Is your divorce still in process? Are you worrying about whether you dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s – especially where the future for your children is at stake?

Here are several subjects – serious matters – that I had to deal with during my divorce and since. These are hard topics for us to think about and process during the best of times, and when we are happy with our partners. But they become more critical as we are splitting into separate households, and make tough decisions that are both financial and logistical.

Estate planning and your will

You may think you don’t have enough assets to make a will, or plan your estate. But the fact is – if you have children, there are things you must put down in writing, for their well-being.

Even if you’re still married, what if something happens to you and your spouse? Who cares for your children? Don’t you want the option of clearly specifying who will raise them?  That is a critical part of what you do in your will. And when you divorce, it becomes even more important if you are concerned about the other parent’s ability to care for your children.

Furthermore, some of us do have assets. They may be straightforward and substantial – a home, cars, property, retirement money, or more. Or, your assets may include a smaller pool of items – but you still have family treasures, furnishings, and many personal belongings.

Is your relationship with your ex amicable or is there ongoing animosity? Should something happen to you, do you want him going through your things?

Appoint an executor you trust – truly trust – and include provisions for who can and cannot be part of the process of dealing with your assets, including your personal belongings.

Speak with your divorce attorney, gather recommendations for proper counsel to guide you in this matter, or execute a will on your own. Search the Internet for will-making options. There are many. Use them – or an attorney – if you haven’t already done so. If you do have an existing will, make sure you update it, considering where things stand with your new divorced status, change in locations, and so on.

Life insurance and other financial safety nets

I am neither a financial planner nor an estate planner. But if your soon-to-be-ex has life insurance on which you (and/or your children) are designated beneficiaries, make sure those policies stay in effect, or replacement policies are put into effect. Be certain you have the right to see (review) the policies on a regular basis. Negotiate additional policies – even if they are term life policies (quite inexpensive) to assure that your children would be taken care of until adulthood or through college. (20-year term life is quite common.)

Don’t want to think about this? I know. It’s painful – and difficult. We want to believe we will always be here for our children, that our ex-spouses will be responsible and reasonable, or that post-divorce we will embark upon a happy, new life, and in short order.

But it doesn’t always happen that way. People change. Circumstances change. Jobs are lost. Spousal or child support may be a critical part of how you survive financially, and you need to assure that you and your children are still taken care of if something happens to your ex. Assuring that life insurance remains intact, with you as the beneficiary, is part of being a responsible parent. And it is your legal right to request your ex carry a life-insurance policy with your children as the beneficiary.

Even if the ex is about to remarry – this is still his parental obligation. Insist on it.

As for other financial arrangements – medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, and disability insurance are all essential. Trust me – trying to pay for health care, teeth cleanings and orthodontia, glasses when the kids are a little older – these expenses can run into the thousands per year. An eye exam and glasses alone can run $400 for a 15 year old. I’ve just been through this. And paying for your (medical) insurance? It costs a fortune, particularly over 45, even for minimal benefits.

What if you get sick? Some sort of disability plan – even if you are employed now – is vital. Find one you can afford. Purchase it when you’re young, and healthy – or discuss its inclusion in your settlement agreement.  Believe me, social security payments won’t cut it. And if you find yourself out of a job (where an employment relationship exists), you’ll be without benefits along with the lack of income.

Your attorney can help with these critical insurance issues, but only if you make sure you mention them! You have to take care of contingencies. Life has a way of throwing the unexpected at us – particularly at mothers – and it is more difficult to recover. We are (typically) caring for the children, and post-divorce, have the greater portion of the burden on us, as primary custodial parents.

This is not true in all circumstances, and I realize that. But it is true often enough – and forewarned is forearmed.

Plan ahead – car insurance, and more

One last sort of insurance expense you may not think of – car insurance when your children are teens. I’ve been going through this for the past three years (with two more to go). I assumed I’d be on my feet and possibly remarried within four or five years of divorce. That was not the case. My ex has been unwilling to chip in on necessary expenses (not explicitly in the agreement) for many years, despite a more than ample income and a steady job. One of those expenses has been car insurance for teens.

Don’t let your attorney get away with saying “oh, you can always modify your agreement.” Not so simple, and with an uncooperative ex, nearly impossible without great expense and significant time. Some of that depends upon the state you live in, but why leave things to chance if you can make provisions now?

Teenage car insurance can run $3,000 or $4,000 or more per year, in addition to your current cost of car insurance. Furthermore, some states require specific driving classes not provided in high school, and they run into the many hundreds. In my case, $700 for each of my kids. More that I just had to suck up out of borrowed money. And those are 2009 dollars. What will those figures be when your children reach 16?

And let me be clear – I am not talking about the purchase of a car. I am talking about the incremental increase to your auto insurance premium, once you have to add a teen to your policy. It can add $300 to $350 / month, in today’s dollars. And if you are a solo parent – as I am – you need another driver in the family if you can possibly have one. By the time kids are teens, you’re more tired and they’re more involved in necessary academic and social activities, or have jobs of their own. Furthermore, a teen who can legally drive may be of assistance:  if you are sick, if you’re swamped with work, helping with younger siblings who need to be chauffeured, or just lending a hand with the errands when you need it.

College Expenses

As for other expenses – college expense provisions are often very loose in divorce agreements. Particularly if your children are young. Push for more than “standard” language or – again – “you can always modify your agreement.”

If you are likely to be the lesser earning parent, or if your employment status is or has been a roller-coaster, assure yourself that you don’t have to fight covering expenses on no income. (In other words, more legal battles or more debt based on an old agreement.) Make sure that phrases like “college expenses at a state school” or “agreed upon school” are elaborated and explicit relative to tuition, books, room and board, fees, supplies, required computers, and travel home from out of state. Make sure there are clear provisions if you are not the primary bread winner, and provisions if you are out of work at the time that college expenses come into the picture.

So much in divorce is negotiable, but what I’ve learned (the hard way) is to never assume. And that means taking the financial reins in hand, for your future and that of your children.

Again – a little knowledge goes a long way. Serious issues require serious thought, and real-world handling. Now.

© D A Wolf 

These days, Big Little Wolf (”Ms. Big”) reflects on life and her Daily Plate of Crazy, where she writes essays on everything – sometimes serious, sometimes fun – whatever strikes her on a given day as interesting, unusual, entertaining, or of concern.

Question

Dear Shelley:

I am really struggling.  I was married for almost ten years and have two children.   My husband and I have been to court three times already.  At the last hearing, the judge asked both attorneys if all issues were resolved and both said yes – but my ex and his attorney have not completed the necessary paperwork and are totally unresponsive.

My attorney wants another hearing, but I’m praying for another way out. I have spent over $50K and am flat broke. His child support was reduced by 42% and I am responsible for the mortgage.  I was a stay-at-home mom and had to find a job in the 2008 economy.  So I had to take what I could get. What options do I have at this point?

MaryAnn

Answer:

Dear MaryAnn,

I cannot give you legal advice as I am not an attorney and matrimonial laws change from state to state, province to province.

Options?  You either resolve to move forward by learning how to let go of the past or stay stuck where you are. I know it sounds simple but it really does come down to that.  What do you want your life to look like in one year and what will it take you to get there?  Concentrate on  what is under your control because we need to let go of the things that we cannot control and for the most part, we can only control how we choose to handle a situation/challenge.  Remember the serenity prayer?  If not, look it up on line and use it as your blueprint.

Start making small steps toward your goal. In addition, take good care of yourself by exercising and perhaps taking up yoga to reduce the effects of stress on your mind and body.  Make that commitment to yourself because you need all the resources you can get your hands on now.

There are always different ways of doing things and options to solving a problem.  If what you have been doing is not serving you then try doing things differently.  Reduce the occurrences of thing that upset you and increase the things that make you feel good.

Hope this helps.

Shelley

Shelley Stile is an ACC certified Divorce Recovery Life Coach and author who guides her clients to let go the pain of their divorce and move on to create new and vibrant lives after divorce. Shelley has been through her own divorce so she knows first-hand about the journey of divorce recovery. Receive her free, powerful e-book, The 10 Secrets to Coping with Divorce’, and her monthly ‘Take Back Your Life After Divorce’ Newsletter by going to: http://www.freedivorcesupport.com.

Are no-fault divorce laws in the best financial interest of women? Not according to the study below.

In the late 1980s, several states set up task forces to study gender bias in the courts. For example, in Colorado, one section of the task force was charged with the area of divorce. It studied cases taken directly from the court files. The parameters were that

1. The marriage have lasted 12 years or longer,
2. The case be decided by a judge as opposed to being settled out of court, and
3. There was a minimum of $10,000 in positive net worth.

There were 28 cases in the year previous to the study that matched the above parameters. Out of 28 cases, the average length of marriage was 20.5 years. At the time of divorce, the average age of the wife was 44, the husband, 45. Eleven of the 28 families had net assets of less than $50,000 at the time of divorce and ten had net assets of $100,000 or more.

At the time of the court order, the wife’s average net worth was slightly greater than the husband’s, because she was usually given less of the marital debt. Within four years of the divorce, however, the wife’s projected net worth declined by 25 percent while the husband’s nearly doubled. Within eight years of the divorce, the wife will have a negative net worth while the husband’s projected net worth is approximately $200,000.

In gathering data, besides looking at the court files, the Colorado task force interviewed many divorced men and women. One woman told her story about the alimony award after 38 years of marriage during which she was not employed. The judge ordered her husband to pay her $300 per month for two years. He awarded the house, appraised at $160,000, to the wife, and all the other assets, including a retirement fund, to the husband, saying, “Mother has been out of the work force, and if we gave her all that money she wouldn’t know how to handle it.”

Another woman told the Colorado task force that she had been awarded a tractor as part of the property settlement but her ex-husband refused to deliver it. She had tried for four years to get the original order enforced, without success. One district judge gave her former husband permission to continue using the tractor. When her lawyer objected, the judge asked her what she was going to do with the tractor.

The Washington State Task Force on Gender and Justice in the Courts found that only 10% of all wives being divorced were awarded alimony and the average amount was $432 per month for an average length of 2.6 years. The national average as of spring 1986 had 15 percent of wives receiving an average of $329 per month.

On Sunday Governor Patterson signed into law, no-fault divorce laws in New York State. In a statement after signing the new bill Paterson said that fault divorce laws, “harmed the interests of those persons — too often women — who did not have sufficient financial wherewithal to protect their legal rights.”

I know that over twenty years have passed since the above study but not much has changed as far as the long-term financial impact of divorce on women. One of the few states where a woman did have a fighting chance in divorce court was New York State. Thanks to new no-fault divorce laws, those women can now join the others of us who have been victimized by no-fault divorce laws.

When will legislators learn that it isn’t the law that is the problem, it is the system one has to deal with after filing for divorce. Too bad laws can’t be passed to monitor how civil and respectful we are to each other throughout the divorce process.

This past week, Mother Nature unleashed her winter wrath up here in Calgary, Alberta.  We’re talking large dumps of snow and temperatures than hovered between -25 and -40 C  (that’s -12 to -40 F).  And though I’m accustomed to extreme weather conditions being a born and bred Canuck, something REALLY stood out for me during this cold bout:  awareness of my own mortality…and the effect my death or a serious injury would have on my young children.

I don’t know if it’s because my 40th birthday lies on the horizon that I’ve become increasingly concerned (paranoid?).  It also didn’t help when I heard the story of a woman in her late thirties who hit black ice, flipped her car and today is confined to a wheelchair.  Regardless, I realize that there are matters I need to tie up to protect and care for my kids – just in case.  Here are few points you, too, may need to tend to:

1) An up-to-date will. When I hired a lawyer two years ago at the beginning of my divorce, I created another will.  I figured that since I was forking out some major cash anyway for legal services, why not pay an extra $200 to properly lay out a will, too.  I must say I’ve felt a great sense of peace taking care of this – it’s one less thing to lose sleep over.

2) A life insurance policy on the former spouse that names you as either the beneficiary or trustee of the children’s money. Ideally, your ex would keep you or name as you as the beneficiary of an insurance policy.  This way you’d have total control over how the money is spent on your children.  That being said, it takes trust, good-will, and respect between the exes in order for that to happen – nonetheless, I’ve seen it happen.  And it never hurts to ask.

If your ex doesn’t name you as the beneficiary but your children are, you should then do whatever you can to become the trustee.  This gives you the ability to spend the insurance money on the children as their needs arise, ie: educational programs.  If you are NOT named the trustee, you should find out who is and carefully consider whether or not problems may arise.  What if your ex names his/her new wife as trustee and you two don’t get along?  They can and may give you a lot of headache as you try to access the money.  Do you want to be producing receipts and asking permission regarding your children’s life choices from someone who might be unreasonable and/or condescending?  Please be aware that it is well within your rights to not only request but fight for the trustee position, especially if this  policy was created during your marriage and one that you also contributed to.

3) A life insurance policy in your name. Again, even it’s small, at least it’s something…and it’s worth its weight in peace of mind.

Delaine – www.iamdivorcednotdead.com

Other Articles:

Narcissistic Relationship: Use it or Lose It

Holiday Loneliness: How to Beat the Post Divorce Holiday Blues

Do You Follow Your Heart’s Desire?