Posted on June 25, 2019 in Divorce

A bitter divorce can cause spouses to be angry and vindictive towards each other. Some spouses try to hurt each other in ways that range from petty to criminal acts. A common way to embarrass a spouse is to have the divorce notice served to them at their work, which is not illegal but still humiliating. A spouse may violate the law by posting “revenge porn” on the internet, which is a class 4 felony. From a legal perspective, online impersonation falls somewhere between the previous examples. Your spouse may not always be breaking the law by impersonating you, but catching your spouse in the act will hurt them during your divorce.

Online Impersonation

Illinois is not one of the few states that have created criminal laws that specifically prohibit online impersonation. Illinois has laws against identity theft, which is a form of impersonation that is used to steal assets or defraud others. Cases of online impersonation during a divorce often involve:

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 Posted on June 25, 2019 in Family Law

For many divorcing families, the topic that is always at the forefront of every decision is the children. For divorcing parents, a topic that often comes up is child support. In years prior, the calculations for child support were much more basic, but they did not always take into account the factors that more and more parents were dealing with, such as two incomes and shared parenting time. In today’s child support calculation process, more details are taken into consideration than ever before. This includes the amount of parenting time each parent has, the income of each parent, the cost of health insurance for the child, the cost of the child’s extracurricular activities and the cost of childcare. The calculation process can be difficult, but it is important to understand.

Determining the Basic Child Support Obligation

Before the amount that each parent should provide for support is determined, the basic child support obligation is calculated. This is the total finances that both parents should be providing their children each month. To find this, the gross monthly income is determined for each parent. Then, the corresponding value from the 2019 Gross to Net Income Conversion Table is taken, which is the parent’s net monthly income. These two incomes are then added together. The total of both parents’ incomes is used to find the amount that both parents should be using each month to provide for the child’s basic needs.

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 Posted on June 20, 2019 in Divorce

There are times when going through your divorce may test the limits of your patience, energy, and sanity. No one experiences divorce within a bubble. You are balancing your divorce with your personal and professional lives and trying not to let any of them collapse. If you fear that your divorce may overwhelm you, you should consider hiring a divorce coach to help you through the personal side of your divorce. Through your coaching sessions, you will learn several important facts that may help you cope:

1. You Need to Share Your Feelings: Suppressing your emotions builds up stress and may cause a breakdown. You need an outlet to talk about what is making you worried or upset. The trick is finding the right person to talk to. You want someone who is sympathetic yet emotionally detached from your divorce. A divorce coach or therapist is the ideal choice. If you want to talk to a family member or friend, make sure it is someone who has a calm and compassionate temperament. Your children should never be your outlet.

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 Posted on June 17, 2019 in Child Custody

Illinois assumes that both parents in a divorce should share parenting time of their child. This may not mean equal parenting time because courts prefer that one parent has the children for a majority of the time to create more stability. Still, both parents are encouraged to be active in their children’s lives beyond child support and basic obligations. Studies on children of divorce have shown that they benefit when each parent has at least 35 percent of the parenting time. They do better in school and are less likely to have long-lasting emotional issues. There are several reasons why shared parenting is more beneficial to children than when one parent has most or all of the parenting time:

1. The Children Develop Relationships with Both Parents: Conventional wisdom used to be that children primarily need their mothers when growing up, which left some fathers with limited contact with their children. However, a father is also an important figure in a child’s life, and children who do not develop a close relationship with their father may feel abandoned. To develop a relationship, fathers need more time with their children than a visit every other weekend, especially when the child is young.

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 Posted on June 12, 2019 in Divorce

Most divorces are settled between spouses without the need for a lengthy trial. Divorcees start with out-of-court negotiations because it is more beneficial to reach an agreement between each other than to force a judge to decide for them. Even if you are not completely satisfied with your divorce agreement, it may not be worth going to trial because:

• Litigation will cost you more time and money;
• The money you spend on litigation could be greater than what you would have lost by accepting your spouse’s proposal; and
• You could spend all of that time and money only for the judge to side with your spouse or reach a decision that is worse than your spouse’s offer.

Despite the risks, there are situations when going to trial is unavoidable or worth the expense.

Negotiations Breakdown

You will fail to reach an out-of-court divorce settlement if you cannot have reasonable negotiations. You should enter divorce negotiations with a list of goals and a willingness to compromise if it will help you reach an agreement. It is unlikely that either of you will get everything you want from the agreement, and a divorce court may not accept an agreement that unfairly favors you. However, negotiations will fail if:

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 Posted on June 07, 2019 in Divorce and Finances

Dividing debts from your marriage can be one of the trickier parts of a divorce agreement. As an equitable division state, Illinois requires divorcees to split their debts in a way that is fair to both parties. Giving each spouse half of the debt may not be an equitable agreement, and a divorce court has the right to divide debt in a way that it deems to be equitable. For instance, a spouse with greater assets after the divorce may also receive a greater share of the debt. Divorcees also must consider whether a debt belongs to an individual or both parties.

Individual Debts

A debt belongs to an individual spouse if the creditor holds only that spouse liable for repaying the debt. You can usually identify an individual debt if:

• It was created before you were married or after you were legally separated; or
• The debt contract lists only one person’s name as the owner.

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 Posted on June 04, 2019 in Child Custody

People often think of being a single parent as a hardship that both parent and child must overcome. To be sure, it is optimal for children to grow up in a two-parent household. Being a single parent after divorce means no more sharing parental tasks when the children are with you. You have complete responsibility for the children during your parenting time. You will likely have a tighter budget because you are primarily relying on your own income. Your children may have a difficult time adjusting to living in a different home with each parent. You can help yourself through single parenthood by understanding that there are still some advantages:

1. Your Home Can Be Less Hostile: A bad marriage puts stress on yourself and your children because there is frequent tension that prevents people from relaxing. Simple tasks can become daunting because they start an argument between you and your spouse. You and your co-parent will each be happier apart, which will create a healthier home for you and your children.

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 Posted on June 01, 2019 in Divorce

Losing your job while in the middle of divorce will cause great upheaval in the process. Your regular income helps determine many parts of your divorce agreement, such as the division of property, child support, and spousal maintenance. It can be difficult to establish your income when you are still looking for a new job. Sudden unemployment should not halt your divorce process, but you will need to consider how losing your job changes what you need from your divorce.

Impact of Unemployment

While losing your job threatens your financial security, it can give you leverage to ask for more in your divorce agreement:

• Because Illinois equitably divides marital properties during divorce, you can receive more than half of the marital properties to make up for lost income;
• A lower income can lower your share of the child support obligation – at least until you get a new job; and

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 Posted on May 30, 2019 in Spousal Maintenance

Though modern households often have two working parents, it is still not uncommon for one parent to stay home and take care of the children. Stay-at-home parents face a unique set of worries with it comes to divorce. If you are a stay-at-home parent, your spouse may have provided you with a sense of stability, but as that disappears, you are likely facing a great deal of uncertainty. Now, you may find yourself worrying about things you never thought you would have to worry about, like where you and your children will live and how you will be able to provide for your children.

Fortunately, there are ways you can address these issues when going through your divorce. Specific issues that other divorcing parents may not have to deal with, such as spousal maintenance, suddenly become extremely important to your divorce case. Even issues that most divorcing couples have to deal with, such as property division and child support, can be different when one spouse was a stay-at-home parent. Here are a few tips that may help stay-at-home parents better navigate divorce:

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 Posted on May 29, 2019 in Children and Divorce

Divorce puts an emotional strain on the children in the family, which can affect their behavior. Teenage children can be particularly troublesome because they can be exposed to bad influences that could get them into serious trouble. In the worst scenarios, an emotionally distraught teen may become involved in criminal or dangerous activities. As a parent, you are responsible for protecting your children and teaching them the difference between right and wrong. You can utilize your parenting time and allocation of parental responsibilities to help your teen through this difficult period.

A Parent’s Role

Being a parent after a divorce means more than providing for the basic living needs of the children and making sure they are attending school. Parents have an irreplaceable role in their children’s emotional development by:

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