There are not many things more frustrating than misunderstandings and the subsequent breakdown of communication, especially with a person that you have a need to continue to engage with . I am in the midst of one such breakdown and my failure to find a way to resolve...
It is a Friday morning, and come noon I am going to sneak out of the office, drive up to Dana Point and catch a ferry over to Catalina Island. If you have not been to Catalina, it is like a Mediterranean desert isle with hillsides dotted in pastel colored houses,...
Your situation may involve circumstances where you, or your spouse, was required to pay child or spousal support for a prior spouse or children outside of the marriage. These obligations need to be factored into the family finances during the marriage. So, what...
One often challenging issue in divorce is sorting out what will happen to the family residence. I have written prior blogs about some of the options and considerations, including one spouse moving forward with a buyout, deferring the sale until the market is better...
For many of us parents who have adult children we recognize that our children don’t magically become fully self-sufficient when they turn 18 and graduate from high school. When couples divorce in California the legal requirement to support them (unless they are...
In my ongoing efforts to simplify the process of divorce, I have boiled it down into four basic steps. First, getting educated on the law and the issues. Second, the exchange of a thorough and complete disclosure. Third, resolving the issues through settlement or...
When we get married we make a conscious decision to become entangled with our partner. As they say, we “tie the knot.” We move from being individuals to being a partnership. We entangle our personal lives, our finances and our assets and obligations. We may...
I spent a number of years serving as a board member for the school that my children attended. It was our practice to start off each meeting with a selected study for about 20 minutes or so, focused on either further educating our work as board members or seeking to...
Most couples faced with divorce find it to be an extremely daunting task. During a time of emotional crisis and strained levels of communication between spouses, you have to sort out such important issues as sharing and meeting the needs of the children, navigating...
One of the hardest things to come to terms with when getting divorced is that you will no longer be seeing your children every single day, sending them off into the world each morning, and tucking them snuggly into bed each evening. I previously wrote a blog...
One of the challenging puzzles involved in each divorce is figuring out the transitional and ongoing management of the finances of the family which initially involves covering the joint finances of the couple in one home then expands into the need to manage the...
It is quite common for retirement to be one of the most valuable assets held by divorcing couples. Any retirement interest accumulated from the date the couple marries, until the date they separate is considered community property and each spouse is entitled to...
Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with saying “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It is safe to say that nobody’s planned destination when they get married is to thereafter get divorced. For whatever the reason this is where the path has led. I read an article...