Question: My husband and I are separating. He’s verbally and emotionally abusive, and I can’t take it anymore. After I told him it was over, he told me he was going to leave the apartment we’re renting and I’d have to “figure it out.” I’ve been a stay at home mom and he knows I...
Can my husband walk out on me, our child – and our lease?
In Virginia, a couple of things go into a child support calculation: both parents’ combined incomes (if you are receiving spousal support, this is included as ‘income’), the amount either or both are paying for support of other children, the total amount of work-related childcare that they are paying, and the cost of health insurance...
The short answer is yes – you can choose to give your child your last name at birth. The longer answer, of course, is that this can be complicated. For unmarried mothers, particularly ones who exclude their child’s father from the birth, this is easier. We don’t necessarily assume that a child should be given...
There are all sorts of different words that attorneys, judges, Guardians ad litem, divorce coaches, and others in the family law space use to describe the tools that we utilize in divorce and custody cases. A ‘parenting plan’ is a good example, because it’s one you hear over and over, but it’s also one that...
As you probably already know, not all wives are SAHMs. Goodness knows I’m not! From a divorce perspective, having access to your own income, benefits, and opportunities is so critically important. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – one of the biggest evils when it comes to divorce and child custody cases...
Even though Virginia does not assume 50/50 custody – the statute actually just says that the court must consider all forms of custody equally – it is still often the starting point in many custody cases, especially contested ones. I’m not a fan of automatic 50/50 custody; I think it creates a situation focused on...
Everyone – and I do mean everyone – always wants to ask whether they need an attorney for such-and-such kind of a case. And, while it’s true that you don’t ALWAYS need to hire an attorney, sometimes it can be hard to tell from the outside looking in, especially if your exposure to the case...
I love easy questions but, in family law, I get so few of them that when I do see a truly easy question with a truly easy answer, I almost can’t believe my luck. The short answer is no, you do not have to be flexible with your child’s father when he asks for changes...