Separation Advice
Separation Advice for Women
If you are being confronted with separation or divorce, chances are you are in need of some separation advice. How you handle your situation now can have a major influence on your life later, including how well your divorce turns out for you.
If you are not yet ready to divorce, one way that you can get some legal protection concerning child custody and support is with a legal separations. This is some separation advice that you won’t want to overlook. If you fail to make it legal after your or your spouse moves out of the house, he can file for custody before you even have time to react.
Some additional protection that a legal separation will give you include separation of debt so that you are not left with a lot of bills that you didn’t incur. Another advantage to a legal separation is that it will help establish the guidelines in case your marriage does end in divorce. Nearly every state has spousal separation laws, all that is necessary is that you fill out the paperwork and file it with the courts.
Some important separation advice,
- If you and your husband own a home, you will not want to be the one to move out, at least not until the divorce papers are filed.
- If you are renting and want to move out, take your name off of the lease; if he moves, remove his name from the lease.
- You will also want to remove your name from all of the utilities, including the power, heat and phone.
- Forward all of your mail to a friend’s home or a post office box.
- Make sure that before you leave you have recorded all relevant financial information, such as mortgage information, bank and credit accounts, etc.
- If you have any joint credit accounts you will want to inform the credit companies that you will be separating and that you would like to put a freeze on the account until further notice. If you fail to do this, you will be liable for any debt that your spouse runs up after you are separated.
- Due to the fact that you may not be able to remove anything from the home after divorce papers are drawn, you will want to take what you need when you leave. Some of the items that you will want to ensure you bring with you include all of your clothing, family heirlooms, pictures, movies, and books. You will also need and school or medical records, household items and furniture that you want, as well as your computer equipment.
- An important element of any separation advice is to make sure that you have created a solid exit plan for leaving. Keep in mind that women are usually hardest hit during a divorce; in most cases the woman will be in a worse position financially than her husband.
For this reason planning is very important.
- Whatever you do, don’t count on alimony or child support to make it financially. It is a fact that most men will fight tooth and nail to keep this amount as low as possible. If you don’t already have a solid career, plan to get one before you leave.
- Define what your future goals are and make sure that you have a support network of people that can help you through the difficult times ahead.
- If you have children it will be even more difficult; you will have to find a way to tell your children what you are going to do, and if you want custody you will have to prepare to fight for this. A lot of men are now trying to take full custody.
Don’t jump into separation, get all of the separation advice that you can, and then put a plan in place.