Divorce & Custody Law Library

Abuse – especially abuse that is ongoing for a period of years – can really cloud your judgement, affect your thinking, and alter your sense of reality. It can be difficult, as you adjust out of that abusive situation, to reacclimate yourself to normal life. In general, I try not to project my experiences onto…

  Custody cases are definitely challenging, and it can be very difficult to tell exactly what’s going on. In Virginia, courts use the ‘best interests of the child’ factors as the standard for making custody and visitation determinations, and the courts are aided by Guardians ad litem, experts, and others to help make those determinations….

I’ll admit it: before I had witnessed any part of the collaborative divorce process, I assumed it was ultimately a lot like negotiation. You see, negotiation is the word we use to describe the process by which parties negotiate the terms of a separation agreement. Usually, when we say it, we mean with lawyers –…

No man wants to pay support. That’s even true, unfortunately, for child support. Don’t even get me started. Just kidding. I’m already started, because I already decided to write about child support and whether a person – usually, a mother – receiving it should be required to write down and report on how her child…

  “Good” is probably not a word you typically associate with divorce. After all, no one grows up dreaming of divorce. Most of us dream of happily ever after. But what happens when it becomes apparent that happily ever after is just not going to happen? You can hold on to the hope for awhile….

I saw an ad on Facebook today for an online therapist. The tagline was “There is no shame in getting help.” I knew, of course, that the ‘help’ referenced in the ad was for a therapist, but it struck me that ‘help’ should really be more broadly applied. Why is it that when someone suggest…

  Being legally separated isn’t a comfortable place to be. Whether you’re living separate under the same roof or you’ve actually physically separated from your soon to be ex spouse, it’s not a period of time that many people look back on fondly. No matter what choices you’ve made, it’s a period of transition, and…

There’s a lot of confusion about divorce options, especially because the words we use – negotiation, collaboration, and mediation, especially – sound the same to most non-lawyers. I find that people tend to have a lot of difficulty in using the words correctly, and in understanding the legal processes at work behind the scenes of…