What is
A Divorce?
According to Wikipedia, Divorce, also known as dissolution of marriage, is the termination of a marriage or marital union, the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state.
What divorce is, firstly and foremost, a feeding frenzy of both lawyers, battling you along with your spouse for whatever limited or unlimited resources you have. Your lawyer and your spouse’s lawyer are going to work for your best interests in the divorce, and even if you don’t have the money to fight to keep your resources, YOU have unlimited credit with your lawyer and your spouse’s lawyer. Have no doubt the debt you will create in a divorce is immense. If your spouse makes less than you, his or her lawyer will convince your spouse to get you for all or as much of the legal fees as possible.. They will educate you and your spouse about what your “Entitled too” and figure every avenue and back lane to extract as much money from you as possible. Both of your lawyers profit from your conflict with your spouse, as they have to represent you and get you the best deal they feel is appropriate. Or they could get disbarred. Yes, they can lose their careers being amicable.
If you have children, a house, retirement accounts, stamp or coin collections, even a dog. They will battle equal distribution of resources. And the more you and your spouse find grounds to argue over, they get paid more. MUCH MUCH MORE!!!!.
Don’t hammer out an agreement before the Court date.. Oh Boy… if you’re paying your lawyer 400 bucks an hour, when you’re in court, that number goes to 1200.00 an hour, as it is common for lawyers to have 3 hours of prep for every hour in the court house… That includes time sitting and waiting for your case to be called. Case get postponed after sitting and waiting for 2 hours, that’s 2400 bucks and you still haven’t talked to the judge yet!
What you find out in the end, is you spend 10’s of thousands of dollars to save 10 grand.. I don’t think I ever heard of a poor divorce lawyer.
In a day and age where you face a better then 50% chance to get divorced, why go into a marriage unprepared? A butcher wears chainmail gloves, because he knows that he will have better than a good chance to get seriously cut, so it only makes sense he protects his assets, his fingers and hands. To do otherwise would be foolhardy.
There is chainmail for married people too! It’s called a prenuptial agreement.
A prenup or prenupt, according to Wikipedia, is a contract entered into prior to marriage, civil union or any other agreement prior to the main agreement by the people intending to marry or contract with each other. The content of a prenuptial agreement can vary widely, but commonly includes provisions for division of property and spousal support in the event of divorce or breakup of marriage. They may also include terms for the forfeiture of assets as a result of divorce on the grounds of adultery; further conditions of guardianship may be included as well.
In other words, while the love hearts float around both your heads, and all that good will in your wells of good things is still full, hammer out a breakup plan. While everyone is amicable and still believing that this marriage will break the odds, figure out a plan.
Set the rules, Figure out spousal support or the forgoing of, child care, health benefits, stamp collections, who gets the dog, the knife set, aunt Judy’s punch bowl, etc…Once you have 100% -ish- agreement between you both, get the document witnessed and notarized or whatever it takes to make it a legal binding contract. So if the inevitable happens to you , you will spend less time arguing, you get your separation agreement faster, you pay your lawyers 10’s of thousands dollars less than you would if you didn’t have a prenup. IS it 100%? No, but you have more protection than arguing endlessly through your lawyers.
Remember, after your separation, any agreement you hammer out with your spouse, then present to each other’s lawyer, will be picked apart endlessly, no agreement will ever satisfy both lawyers, and if you get caught up in the axels by your lawyer pointing out every flaw every time, you will spend so much more paying him to counter every offer your spouses’ lawyer makes. Divorce is first and foremost, a lawyer’s feeding frenzy. Secondly it’s about dissolving the marriage. Cut down the drama and being prepared will reduce the feeding frenzy to a simple noshing session of formalities. Fighting only sparks the frenzy…
PRENUP the F’ Up
Oh, by the way, postnuptial agreements are similar to prenuptial agreements, except that they are entered into after a couple is married. How you breach the subject is out of my experience zone. One last thing…. If you are determined to make your divorce amicable and you don’t have a prenup, you will be seen as having a weakness, and like sharks, the other side will smell blood in the water…
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