Sometimes I wonder whether anyone even cares about adultery anymore. Sure, it matters to the spouse who has been cheated on, but, at least in the court system, adultery seems to be losing serious ground. In the olden days, adultery was the only grounds for divorce. If there wasn’t adultery, you were stuck. These days,...
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It’s unrealistic to expect that your husband will be able to support you in “the manner to which you have grown accustomed” after your divorce. In fact, it’s probably impossible, because divorce cases are not like personal injury cases, and no one person can really expect to receive a windfall. In a divorce, you have...
Marital debts, just like marital assets, are divided through equitable distribution. This means that property is divided between the parties based on what the court thinks is fair. Equitable distribution means that property can be divided 50/50, but that is not necessarily required. These days, we see a lot of divorces that are more about...
Separate property is not divided equally in divorce. In fact, it’s not divided at all. Marital property is defined as anything you earned or purchased during the marriage. Separate property, on the other hand, is property that either of you owned prior to your marriage, or anything that was given to you by gift or...
When you and your husband sit down to try to divide your personal property, it can feel like an epic power struggle. You feel very strongly that you should get to keep some thing or other but, unfortunately, he wants to keep it just as badly—or, at least, he wants to keep you from getting...
Parental alienation happens when one parent uses his or her influence over the child to make the other parent seem like the “bad guy.” It can happen both intentionally and unintentionally, and we see it a lot in divorce cases. The anger, hurt, and resentment one parent is feeling can sometimes spill over into their...
You’ve probably heard that, in Virginia, the way property is divided is through “equitable distribution.” This means that, when a judge makes a determination about who deserves to receive what, he is supposed to consider what is fair based on the negative and positive monetary and nonmonetary contributions each person made to the marriage. Normally,...
I see cases more and more frequently where the wives are earning more than their husbands. It makes sense, after all, because they say that more women graduate college and apply to law school than men. However, despite our creativity and general brilliance, we have significant biological disadvantages that make it more difficult for us...