, researchers examined the subjects’ self-reported levels of personal satisfaction, smoking habits and exercise habits. Over time, they discovered that married participants were 46 percent less likely to die than those participants who divorced.

They also discovered that the divorced participants were generally less satisfied with their lives. In turn, they tended to smoke more and exercise less often. While researchers are still speculating why the three issues seem related, one possibility is simply that the divorced participants didn’t feel particularly accountable for their behavior to anyone else significant. That led to poorer life choices — which created a domino-like effect on their habits and health.

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 Posted on May 29, 2018 in Firm News

Ideally, both parents would remain involved in their children’s lives after a divorce. However, as you are aware, sometimes one or both parents are unsuited to care for their children. To protect the children involved, family law courts in Texas must occasionally revoke parental rights.

You may be interested in learning the different reasons for terminating a parent’s rights. According to FindLaw, this is usually done for the children’s physical or emotional well-being. Parental rights are most often revoked in the following situations:

• Physical, verbal, emotional or sexual abuse
• Chronic or severe neglect of the children’s needs
• Abandonment of the children or failure to maintain contact or support
• Drug addiction, alcoholism or substance abuse

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 Posted on May 25, 2018 in Child Custody

If you’re in the middle of a bitter custody fight with an ex that seems like he or she will stop at nothing to win, the fear of a parental abduction has probably crossed your mind a few times.

It’s almost impossible not to think of the possibility. Amber alerts go out all the time across cellphones, televisions and radios due to parental abductions during custody fights.

Is there anything you can do to mitigate the risks? Experts say that it helps to understand the motivations of parents who abduct their own children despite knowing the immense risks and the challenges they’ll face later living on the run:

• They’re simply afraid of losing all custody or visitation of the child
• They believe that the other parent is abusive and dangerous to the child
• They want to punish the other parent for leaving
• They want to try to force the other parent to interact with them or possibly reconcile (so it is a way of getting attention)

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