Want to Avoid Paying Alimony? Follow This Advice

After a divorce, you lose your spouse's income if your spouse was working during your marriage, so your total income will decrease at the same time that you have increased expenses. The last thing that you want to do is pay your spouse alimony, but there may be a way that you can prevent it. 

Draw Up a Postnuptial Agreement

If you didn't draw up a prenuptial agreement with your spouse, you may be able to create a postnuptial agreement. The postnuptial agreement can address the issue of alimony. In this case, you will be able to say that you don't wish to pay your spouse alimony if the marriage ends in divorce. 

You may be in the middle of your divorce right now, so a postnuptial agreement isn't going to help you. Instead, you can offer your spouse a greater portion of the marital assets in lieu of alimony payments. Maybe, you can present your spouse with a larger portion of your retirement accounts or even the family home. 

This will depend on what your spouse wants, so you will need to pay attention to what those wants and needs are. Then, you may be able to avoid paying alimony. 

Prove Your Spouse Was Unfaithful

In most states, if a spouse has been unfaithful, they are not entitled to receive alimony. For this strategy to work, you must be able to present proof. It may mean that you will have to present pictures or even video of your spouse's adulterous affair. If you need help to catch a cheater, you can try going online to catch them out in a lie. Alternatively you could hire a private investigator since they will have more expertise in this area. If you go though with this, you will need to make sure that you are hiring a reputable private investigator company like this Bristol private investigators team.

Asking people with knowledge of your spouse's infidelity to be witnesses is also a good idea. The judge will consider all of this proof and decide whether or not your spouse deserves alimony. 

Notice Your Spouse’s Relationships

Alimony has an expiration date and conditions for early termination of payment. Depending on your state, one of those conditions may be when your spouse begins cohabitating with a significant other. You will be able to have this language written into your divorce decree. 

Alimony payments also end after your spouse remarries. You may be tempted to follow your spouse’s activities on social media. Though you want to know right away when alimony payments can end, do not venture into the territory of cyberstalking.

Prove Your Spouse Doesn't Need Alimony

Your spouse may only ask for alimony to punish you, and not because they really need it. Your spouse may have stocks or even a large trust fund. Maybe, your spouse inherited a large sum of money, so they don't need alimony to pay the bills even if unemployed.

You will need to perform an investigation to ensure that your spouse doesn't have assets that would make alimony unnecessary. This is a job for a forensic accountant. The accountant will find hidden assets your spouse may not have disclosed. 

If the forensic accountant finds significant assets, you will not be required to pay alimony, so it will be worth the price. 

Retain Custody of Your Children

If you have custody of the children, the court may determine that your spouse doesn't need alimony. If the children are in your care a majority of the time, your cost of living will be higher than your spouse's cost of living, and your spouse will be able to maintain their standard of living without alimony. 

If you are struggling with issues concerning divorce, separation, and alimony, you could have one of the family cases that Farmer and Morris can handle. They can also settle matters of property distribution, custody, and child support.

How to Handle a Child Custody Agreement After a Divorce

Thank you so much Joseph Freeman for this guest post

If you are going through a divorce right now then I know just what you are going through and although this is a really tough time for you, things will get better. This time 4 years ago I was sat with a Sydney family lawyer talking through my options, as my wife and I were getting divorced. Even if things are amiable now, if there are kids involved then it is going to get worse before it gets better. As I thought would happen, my wife got custody of our two girls, which wasn’t very easy. Life goes on however, and here is how this situation is best handled.

Accept It

There are some legal grounds to appeal decisions in these situations but there really is little point, the decision very rarely gets reversed and things being dragged on for longer is not going to be good for anyone. In order to come to terms with this and for everyone’s sanity, the best thing to do is learn to accept the decision as quickly as possible.

Live by the Rules

It is very tempting to try and make tweaks and changes to what happens with the kids but I have always found it best to just stay within the rules that have been laid out by the authorities. I had a friend who kept their kid an extra day after verbally agreeing it with his ex-wife, she later denied it and they got into all sorts of trouble, so I’ve learned that this is not worth doing at all, stick to the rules and you’ll be just fine.

Keep Everyone Involved 

If any changes are made, mutually or otherwise, then it always makes sense to keep a written record of what has happened and keep the authorities involved. What I have found to be the best practice here is overdoing it when it comes to offering up information, every day change, every vacation, whatever it is, let it be heard. In doing this you can be sure to protect yourself, as you never know what the future may hold.

Children Aren’t Pawns

No matter what your feelings are towards your ex-partner, you should never air them in front of you kids. Something else which you should never do is use your kids as pawns in the battle of chess that you may be having with your ex. Children never want their parents to split up and you have to remember that they are the victims in all of this. Children need as much normality as possible, you shouldn’t try to win them over with treats and money, nor should you try to compete with your ex when it comes to spending quality time with the kids. Be a good parent and treat your kids just as you would if they were still at home with both parents.

Trust me that things will get better, you just need to stay strong.

Joseph Freeman

6 Life-Altering Health Effects of Divorce on Women

Divorces can be messy and chaotic, and seldom does it happen that spouses come out of a divorce without any pain. Unfortunately, there has been an unprecedented increase in divorces, and it is reported that women suffer from the after-effects of divorce more severely than men.

The common understanding is that women suffer both physically and mentally only if they are involved in an abusive relationship and get a divorce later. But, this understates the mental chaos that the whole process of divorce itself creates in the minds of women.

We have compiled a comprehensive list of the various health effects of divorce on women:

1. Anxiety Spikes:
The occurrence of significant life changes brings about anxiety, and no event is more significant than a divorce in the world of married people. Therefore, it is bound to bring anxiety, because the idea of living alone, the insecurity of being rejected, and conflicting feelings about your partner can be highly disturbing, especially for women.

2. Plunging into depression:
Anxiety should decrease once you get on with your life after being divorced, but you should consult a counselor if it persists for longer. Persistent anxiety turns to depression, which can significantly affect the quality of your life.

Moreover, engage a decent attorney like the ones available at the Divorce Matters law firm, because they will save you from the anxiety of dealing with the legal aspects of divorce.

Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash

3. Getting socially isolated:
Divorced women start judging themselves because they feel that they are somehow inadequate and do not deserve love. This could result in isolating themselves from other women and end up being even more depressed.

4. Becoming an insomniac:
Depressed people often forget about taking care of themselves and find it hard to sleep without prescribed drugs. Under-sleeping leads to several health issues, and statistically, the most common one is hypertension.

5. Aging quicker:
Many women religiously look for ways to keep their skin fresh and smooth for as long as they can, but divorce can take that away from them. It is reported that divorced women age quicker as compared to other women because of divorce-induced depression and insomnia.

Aging does not only mean wrinkly skin, but it also indicates that they are highly likely to face issues while engaging in everyday mobility activities like walking and climbing stairs.

6. Higher likelihood of experiencing cardiac incidents and diabetes:
According to a study conducted by researchers at Duke University, divorced women are more likely to experience cardiac events as compared to married or single women. On the other hand, this study states that divorced men do not see any such increase in the risk of experiencing cardiac incidents.

Moreover, it is stated by another study that divorced women are at least 20 percent more likely to experience diabetes at some point in their lives.

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

Losing Health Insurance
A significant portion of women depend on their husbands for health benefits. Therefore, a lot of women lose health insurance as a result of divorce, and that can lead up to looming medical conditions.

In a nutshell, divorces obviously must not be taken lightly, especially if you are a woman. It might not be a bad idea to start making plans or having things in place if you suspect you may end up divorcing your spouse.