A woman I met with the other day asked me a good question, “If he abandons us, will that hurt his chances for custody?” She went on to tell me that, thirty some odd years ago, when her mom got divorced, her attorney gave her that advice. Now, facing divorce herself and with a small...
Abandonment and Custody
Divorce and custody cases are high stress situations. It’s not very often that I get an email or a call from a client who isn’t feeling pretty frantic. They want answers, and they want them now, and they can’t sleep until they get them. They’re so worried, and they don’t know how anything will turn...
Lots of people struggle with substance abuse. Lots. Over the years, I’ve seen many, many women who tell me that they struggled with a drug or alcohol addiction. I think, because they’re often so used to being judged for the issues that they’ve faced, they fully expect to be told that they won’t be able...
Let’s face it, one day, you’ll date again. For some, of course, it happens much sooner than others but, in the majority of cases, it happens. If you have children with your ex, no matter what else might happen, dating because exponentially more difficult. How do you talk about new boyfriends with the children? When...
It’s not easy to be a military spouse. Between deployments and workups and irregular hours (not to mention the fact that you could literally be sent almost anyplace in the world – and sometimes the service member gets unaccompanied orders – and have no say in the matter), it’s one thing after another. For the...
Women ask me all the time whether they should just get custody handled first, and then come back and handle the divorce itself. In a sense, I think I get what they’re saying – custody is the more pressing concern immediately, and needing to have that handled is clouding everybody’s judgment about everything. Maybe they...
If there’s anything that’s lagging behind the times in divorce and custody, it’s child support guidelines. (Just kidding. This is Virginia. We’re lagging behind in a lot of places, I’m just choosing to talk about one area that, in my opinion, is particularly behind the times.) It’s kind of like no one has any idea...
On Monday, we talked about how good moms can lose custody. It happens all the time, and I’m always surprised at how many moms don’t take custody cases seriously, and wind up losing custody of their kids. They fall prey to some of the common mistakes we discussed on Monday, and they’re left with...
