Divorce

Divorce mediator shares what she wishes she had known before her own divorce

Published on: January 29, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

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 longtime divorce mediator thought she was as prepared as anyone could be when the storms that brought on her own divorce rolled in. Now the mediator—Nicole Feuer—is urging couples who are contemplating divorce to think hard about issues the divorce solution will not resolve and the pains that the divorce process may inflict.

A spouse may be so far beyond that proverbial third strike that one could not imagine ever patching things up. One may even feel indifferent regarding whether one ever has to interact with a spouse again. Maybe one would be happier if one never saw one’s spouse again.

If one has children, however, one may be forced to deal with one’s ex spouse. Feuer reminds those considering divorce that the bad behaviors that drove one to divorce an ex do not disappear just because of the divorce. In fact, an ex spouse may be more prone to seek to push one’s buttons after a divorce than beforehand or during the divorce process.

What can one do? Feuer encourages divorcees to “let it go and not let it get to [one] anymore.” That may be easier said than done, Feuer says, but holding on to anger towards an ex spouse can damage a person emotionally, spiritually and even physically. One cannot change who an ex spouse is, how someone behaves or what someone has said or done. One can, however, learn to let go of the past and move beyond one’s anger. In fact, Feuer says, one must move beyond one’s anger to enjoy the fruits of a post-divorce life.

Cutting divorce expenses means compromising and choosing the right advocate

Published on: January 27, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is there some property that the judge cannot divide?

Any litigant looking for something less than the proverbial blood wants to spend as little as possible getting from here to there. Some litigants are out for the proverbial blood, however, and seem willing to spend as much as it takes to draw it.

Thankfully, our system of legal justice limits litigants to well-known causes of action and certain limited remedies. In the family-law context, these remedies include a decree of divorce, an award of money or property under various legal theories, an award of custody of a child or children and, in some cases, the imposition of one or more injunctions prescribing or prohibiting certain actions or omissions.

Parties to a divorce action can take some simple steps to spend as little as possible getting to the finish line. The first step, writes Geoff Williams in US News and World Report, is learning to compromise. This can be difficult, because even spouses who do compromise may feel regretful about their decisions.

Judy Crockett of Manistee, Michigan, for instance, regretted her decision to accept her husband’s offer of forty percent of retirement assets. She said she decided not to fight for a full half of the retirement assets because her husband was older and in ill health at the time of their divorce.

Divorce party lets exes blow their marriage mementos to smithereens

Published on: January 22, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board certified family law specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How long does getting a divorce take?”

Getting to the point of wanting a divorce may have taken years. Getting the divorce may have taken years. Now the divorce is over. What to do?

Much is to be gained by taking stock and learning to live in one’s new life. Over time, divorcees may learn to get over their anger and even to get along, to some degree or another, with an ex-spouse.

Amy Koko, who writes on her blog ExWifeNewLife, said it is important for people who have gone through a divorce to learn to live alone, to learn that they are strong and independent enough to fend for themselves.

Her advice dovetails with a new offer from a Las Vegas, Nevada business that specializes in helping people fend for themselves—with guns!

Machine Guns Vegas is promising an unforgettable post-divorce party package just in time for Valentine’s Day. The “Just Divorced” experience is designed, the company says, to encourage the recently divorced “to commemorate new beginnings—by shooting down any items that painfully remind them of their wedding day.”

Mediator says those considering divorce need to face the music

Published on: January 20, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “My wife and I are not getting along If I leave the house, can she get me for abandonment?”

A well-known divorce mediator is encouraging people who are considering divorce to dispense with some common myths before taking the proverbial leap away from and out of marriage—especially if the marriage involves children.

To be frank, divorce mediator Debra Macleod says anyone considering divorce needs to stop lying to oneself about the effect the process will have on children—and on oneself.

First and foremost, if a person thinks divorce is going to solve all of one’s problems—even one’s problems with a (soon-to-be-ex) spouse, one may have another thing coming. In fact, being divorced may introduce a whole new host of heretofore un-encountered issues with one’s (now ex) spouse.

Now that you are divorced and sharing custody of your children, you have to contend with your ex-spouse’s new boyfriend or girlfriend. You now “have no control over the strangers that waltz in and out of your child’s life.”

And that’s a shame—a shame for you but more so a shame for the child who brought none of this upon oneself. Macleod says most divorces are caused by the mixing of “two self-focused, short-sighted adults who wallow in their own misery” and who don’t spend enough time thinking about others—namely their kids.

Facebook becoming the “it” factor in millions of divorces

Published on: January 15, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

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?”

Facebook was invented ostensibly for old friends to connect, namely old classmates whose faces might have appeared in a different, older kind of medium—in a yearbook.

The twist was that was then and this is now—this being the digital age in which no distance is too great for old friends to meet.

Bridging the distance of time and space may be proving too great, however, for some married couples, as Facebook has become the “it” factor in a growing number of divorces. According to the Daily Mirror, a survey of caseloads at major family-law firms shows Facebook is a factor in as many as one-third of modern divorces.

Facebook’s role in martial harmony and divorces dovetails with other issues its ubiquitous presence has raised in the lives of its billion users. Using Facebook and posting information about one’s day-to-day life and activities means kissing privacy goodbye.

Researchers of mixed-orientation Mormon marriages release survey results

Published on: January 13, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Do I need an attorney to get a Divorce in North Carolina?”

The television network TLC has foisted the phenomenon of same-sex attracted husbands who married straight wives into the fore of the American public’s consciousness with its new program “My Husband Is Not Gay.”

As reported in the Salt Lake City Tribune, however, new statistics compiled by John Dehlin, Bill Bradshaw and Renee Galliher should be “sobering” to couples participating in the show. Dehlin is a doctoral student at Utah State University. Galliher—also of Utah State—assisted Dehlin in compiling the statistics. Bradshaw is a retired Brigham Young University professor.

They studied 1,612 “self-selected LGBT/same-sex attracted Mormons and former Mormons,” some single, some in committed same-sex relationships, and some of whom had entered into heterosexual marriages.

The researchers found that between 51-percent and 69-percent of “mixed-orientation Mormon marriages” ended in divorce. That is compared to the approximately 25-percent overall divorce rate among couples associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—also known as the Mormon church.

LGBT is an acronym that stands for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered.”

Psychotherapist offers words of encouragement for those contemplating divorce

Published on: January 6, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

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?”

Author and psychotherapist Abby Rodman says that couples contemplating, embroiled in, or nearing the finish line of a divorce need to embrace the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Change is constant.” Change is constant, and if you are going through a divorce, you should embrace change, because change is certain, says Rodman.

Rodman encourages couples to prepare for the worst. Preparing for the worst does not mean couples have to expect the worst, and in the long run the changes spawned by a divorce may lead to a better life than parties to a marriage are leading now. Painting too rosy a picture of post-divorce life, in one’s mind, however, may lead to unfulfilled expectations.

If divorce is a part of one’s life, Rodman says, it does not have to define one’s life. In reality, Rodman says, the rest of a person’s life goes on while a divorce is proceeding. If a person brings the rest of one’s life to a halt while a divorce is pending, Rodman says, one may miss out on new and important opportunities—doors that open into one’s new, post-marriage life.

The end of a marriage means the end of matrimonial bonds, and it also may bring to an end many other past times or traditions shared with a spouse. One may feel inclined to cast off and cast away the implements of one’s former life, tangible and intangible, but Rodman encourages those going through the divorce process not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

New York divorce mediator pleads guilty in plot to torture men into signing divorce paper

Published on: January 1, 2015 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”

Mediation is supposed to provide the opposing parties in a claim the opportunity to resolve their differences amicably. The actions of a New York divorce mediator, however, have led to far-less-than amicable results, according to federal prosecutors.

On Wednesday, a New York-based divorce mediator pled guilty to charges stemming from his attempts to strong-arm men into giving their wives a “get.”

The man—White Plains, New York-based Martin Mordechai Wolmark—pled guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, to engaging in a conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce to commit extortion, according to United States Attorney Paul J. Fishman.

Wolmark and Rabbi Mendel Epstein—described by USA Today as “a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator from Brooklyn—were accused of leading “a gang of eight thugs” who tortured men into giving their wives a “get.”

Adult child sees the silver lining in her parents’ divorce—eight years later

Published on: December 30, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can any attorney help me with my family law needs in North Carolina?”

Remorse is, perhaps, the most difficult of human emotions. Anyone who has passed through the crucible of divorce may know what it means to contend with remorse, or to contend with “what could have been.”

Sadly, many divorces leave a trail of broken hearts. These include the hearts of children, who are often unwitting, innocent victims of a broken marriage.

Adult children of divorced or divorcing parents are not immune to these feelings. To an adult child whose parents have been married for decades, the concept of divorce—at least applied to one’s own parents—may seem foreign. What’s more, because adult children tend to move away from their parents’ home, they may miss signs of marital trouble displayed behind closed doors.

Ellen Huerta, who writes about romantic breakups on her website Mend, recalls that since her parents’ marriage had survived her own childhood and young adulthood, she just assumed it would last forever—or until death did them part.

Census plan to eliminate survey questions may leave marriage, divorce in statistical void

Published on: December 25, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What does a “No-Fault’ divorce mean in NC?”

About one-half of American marriages end in divorce.

Marriage counselors have been preaching that prevailing wisdom to couples for decades. People who have been through a messy divorce may point to the statistic with a disillusioned “I told you so” attitude. Divorce attorneys and other professionals who often deal with the most contentious divorces may feel even more disillusionment.

Researchers, however, can put their feelings aside and study the raw data. As consumers, as human beings and as professionals working in family law matters, we rely on the data and upon the work of researchers studying the data for a portrait of what marriage and divorce look like in the United States.

For a variety of reasons, our ability to rely on accurate data may be disappearing.

For years, researchers in the family-law field have relied on statistics compiled by the United States Government in its American Community Survey. It is the ground zero, so to speak, for researchers interested in marriage and divorce trends across different age groups, ethnicities and cultures within the United States.