This is a brief(-ish) post to give you a clear overview of the key components of divorce.
Divorce is complicated. From a legal perspective, however, the terrain has two pieces, neither of which are fairly described as “fun.”
Money, and children.
MONEY = INCOME + ASSETS + DEBTS
Obviously, if you have no children, the focus is money. Only in the rarest of cases is money not an issue. This is because money means income, from work or other sources, but also assets and debt. Even if you don’t have a dollar to your name, there is likely to be a loan or a credit card somewhere. So you’ll be dividing up the assets and/or debts, and figuring out who shares what (and for how long) of the income.
Income
Income is essentially anything coming in. Think about what you report on your yearly tax return—money coming in is income (nice, right?). Depending on your and your spouse’s work situations, future outlook, job or career prospects, and the state you live in, this may or may not be divided a certain way or even at all. There will also be the question of how long any sharing should last.
The sharing of income will generally take one or two forms, regardless of what fancy words your state likes to use: (1) child support (spouse to spouse, for the benefit of the kids), and (2) alimony/maintenance (spouse to spouse, for the benefit of the recipient).
Assets
You will usually hear the asset split referred to as “property division.” What do you two own? Cars? House? Family business? Retirement accounts? Box of coins? Invisible crypto-currency? With a few exceptions (inheritance and gifts, for example, as long as you didn’t treat them in a way that “transmuted,” or converted, them into marriage assets), everything you or your spouse has acquired since the day you got married will be considered joint, or “marital.” That has to be divided.
Debts
What!? You mean I’m on the hook for his credit card? Ugh…yes. Yes, you are. Just as he’s on the hook for the mortgage you two took out for the fancy house you didn’t really need (oh, wait—that’s me). Your combined debts are going to be carved up just as if they were something tangible sitting right on your desk. This could be anything from student loans to credit card debt to car loans to mortgages. Into the pot it goes.
KIDS = TIME + DECISIONMAKING
Kids! Isn’t it nicer to talk about kids than debt? (Don’t worry: if you don’t like kids and instead have pets, some states have procedures for divvying them up, too.) The children side of divorce has two components: (1) time and (2) decision-making. Some states talk about custody; some refer to parenting responsibilities; others use the word “allocation.” We are going to stick with time and decisionmaking. (Grammarly really wants me to hyphenate that.)
Time
The time component is about who spends how much time and when with your children. Who, how much, when.
If that sounds simple, it’s because you haven’t yet discovered that you live in a state like mine, where the mere existence of child support is tied to a certain number of nights per year with the kids. You would be surprised how long two people can fight over exactly 148 nights if it means one won’t have to pay child support.
Decisionmaking
Decisionmaking, or parental responsibilities, is essentially about who gets the final word when it comes to key areas in a child’s upbringing: usually healthcare, religion, education, and activities. It is common to see relatively stable, fit, loving parents awarded 50/50 decisionmaking. Courts love it because it keeps both parents involved in their kids’ daily lives, and it often seems only “fair” that your spouse not have veto power over your positions on what’s best for the kids.
In practice, joint decisionmaking means you both need to buckle down (remember those best interests of the children!) because you are going to be communicating with each other for a very, very long time. Very, very, very, very, very…..<gulp>.
FANCY CHART
That’s it. Here’s your chart.
Every state will have their own way of doing things, but this is the rough of it.
You’re welcome. Now go split those credit card bills and grab that 50/50 parenting!
(White horse.)
