Boundaries are a hard thing for women everywhere. There are a million reasons, but I think that most of us feel essentially required to take care of the feelings of everyone around us. The feeling that we’ve disappointed someone is almost physically painful, and we take a lot of abuse – we’re programmed, in a...
Your Boundaries and Virginia Divorce
Maybe you suspect things will be difficult. Maybe he’s refusing outright to sign anything that you prepare. Maybe there’s legitimately nothing to divide in your divorce. For whatever reason, you tell your attorney, “I don’t want anything from him – anything at all – except a divorce.” When people tell me that, it makes...
It’s probably safe to say that, in divorce, most rational people end up settling. In terms of the financial outlay, it makes sense. Not just in the sense of what it costs to hire an attorney – which can be substantial – but in terms of the money involved in the marriage itself. You probably...
Divorce is scary. It can feel overwhelming. And, if you’ve never been here before – and, possibly, even if you have – it’s easy to not even know all the things that you don’t know. What are your rights? What are you entitled to receive? What responsibilities will you have? Will you receive child and/or...
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but people LOVE to tell other people what to do and how to spend their money, and that definitely includes child support. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that a mom should have to account to dad for how the child support is spent each...
I was giving one of our monthly divorce seminars a little while back when a woman used the Q&A function on Zoom to send me a question anonymously. (She didn’t need to do it anonymously; none of our attendees can see who else is in attendance, and only the presenter can see the name of...
In almost every case where child custody is a component – which can be either a petition or a modification of child custody, visitation, and/or child support at the juvenile court level, or a divorce where there are minor children involved – the mothers tell me that their main concern is their children. On some...
The worst cases are the ones where there’s really nothing to divide but debt. It’s not that it’s hard; in fact, it’s no harder to divide debt than it is to divide most other assets (and it’s easier than some, like 401(k)s). It’s mostly that, at the end of the day, absolutely no one is...