Separation isn’t always the road to divorce. For some couples, probably for more couples than I even realize (because, let’s be honest, I have an unbalanced sampling), separation ultimately leads not to divorce but to reconciliation. That’s as it should be. I believe that women who want a divorce should be able to get one,...
Reconciling After Separation
I don’t want to mislead you, so I’ll tell you from the first sentence: I am not aware of any reputable Hampton Roads, Virginia-based family law attorneys that take payment plans. I know – hiring an attorney is expensive. Generally speaking, family law attorneys work on retainers, which means that you have to pay a...
Though the laws vary (sometimes dramatically!) from state-to-state, the law in Virginia is that spousal support terminates in three specific circumstances: (1) the death of either party, (2) the remarriage of the recipient party, and (3) the continued cohabitation of the recipient party in a relationship analogous to marriage for a period of one year...
Remember the ending scene in When Harry Met Sally? Harry realizes he loves Sally and wants to be with her, and he says, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” It’s kind of like that...
Most people have a lot of questions about the divorce process – even if they understand the basics. After all, there’s a lot that is really fact specific, and it can be hard to apply a general principle to a specific situation. Even if you can sort of guess what the answer might be, you...
There are probably very few things as devastating as losing custody of your children. As a mother myself, I can only imagine. In my experience, this happens pretty rarely, and (I’m sorry to say) often not without reason. In the majority of cases, the parties agree about how custody and visitation will be handled between...
Like entirely too many things in life, there’s no rule book for how to handle certain things after divorce. Before I go too far, allow me to say one thing. Actually, I’m going to give it a header tag, so that it’s bigger than the rest of the text, and so that it really...
What is a reasonable agreement when it comes to custody and visitation? This is a question we get a lot – hey, I understand! – from concerned moms who are wondering what’ll happen after they separate from their child’s father. What should a custody and visitation agreement look like? How much time with my kids...