Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”
Then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and her family were thrust into the media spotlight in 2008 when Arizona Senator and then-presidential candidate John McCain named Palin as his running mate in the political race against (then Senator, now President) Barack Obama and running-mate Joseph Biden.
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 ” 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.”
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.
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.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I get the judge to order my spouse to pay my attorney’s fees in a property division case?”
The Huffington Post has identified what it describes as “a narrow group of smart, rational and reasonable individuals” who will join the flood of people all over the country starting the New Year by ending their marital relationships. It is, after all, the busiest time of year for divorce lawyers; however, these “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals will not be joining the flood of phone calls to divorce lawyers’ offices.
Diane L. Danois, J.D., says smart people don’t need divorce lawyers. First, she argues, much of family law is form-based, and most of the forms are available online at no cost. Even samples of Separation Agreements, Property Agreements and Custody Agreements can be found online and tailored—by “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals—to fit an individual couple’s needs.
As for property division, Danois says, financial affidavits guide couples through the steps of disclosing and labeling assets and liabilities. Smart people can figure out what martial property is, presumably. The assumption Ms. Danois appears to make, however, is that parties to marital relationships all have sharing, cooperative attitudes. Many people end up in my office, however, because of their spouses’ uncooperative and—at times—abusive and controlling attitudes. They need advocates to stand up for them because they feel intimidated by a spouse and by the legal system.
Of course, uncooperative, controlling, manipulative spouses would likely not fit under Ms. Danois’ definition of “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals, so perhaps the couples in need of divorce lawyers—by asserting the opposite of the premise—are those which feature at least one spouse who is uncooperative, or not “smart.”
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”
Heather Brassner’s marriage ended five years ago, but she was only able to get a Florida judge to sign off on her divorce this past Wednesday.
In so doing, Brassner, her now ex-wife Megan Lade and Broward County Circuit Judge Dale Cohen made history. The Brassner-Lade divorce marks the Sunshine State’s first same-sex divorce.
Brassner’s attorney, Nancy Brodzki, called Judge Cohen’s ruling historic, telling the Associated Press that while this is Florida’s first same-sex divorce, it will not be the last. As the Washington Post reported Monday, Columbia University statistics professor Andrew Gelman analyzed statistics comparing same-sex and traditional marriages and concluded that “the dissolution rate of same-sex marriages seems comparable to, not lower than, the divorce rate of traditional marriages.” Previous analyses had provided that the same-sex divorce rate was lower than the traditional marriage divorce rate.
Any way you slice the numbers, according to Gelman, results in lots of divorces—same-sex and traditional.
Brodzki may expecting more same-sex divorce business in Florida, but before she takes any more clients over the divorce finish line, she may have to fight Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi in court.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”
New York real-estate investor Robert Rothenberg has threatened to sue his 35-year-old former lover—the Israeli singer and actress Ayelet Argaman—accusing Argaman of swindling him out of lavish gifts made in contemplation of marriage. Really, Rothenberg says, Argaman was leading him on and using him for his money.
Argaman—who has appeared in minor roles in television series including The Sopranos and Law & Order—said she and Rothenberg began dating in September 2013. Rothenberg—20 years Argaman’s senior—lavished his young lover with $1.3 million in gifts, including a $100,000 per-month stipend for expenses.
Rothenberg forwarded Argaman emails from Rabbis praising him for being a “charitable religious man.” He also promised he would use his connections to get Argaman’s album produced. Argaman disclosed messages detailing Rothenberg’s efforts at wooing her. While he acknowledged that Argaman probable wanted “a younger version of himself,” he posited that “God works in ways we don’t understand” and that Argaman’s “softness, depth and soul” intrigued him.
Rothenberg stepped up the wooing this past spring, purchasing a $1.4 million one-bedroom apartment in Trump Palace on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for Argaman. He later signed an agreement granting Argaman a 60-percent share in the holding company that owns the apartment. Under the agreement, Argaman would have the option to buy out Rothenberg’s 40-percent share if their relationship did not last until May 2015.
It didn’t, and now Rothenberg wants the apartment back.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
An organization of 6,500 divorce lawyers, mediators and therapists in England has released the results of a survey showing the effects of divorce on children, and the results have staggered even industry insiders who have long bemoaned the negative effects family separations have on young members.
The group’s director, Jo Edwards, told Yahoo Parenting that children suffer most when parents engage in angry fighting in front of them. Edwards said the effects of confrontations can be seen almost immediately, with poor test scores, the onset of eating disorders, and behavioral problems. In the long term, divorces can affect students’ performance on standardized tests, can cause children to experiment with drugs, and can affect the ability of children to develop healthy, rewarding relationships and friendships.
Edwards said that the key for parents who are going through a divorce is to not engage in conflict in the presence of children. Almost a third of children surveyed confirmed that one parent tried to turn the child against the other parent, in order to gain a leg up in the divorce proceedings. A quarter of children respondents told surveyors that one or both of their parents had tried to involve them in their marital disputes. Another quarter of respondents did not even know one or both of their parents had new romantic partners until they found out on social media.
The United Kingdom-based organization that conducted the survey—named Resolution—styles itself as promoting non-confrontational divorces and other family conflicts. The non-confrontational approach, the group believes, is a key to ensuring a divorce does not leave children with long-lasting scars.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I get the judge to order my spouse to pay my attorney’s fees in a property division case?”
Twenty-five year marriage? Try a twenty-five year divorce.
Wall Street billionaire Steve Cohen is fending off claims from his Manhattan book editor ex-wife, Patricia, who sued the former SAC Capital Advisors, LP honcho in 2009, alleging he misled her about a supposedly failing real estate deal and cheated her out of $2.75 million.
The Cohens married in 1979, but the stress of Mr. Cohen’s Wall Street job put the marriage on the rocks. The couple divorced in 1990, when—according to Bloomberg News—Mr. Cohen was “barely worth eight figures.”
He is worth much more now. Since Mrs. Cohen filed her suit in 2009, Mr. Cohen’s net worth has doubled to an estimated $11.1 billion.
Aside from his ex-wife, Mr. Cohen and his company—now called Point72 Asset Management LP—have spent six years fending off insider-trading charges and corruption investigations. In 2013, Manhattan United States Attorney Preet Bharara called Cohen’s company a “magnet for market cheaters.”
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