Divorce can bring out the ugly in people. One of the ways it manifests is spying on the soon-to-be ex, checking up on them in sneaky ways, not respecting or understanding that new boundaries are in play even before you’re officially divorced.
One of the primary causes of divorce is different money management styles and arguments about spending and financial priorities.
The most expensive type of divorce is one where the parties going through the divorce fight about everything, don’t understand their choices or take responsibility for their process.
Filing for divorce starts the legal process in your state. In some states, there are timing issues to take into account. In Tennessee, you can’t be divorced until 90 days after you’ve filed if you have children or own a home.
Before you determine what professionals to hire and who will file for divorce, there are a few things to consider that make the changes you’re going through less traumatic or at least more manageable.
t's a new year, and it's going to be different; life will be different. And the first step in that is to tell your spouse you want a divorce (see some thoughts on how to do that before you blurt it out over New Year's Day leftovers).
In divorce, the life you knew it is falling apart. The natural reaction is to cling to what you know and salvage what you can. When everything you thought you knew about your life and your future is in pieces, it can be a struggle to make sense of the fragments that remain. It's typical to want to stay in the house and retain some appearance of normalcy. While it seems like you are providing stability by staying in the family home, think it through. It may be a very high-priced mistake.
As soon as you begin to contemplate divorce, the nauseating, panic-attack-inducing realization of losing half of your net worth kicks in, and you find yourself wondering if it's even worth it to consider leaving if you're going to end up broke and starving.
When you broach the topic of divorce, the words you speak will start shaping the rest of your life, how your marriage ends and how the divorce process unfolds. And they're probably going to be profoundly memorable. It's worth your time to make sure what you say is what you want to be remembered.
You set aside a comfortable retirement nest egg that calculated golden years spent together as one household. Now those same funds will have to support not one but two households. One study showed post-divorce single women’s income dropping by 45%, custodial parent's income dropping a whopping 52%. And with these declines, it’s highly unlikely expenses will drop to the same degree.