There’s more than one way to skin a cat, or so the saying goes. I’d never skin a cat. I love cats. It’s just an expression. Don’t be weird about it. But if you have an objective in mind – basically, getting an agreement for divorce – there’s more than one way to do it. ...
Separation Agreement v. Postnuptial Agreement
There’s a point in every divorce negotiation where we – sometimes me, sometimes my client, sometimes both of us together – wonder whether it’ll ever be possible to reach an agreement. It’s a hard thing to do and every single point can be contentious. This is especially true when one party *really* doesn’t want the...
It doesn’t happen all the time, but every so often I have a consultation with a woman who decides – for one reason or another – that she really can’t leave her marriage, no matter how much she’d like to. Why? There are a million reasons, but it often comes down to a couple...
Adultery, sodomy, and buggery are – at least for now – grounds for fault-based divorce in Virginia. There are a number of other, alternative fault-based grounds, including cruelty, apprehension of bodily hurt, desertion, abandonment, and felony conviction, but adultery has always been sort of in its own category because it is also a crime (a...
On July 1, 2026, the law is changing. To be fair, almost every single year on July 1, the law changes in some way and, usually, there is some impact to family law. Sometimes, the effect is negligible – like, last year, when guideline child support was raised. Don’t get me wrong. We celebrated. But...
The murder of Cerina Fairfax – who was in the midst of a divorce in Northern Virginia at the time that her husband, a former Virginia lieutenant governor, killed her and then himself in the family home while the children were home – has made waves over the last few months, sparking renewed attention on...
Question: My child’s father and I separated and he stayed in the marital home. Our kids go back and forth. This week, my daughter came back to my new place after spending a weekend at dad’s. She cried and told me that dad had taken down all of our family photos. She was really upset...
Sometimes, divorce comes about gradually, over time, as people outgrow relationships that once served them. In other cases, though, there was one triggering event that set events in motion, so to speak. These cases are the most difficult, I think, because it wasn’t a gradual thing that you could adjust to over time. It was...