Virginia Common Law Marriage

Virginia Common Law Marriage

In order to qualify for the benefits associated with marriage in Virginia, you’re going to need to actually walk down the aisle and get formally, legally married. Common Law marriage is a concept that has more or less fallen out of fashion and most states don’t recognize any kind of common law marriage designation.  Though...

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When a marriage starts to fall apart, it’s definitely not the most comfortable experience – especially if you and your soon-to-be ex are still living under the same roof.  In most family law cases, the facts really, really matter, so its hard to make generalized, one-size-fits-all type statements.  If you’re living in the same home,...

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Virginia Divorce After 30+ Years of Marriage

Marriages of more than 30 years are sort of in their own category. Once you get to the point that you’ve spent three decades together, there’s no question that you’ve accumulated some joint assets. There are some things that are, generally speaking, easier.  It’s unlikely, at this point, that you have minor children together –...

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Virginia Divorce After 20 Years of Marriage

  You’ve been married a really long time.  At this point, probably almost every asset (or liability) you can think of is one that was earned, purchased, or acquired during the marriage.  While it doesn’t have to be harder to end a longer marriage as opposed to a shorter one, there are often a lot...

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Virginia Divorce After 15 Years of Marriage

By any reckoning, 15 years is a fairly lengthy marriage.  At some point – and I’d theorize that’s somewhere along the ten year mark – there comes a time when, even if you break up, you and your soon-to-be ex owe something to each other. The longer the marriage, the more difficult it is to...

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Virginia Divorce After 10 Years of Marriage

They say that marriages fall apart in increments of 7 – 7 years, 14 years, 21 years, and so on.  It’s where the whole “Seven Year Itch” thing came from.  In a lot of ways, I see it.  Even though the first year of marriage is sometimes tumultuous, people tend to settle into a groove...

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Virginia Divorce After 5 Years of Marriage

Marriage doesn’t always last forever, and that’s okay.  In fact, I generally think that, the shorter the marriage, the easier the divorce, mostly because there’s not often THAT much to divide.  Life changing money usually isn’t made in just a few years, which means the stakes are generally correspondingly smaller. Why is that good?  It...

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Hey, it’s okay!  If you only recently got married, and you’ve started to think that maybe it was a mistake, I can tell you that you’re definitely not alone.  In fact, I think you’re one of the luckier ones.  After a year or less, there’s often very little to divide, and no one is so...

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