Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog

If you want a divorce in Colorado, you might have to wait a bit longer than before. A new bill is heading to the state legislature for approval that seeks to add even more steps to the already complicated divorce process.

State Senator Kevin Lundberg is the primary backer of the legislation. The Republican says child safety is the reason behind instituting the bill. "When there are kids involved, I believe that it is in the states best interest to ensure that the couple understands and considers what impact this has on their children," Lundberg said.

Lundberg's bill would require couples to undergo a six-hour training session on how children are impacted by their parents calling it quits. Though current state law dictates that parents attend a similar session, it's not nearly as in-depth.

Colorado attorney Catherine Burkey said, "When a case is initiated, then the people are ordered to go and attend a parenting class." The primary difference with this new bill is that couples will now have to wait after completing the course. "There will be a period of months that they will wait before proceeding with the divorce," Lundberg said.

Some divorce attorney's agree that the proposed bill is a smart move. "This method of education is the best way that I know of at this point," Burkey said. She anticipates that not everyone will be in favor of the bill, however.

Grand Junction Counseling, a group that specializes in helping families, says the more understanding parents have, the better. "Not only do you have the couple that's going through this divorce, you have children going through a divorce. For the sake of the children I think it's valuable," Counselor, Stephen Anthony said.

Continue reading "Some States Try to Slow Down Divorce Process" »

According to a recent report on FoxNews.com, with the share of married adults at an all-time low in the United States, new research by demographers and social scientists at Cornell and the University of Central Oklahoma offers clues about what's holding back young couples from taking the plunge into marriage.

Through a series of interviews with 122 cohabiting men and women between the ages of 18 and 36, researchers found widespread apprehension about divorce - even in those who have never dealt with it personally. More than two-thirds of those interviewed said they worried about their ability to form enduring marriages. The respondents said that they feared facing the potential social, legal, emotional and economic consequences that come with divorce, or so says a new study published in the December issue of the journal Family Relations.

Co-authors of the study, "The Specter of Divorce: Views From Working- and Middle-Class Cohabitors," were lead author Amanda J. Miller, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Central Oklahoma, and Dela Kusi-Appouh, a Cornell doctoral student in the field of development sociology.

The researchers interviewed 61 couples in the Columbus, Ohio region who were living with their partners for at least three months. Nearly 67% of the interviewees expressed concern about divorce. The most frequently discussed worry was a desire to "do it right" and marry only once. This led many to view living together as a kind of "test-drive" before making the big decision. The idea that marriage was a permanent choice and difficult to exit was mentioned frequently as an impediment. Fears of causing emotional pain, embarrassment, child custody issues along with legal and financial problems were also frequently mentioned by respondents.

Many of those interviewed suggested that the rewards of marriage were not worth the risk of a potential breakup. The high divorce rates were cited as proof of this with many saying the cohabitation was working well and saw no reason to fix what wasn't broken.

Continue reading "Young Couples Avoid Marriage like the Plague" »

According to a recent report by the AARP, while the overall divorce rate in the U.S. has declined, divorce among those between the ages of 50 and 64 has spiked. What was once an oddity has now become commonplace.

"Historically we thought, 'Older people, they don't get divorced,'" said Susan L. Brown, co-director of the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green University in Ohio. "Now one in four people getting divorced is over the age of 50. In 1990, it was less than one in 10." Such a huge change has intrigued researchers who are seeking to find out what led to the shift.

The divorce rate for those 50 to 64 increased from 6.9 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1990 to 12.6 in 2009. At the same time, the overall divorce rate dropped from 18.95 to 17.92.

Researchers have said that the increase in divorce rates among older couples is because of the life transition that takes place upon retirement. Retired couples often face difficulties adjusting to life without children in the house and a busy career to keep them occupied. Retirement especially hits marriages hard as spouses who once defined themselves by what they did now are forced to find new meaning in their lives. Meanwhile, spouses used to being alone most of the day must adjust to having somebody else around.

If one or both of the spouses experienced divorce in the past, they are more at risk for a future divorce later in life, Brown said. The numbers speak for themselves; the divorce rate for aging baby boomers is twice as high for those who were previously divorced than those who were on their first marriage.

Unique issues arise for late in life divorcees. For those looking to remarry in their golden years, the pool of potential mates increases for men because the ratio of women to men increases with age. For women, however, it becomes harder to find a husband. Divorces late in life can also be financially devastating, with the woman typically qualifying for half the man's retirement savings. Remarriage also raises concerns over estates and inheritances among the couple's children from previous marriages.

Continue reading "Baby Boomers in North Carolina Increasingly Decide to Call It Quits" »

According to Time Magazine, there are five reasons why 2011 may be the year to either get married or make your marriage work, particularly if you are interested in improving your life.

Continue reading "Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog Reviews Reasons to Get or Stay Married" »

Couples who cohabitate will innately share more of their daily lives than couples who live apart. After seeing another person day in and day out and sharing in the less glamorous parts of that person's life, couples who get too comfortable with each other can begin to take one another for granted. Cohabitating couples should learn to keep communication open in order to insure that one of them does not feel taken for granted or underappreciated.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #8: Don't become too comfortable with comfortable." »

Couples should discuss in advance how they will act and diffuse heated situations in the future. Although no two people ever plan to reach an impasse in a nasty fight, planning for the worst is better than being confronted with a situation in which neither partner is willing to forgive or forget.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #7: Plan for the worst." »

After two people move in together, it may be easy for them to spend time mainly with one another and to neglect their friends and past contacts. The best advice is to not live in your partner's shadow and to maintain your own life, so as to not fall into a rut in your relationship.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #6: Have your own life." »

When two individuals begin to live together, they must learn to accept compromise as part of a regular routine. Individuals should learn to compromise on the issues that are least important to them in order to win on the issues that are more important to them. Cohabitating means learning to work toward the happiness of both parties as often as possible.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #5: Learn to compromise." »

Couples should document everything that needs to be done in the home, determine who can either most proficiently or most easily complete each task, and divide up the chores accordingly. Couples should factor in issues such as who works the most or who contributes more financially to the household.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #4: Assign tasks. " »

Pre-arranged legal documents usually make things easier on both parties if or when a couple breaks up. These agreements can determine who gets the furniture, the home, the car, and any additional items belonging to both parties. Cohabitation agreements can also include provisions spelling out what happens if one partner is unfaithful or abusive. Most importantly, a legal agreement can clear up money disputes before they even arise in post-separation disputes.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #3: Seriously consider making a cohabitation agreement." »

Finances are the number one issue that couples fight about, whether married or not. Cohabitating partners should sit down to make a budget and determine who will pay for rent, groceries, and anything else either partner will need. The couple should also decide whether to open joint accounts or maintain separate accounts, and how to accommodate for one person making more money than the other.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #2: Talk about money." »

The first survival tip for cohabitating couples is to actually define the relationship before agreeing to share a residence together. When couples move in together, they should seriously discuss what it means to both of them. They should define what kind of commitment they are making to one another, whether they are building a future, and how they are going to handle daily life. Furthermore, they should discuss how to describe the living arrangement to friends and family.

Continue reading "Cohabitation Survival Tip #1: Define the relationship." »

Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog will focus on 8 tips for surving cohabitation. These tips for surviving cohabitation are from an article on Yahoo entitled "Going Cohab? 8 survival tips for staying together." These tips will be discussed in subsequent blog posts to follow. To cohabitate or to marry? That is the question. If the answer is to cohabitate, maybe these tips will help you survive.

According to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of couples getting married plunged to an all-time low in 2009. Last year, married couples accounted for only 52 percent of the adult population, with more couples cohabitating instead of tying the knot. According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the number of opposite-sex couples living together increased by 13 percent. Last year also saw an increase in prenuptial agreements and cohabitation agreements. With this new trend toward cohabitation, how are couples making their relationships last for the long term?

According to a recent article by USA Today, today's couples are delaying tying the knot longer than ever. In the post-World War II era, most couples married in their early 20s. Now, the average age for a first marriage is 28 for men and 26 for women, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, this delay is being viewed as very positive by marriage experts, who report that the combination of a certain maturity level and the ability to work out problems before committing may help new couples avoid the marital mistakes of their parents' generation.

There are many reasons why experts say today's young adults are waiting to make their relationships more official. They are gaining more education, which delays financial independence and increases money and stability concerns. Two-thirds of young couples are also living together before marriage, making sex before marriage much more widespread. Additionally, today's young adults are more worried about divorce, as they have watched the national divorce rate skyrocket in their lifetimes.

Regardless, most young people do still expect to get married and believe that they will not face divorce. A survey of 2,300 high school seniors conducted by the University of Michigan in 2008 revealed that 80% of students say they will marry and believe they will stayed married to the same person for life. Only 4% of students believed they would not marry, and the final 16% said they were not sure.

Women who have lived with more than one partner before their first marriage are 40 percent more likely to get divorced than women who have never cohabitated prior to marriage. Although cohabitation seems like good practice for married life, it can tend to make living together during marriage seem less permanent. According to the Brown University Population and Training Center, a marriage preceded by cohabitation has a better chance of success when the couple became officially engaged prior to moving in together.