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...
Virginia Divorce After 20 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...
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...
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...
In all honesty, most attorneys in the Hampton Roads area have a pretty high degree of familiarity with military divorces. In fact, in many ways, military divorces aren’t really all that different from regular, ‘civilian’ divorces. Divorce is never ‘one size fits all’, whether military or not, but there are some general basics that...
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...
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...
Everyone wants to save on attorney’s fees. No one likes the idea of shelling out all the money for a retainer and ultimately having very little control over how much a divorce costs. It feels like a blank check, and at a time in your life where you’re probably even more concerned about how every...