Three Legal Issues to Think About Before Divorce
When a marriage is no longer beneficial to the lovers, divorce is the solution. And no matter how heartbreaking that decision is, both parties are supposed to act wisely, especially when they have had children. The states protect children, and if the court manages to prove that the parents are negligent toward their kids’ upbringing, social services will take over the parents’ custody. Unless you are a cold-hearted parent who can live with ignoring your child, then you must attend to the legal matters related to divorce because they will affect your kids significantly.
Custody is one example of legal factors to think about when divorce is inevitable. We will explore further below!
Parent-Child Relationship
If you have been abandoning your child until this point, where you want to be legally separated from your spouse, then you must entirely forget the idea of bringing your child to live with you. The first scenario, if your ex-spouse is fighting for the custody, and he/she has evidence of your negligence, you will only stain your name. Getting clean from that trait is difficult, and you will be seen as an abusive parent.
If you acknowledge the fact that you ever hurt your child in the past, it would be better if you follow the flow of the trial. Do not spell your mistakes out to the juries. Besides, if your kid is old enough to give testimonies, and he/she confirms to your negligent/abusive behaviors, then you can say goodbye to him/her forever. In fact, if you force your way through to meet your child outside the agreement, you do nothing but to provoke the court to issue a restraining order to you.
Moreover, if you are still working and deemed economically capable by the court, then the responsibility of child support will be granted to you. You can try to calculate child support for 2019 first so that you can prepare the expenses.
Debts’ Status
Most of the time, married couples owe money to a bank, yet later on, they get divorced, and the division of the wealth gets complicated because they have not thought of such a scenario. Therefore, you should gather information about whether or not your ex-spouse uses your name to owe money.
Even after the government acknowledges the divorce and you become no longer responsible for your ex’s expense, the possibility of stealthy debts and being visited by collectors is still there. And worse, you will be required to deal a lot with your ex-spouse and ask for him/her authorization.
Lawyers
Not all lawyers are experienced in handling divorce, but they may be adept and proficient in other fields. In other words, you cannot hire just any lawyer for your divorce if you want to win. However, experienced lawyers may charge you irrationally for their service. Therefore, in a situation like this, it would be much better if you know the right lawyer, or settle everything with your ex-spouse and deal with the matters before the divorce.