Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can you guarantee I will get the resolution I want?”
Two Minnesota State legislators say the very idea of divorce implicates the court system, and that implication leads to another, critical assumption: that parties to a divorce case are adversaries.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”
Some call it a midlife crisis; some call it a wandering eye; some call it downright bored. Whatever “it” is, 50-year-old self-described “good girl” Robin Rinaldi decided to give it a whirl for one year, agreeing with her husband of seventeen years to try an “open marriage.”
The concept—called polyamory—is nothing new. It is almost as old as infidelity—a concept most people call cheating, except an open marriage takes the “cheat” out of cheating. In effect, a spouse is allowed—if not encouraged—to cheat.
Rinaldi, of San Francisco, California, said that prior to the year of her “wild oat project,” she had only slept with four men, including her husband Scott Mansfield. Her once-a-week love life with the brewer and winemaker was in a rut, and his refusal to bear a child with her was the final straw, she wrote in a recently published book titled The Wild Oats Project.
Her agreement with Mansfield was as follows: Rinaldi would rent an apartment and live there through the week. On the weekends she would return home, where she and Mansfield would live as a married couple. They were not to sleep with mutual friends, not to get into any “serious” relationships, and they were not to have unprotected sex.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “When do you get alimony?”
Women who devote more time to homemaking and childcare may be in for a series of post-divorce rude awakenings, according to NBC News.
Bruce McClary, a spokesman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, told NBC that some women “have to start right from scratch” at finding a post-divorce job or home and establishing credit.
While “working-class women get hit harder,” NBC reports, women across all income levels—even women from higher-income levels—often suffer large income losses when they divorce. Laura Tach, an assistant professor of policy analysis and management at New York’s Cornell University, said women who are awarded physical custody of children may stand to lose anywhere from thirty to forty-percent of their income.
The costs associated with childcare and the demands placed on women’s time make it difficult to keep apace of a fast-moving and demanding labor market. A 2012 study published by the Urban Institute showed that less-than-half of “employed, working-class parents” were given paid time off by their employers, while more than half worked “nonstandard hours and nearly a quarter had to work nights,” according to NBC. Keeping up with those demands and keeping up with one’s children can be difficult and, in some instances, virtually impossible.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”
Until death do us part, in sickness and in health? As for sickness, not so much.
That is, at least, according to a new study spearheaded by Amelia Karraker, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University.
Her study—published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior—shows that married women who are diagnosed with a serious health condition are at greater odds of being divorced by or from their spouses than healthy married women.
Karraker and colleague Kenzie Latham studied marriage data from 1992 to 2010 compiled by the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan. They looked at rates of cancer, heart disease, lung disease and stroke among married women during that timeframe.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”
In divorce court, as in any court, litigants must tell the truth. If they do not—aside from damaging their own case—they may face charges for perjury or contempt of court, and the fallout from telling untruths under oath may extend well beyond the courtroom, as a recent case involving a Louisiana police chief has underscored.
The chief in question is Lafayette, Louisiana Police Chief Kenny Vines. On January 20, Circuit Judge Ray Martin held Vines in contempt of court after determining that Vines had presented false documents to the court during his divorce case. Judge Martin fined Vines $100 and ordered him to serve a five-day jail sentence, although the jail sentence was suspended on the condition that Vines pay the fine.
The Fifth Circuit District Attorney’s office convened a grand jury to consider whether Vines should be charged with perjury in connection with false statements Vines made about the divorce documents while under oath. Last Friday, a Chambers County grand jury indicted Vines on perjury charges. As soon as Vines was informed of the indictment, he entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors.
According to a statement released on Monday by Fifth-Circuit prosecutors, Vines pled guilty to second-degree perjury and the perjury charge arose out of statements Vines had made to the Circuit Court while under oath. Vines was sentenced to six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended on the condition that he complete twelve months of probation.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”
What stands to reason does not always stand up to reality, and a new study from a team led by a doctor at Harvard Medical School is driving that point home.
Doctor Anupam Jena of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School led a team that analyzed American Community Survey responses from 250,000 physicians, dentists, pharmacists and health-care executives, according to the Washington Post. The researchers also studied survey answers from 59,000 lawyers and 6.3 million non-health-care professionals. The study results were published last week in a journal titled The BMJ.
Dr. Jena said that going into the study, he encountered “this conception or notion that doctors are more likely to be divorced, not only more than other health-care professionals, but the population at large.” This conception or notion, the Post suggested, dovetailed with the perception that doctors work long hours, have demanding schedules, and operate in high-stress day-to-day work environments.
Those conditions sound like a recipe for high divorce rates.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What does uncontested divorce mean?”
When Fats Domino sings about finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill, you can almost hear in the mournful piano chords he plays that descend into the chorus that though his dream “came true” and though “the wind in the willow played love’s sweet melody,” the vows his lover made “were never to be.”
Those whose vows were not to be can climb a different kind of promontory, in Saratoga Springs, New York at the Gideon Putnam Resort, where the Dutch Company Divorce Hotel is offering couples weekend luxury packages that include a divorce.
Jim Halfens—Divorce Hotel’s founder—said the company deploys a team of professionals to settle out divorces during the three-day Divorce Hotel trips. He said couples typically split the cost of the stay, which runs anywhere from $3,500 to $10,000.
Halfens describes the process as “intense, a rollercoaster and a pressure cooker,” but in the end, he said, it saves couples a lot of drawn-out negativity. “When the weekend is over, both will sign the divorce agreement and everybody can go on with their lives,” Halfens said.
Of course, not all spouses will be able to resolve their differences at a one-weekend stay at the Divorce Hotel, and Halfens explained that at a minimum, spouses must “be able to wish each other a positive new future.”
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Finding advice on divorce is like finding advice on dieting or exercise: it is everywhere. Whether you through an expert’s “ten tips,” another expert’s “twenty rules,” or another expert’s one-hundred one-word divorce descriptors, both the divorce process and processing all the divorce advice one is bound to receive can prove taxing.
A west-Texas counselor and therapist has made it easy for those contemplating or going through divorce, publishing in the San Angelo Standard a list of “Do’s” and a list of “Don’ts” for those who desire as “mindful a transition as possible.”
The therapist—Adrianne Albarado Ortiz—focuses her practice on children, many of whom experience emotional trauma as a result of their parents’ divorce. As far as “Don’ts,” Ms. Ortiz encourages couples with children not to seek to sabotage their children’s relationship with their spouse or exes by using malicious words against the other parent. Ms. Ortiz said this could actually backfire “and cause the child to generate resentment” towards the parent who is seeking to undermine the other parent.
The focus throughout a divorce process, Ortiz said, should be on the well-being of children involved. That means parents should never use their children as pawns to seek to gain the upper hand in divorce disputes. Ortiz said divorcing parents should never seek to obtain information from children about the other parent, and should not ask their children to choose sides when it comes to scheduling conflicts.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”
A spouse’s cruel words and outrageous treatment drove you to a divorce attorney in the first place, but now the divorce attorney is telling you the cruel treatment no more matters to your case than whether you broke your leg skiing or broke it getting hit by a car.
The point is, the leg is broken.
In medicine, of course, the answer is the fix the leg. In the world of marriages, a common answer to a couple’s problems—the opposite of fixing it—is to get a divorce. Many couples who arrive at this point turn to the legal system to find something they never experienced in their marriage: justice.
A family law attorney writing for the Buffalo Law Journal has a warning for justice seekers: In the family law courts, it’s business, not personal.
Family law attorney Steven Wiseman says courts use guidelines to render decisions on matters like child support and spousal maintenance. Courts have some discretion to deviate from these guidelines, but the fact that a spouse may have been “a lying, cheating, son of a you-know-what” is simply not relevant.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How long does getting a divorce take?”
That special time of year is looming—April 15. That is not the date on which Santa Claus comes tumbling down the chimney with a slew of nice gifts to leave under the tree. Quite the opposite: April 15 is the date every year on which Americans pay their dues to Uncle Sam and to their respective state governments.
Not all state governments impose an income tax, but this state (North Carolina) does, and the federal government expects its dues. Aside from whatever complications one has experienced in the past with figuring and paying taxes, if one has recently divorced, one should beware, because new complications may be aplenty.
Even if one has not yet divorced but is engaged in the divorce process, tax time could prove especially troublesome. What, for instance, is one’s filing status? Is one married and filing jointly or married and filing separately? And, importantly, who is the Head of Household for tax purposes?
Unfortunately, answering these queries may require not only conversation with—but also the cooperation of—one’s ex or soon-to-be ex. This could prove vexing, and especially so if the ugliness if a divorce proceeding is looming over the erstwhile tedious task of preparing taxes.
Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog