Divorce - Chicago Illinois Family Law Blog - Page 11
Keeping it Together after a Natural Disaster
Whether you are married, separated, or divorced, experiencing a natural disaster, as the East Coast did with hurricane Sandy, can have a substantial impact on your family relationships. As experienced Illinois divorce attorneys at Nottage and Ward, we recognize that there are many different issues that could present problems for family relationships, but a natural disaster can carry more of these issues than can be handled if you are not prepared. According to an article in The Huffington Post, hurricane Katrina was followed by a 10 percent spike in the New Orleans divorce rate.
After a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, flood, or widespread fire, it is especially important to keep your relationships together. You may have lost your home, your business, and/or your possessions, which is why it is necessary to hold on to what you still have. To make sure a natural disaster does not cause irreparable damage to your marriage, or other family relationships, keep the following tips in mind:
Looking Forward to Celebrating Thanksgiving after Divorce
After divorce, it is difficult to actually feel positive about and look forward to the holidays. Thanksgiving is a reminder of how much your life has changed and, potentially, how much has been taken away from you. It can be a heart-wrenching time, but that does not mean that it cannot be a positive experience. Your Thanksgiving can be as positive or negative as you decide to make it, and remember, while certain family relationships have changed, there are others that you still have. If you can get through your first holiday after divorce, you know that you’ll be just fine.
There are a lot of obstacles in your way when trying to prepare yourself to get through Thanksgiving, and one of the most difficult to overcome (but not impossible) is nostalgia. Remembering the Thanksgivings you had with your family and the traditions you created can be heartbreaking, but focusing on what you did in the past won’t do you any good in the present. Make new traditions. You may have celebrated Thanksgiving with your spouse’s family while you were married, but this year, spend it with your parents, siblings, or even friends.
Where Do Politics Fit into Marriage and Divorce?
The impact politics have on a married couple can be great or relatively non-existent; it all depends on the people and their relationship. But politics can easily destroy a marriage and ruin any relationship with your ex after divorce if you let it.
In Marriage
Oftentimes, common political views are one of the reasons why two people are in a relationship. You have the same opinions and vote for the same candidates and maintain the same position on propositions and other legislation. Occasionally, these political views change, and depending on how much and how the change is handled, such a shift in a couple’s dynamics can cause discord and potentially lead to divorce. You and your spouse do not have to have the same politics, but learning how to deal with contentious topics in a healthy way is necessary to maintain the relationship. It is best to keep an open mind and try to understand your partner’s views; this doesn’t mean that you have to agree with them, but even just trying to understand them may go along way.
What Happens When Dual Citizenship is Thrown into Divorce?
Divorce can be a very complicated and heated process in the United States, no matter what state you live in; but the issues you have to deal with in a divorce are exponentially worse when one or both spouses have dual citizenship and are living in another country. According to a Reuters.com article, custody issues have demonstrated the growing trend of problems associated with dual citizenship and divorce.
The President of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) states that they are “seeing more parental kidnappings, more conflict, more litigation and simply more to fight about.” He goes on to say that back in the late 1970’s and even the 1980’s, if a woman took her kids with her when she moved out of the country, no one would have contested because the mother would always be awarded custody. Times have changed, however, and parents who are challenging their ex’s right to take their kids out of the country are finding a lot of obstacles in their way. If your husband or wife takes your kids to another country, all you can do is try to open a line of communication to your ex. There’s only so much an American embassy can do to help in a foreign country.
Trick or Treat? Celebrating Halloween with Your Step-Kids
Trying to figure out how to celebrate Halloween after a divorce is difficult, but what if you’re a step-mom or dad? In the final part of our “Trick or Treat?” blog series, the Chicago family law attorneys at Nottage and Ward discuss some of the issues facing stepparents in connection to Halloween and their overall desire to be an important part of their step-children’s lives.
It’s tough being a stepparent. You want your step-children to accept you as a mom or a dad, but this is often an uphill battle because you don’t want them to harbor ill feelings about the fact that you’ve literally taken the place of their biological parent. While Halloween may be a good opportunity to show your step-kids you care about making the holidays fun for them, you also want to make sure not to force anything. Keeping the following tips in mind can help you be a part of your step-kids’ Halloween without being uncompromising or unfair to the children:
What Happens If Issues Come Up After a Divorce Is Final?
As an experienced divorce attorney in Illinois, Jeffrey Knipmeyer understands that we do not live in a perfect world. If it was perfect, once a divorce is final, it’s actually finished. Every party abides by the terms of the divorce settlement; they pay maintenance (alimony), on schedule; they never miss a child support payment or visitation; and everything moves on exactly as planned. This is unfortunately not the case for many divorces, which is why a divorce attorney is not just prepared to fight for an equitable divorce agreement, but prepared to provide effective representation in order to modify an already final settlement in post-decree proceedings.
When to Worry about Changes in Child Behavior after Divorce: Part 1
Children do not respond to divorce in exactly the same way, especially when they are at different ages. But what general behavior is a natural reaction to divorce and what behavior signifies the need for additional intervention, such as therapy and/or counseling? Divorcing parents who don’t know what types of behavior changes to expect can become worried over any change, but not everything is a red flag. In this two-part blog series, the Chicago family law attorneys at Nottage and Ward will discuss when behavior changes are and are not warning signs.
According to an article in The Huffington Post, the following are, generally, the natural behavioral changes that may occur after divorce, from birth through pre-school age.
What to Make Sure You Tell Your Divorce Attorney
Meeting with a divorce attorney can be overwhelming. When you actually take action, it means that your divorce is real and it is easy to get caught up in all of the unknowns. It is important, however, that you hold it together when meeting with an attorney so that you can be sure to provide the important information they need to properly assess your situation. An experienced divorce attorney, such as those at Nottage and Ward in Illinois, don’t just want your financial information and the basic facts of your marriage, however. To effectively represent you, a family law attorney needs to know the skeletons in your closet.
Before meeting with an attorney, come up with the answers to these 10 questions:
What You Should Not Say to a Divorcee, Even if You Mean Well
When you have a friend or family member who is going through a divorce, your immediate impulse is to try to make them feel better, but what you think is helpful may actually just cause a divorcee stress and frustration. According to The Huffington Post, here are some common phrases that, while well-meaning, can actually be the last things a person going through a divorce wants to hear:
- At least you don’t have kids. Even if a divorcee doesn’t have children, it doesn’t mean the pain of divorce is less, so it is almost like telling them that they should not be feeling as bad as they are.
- That’s just like what happened to me. That’s just a great way to make a divorcee feel worse, not better. Turning their pain into focusing on what happened to you may feel like you’re empathizing, but you are in fact taking away a chance for the divorcee to really tell their story.
- You’re still young, you won’t have trouble meeting someone new. The last thing a divorcee wants to think about after a divorce is jumping back into the dating pool.
- Everything happens for a reason. This is probably the vaguest platitude you can give and really just says that since everything happens for a reason, there’s no reason to be distraught over the divorce.
Back-to-School after Divorce: What Parents Can Learn from Teachers, Part 1
As experienced divorce attorneys at Nottage and Ward, we recognize that divorce impacts you, your ex, and your children, and how you handle your divorce and co-parenting can make that impact minor or severe, positive or negative. While divorce most directly affects you and your children, another group of people can also see how a divorce, and your handling of the divorce, impacts your children: teachers. From observing great collaboration and cooperation between parents to observing one parent use their child to get back at the other, teachers see well-adjusted children and children who are acting out and being emotionally torn apart.
This two-part blog series offers parents advice from the perspective of teachers, who have to handle more issues and situations than people realize. A group of teachers gave The Huffington Post the following tips for divorced parents, based on their own experiences with children (and parents) in their classrooms:
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