Custody decisions are among the most difficult, delicate, frightening, and painful parts of a divorce process. Even the legal language surrounding it is incredibly fraught—after the agonizing decision that you’ll no longer live together, the idea that one parent would have only” visitation” can feel heartbreaking. When you get divorced, your relationship as a…
If you have a pet, you’ve likely formed deep emotional bonds with that animal. It’s not uncommon to hear Americans use terms like pet parent and fur baby. The 2021-22 National Pet Owners survey by the American Pet Products Association found that nearly seventy percent of U.S. households (90.5 million families) have pets. And…
When your marriage is ending, it’s not unusual to wish you’d never gotten married at all, have regrets, or even feel like you never had a “real” marriage. You may even wonder about annulment. What is the difference between annulment and divorce? The result of both is the same: they both terminate your married…
The divorce process is long, labor-intensive, and emotionally taxing—even when you both know it’s the right decision and desire a smooth, straightforward, and equitable resolution. You will have to sort through many complex and contentious issues, including the division of assets, spousal/child support, and custody/visitation. Inevitably, there will be times when you and your…
Family keepsakes are becoming a source of disputes in divorce, but due to their lack of monetary value, they can be hard to divide between the parties. In the most straightforward California divorces, couples equally divide their most valuable assets and move on with their lives. But what happens to those things that held…
With so many complicated issues to wade through during the divorce process, it’s easy to get caught up in the most obvious ones—the division of property, custody, spousal/child support—and forget about more peripheral concerns, such as insurance policies. The end of your marriage will likely have severe ramifications for your health insurance coverage—it’s crucial…
You’ve been unhappy for a long time. You’ve tried hard to make this marriage work but have felt the distance growing between you and your spouse. You’re at the end of your ability to stay in this painful situation. And yet the next step feels overwhelming, frightening, and seemingly impossible. How do you tell…
Though it may seem like an old-fashioned tradition, the fact is that in our culture, it’s still customary for a woman to take her husband’s name. So much so that today, around 70 percent of married women do, according to an extensive 2015 New York Times-sponsored Google Survey that also drew on data from…
School’s out, and summertime is in full swing. Most parents, especially working parents, meet these months with a mix of excitement (picnics! pool time!), relief (less morning rush, no homework to help with), and anxiety: What on earth will we do with these kids all summer? And for divorced families juggling jobs and childcare…
When you separate from your spouse or partner, and there is a child involved, custody is often one of the thorniest issues to resolve—complex, emotionally loaded, and time-consuming. In every case, when the court is deciding custody, there are many factors to consider, but the question of what is in the child’s best interest…
