My Divorce

During these tough times many people have decided that divorce is the only solution for them. If you are considering a divorce and love the cliché of giving your spouse the divorce papers as a present or leaving them on the kitchen table there are a few things you should take into consideration before you act. As with any divorce you should always try to discuss things with your spouse to try to make the separation as amicable as possible. Whether you decide to get a Pro Se uncontested divorce or hire an attorney to handle your case you should begin protecting yourself early. The divorce papers are final outcome of your preparation. You have lots to consider like your home, children, and assets.

1. Research the laws and your rights. Look for information on divorce online and speak to friends and family that have been through it as well as consulting an attorney if you are unsure.
2. Secure your accounts. Write down the numbers of all of your accounts including bank, credit cards, loans and securities. Write down the balances and histories of your accounts for your records. If you can print them out. Don’t run up any credit cards right before a divorce as this can come back on you later on.
3. Income history. Collect all the information you can such as pay stubs, income taxes, and dividends.
4. Document everything you own. It is a good idea to write down and take pictures of everything you own so that nothing goes missing during the divorce in case you are not living in the residence during the divorce.
5. How will you take care of yourself or children? During the divorce you need to make sure you have an income to be self supported if you don’t already have a job. Work on your resume, the sooner the better.
Once you have all of your paperwork in order you will be more informed when it comes down to speaking to your spouse about the division of property and assets and how to divorce. Even though divorce is stressful knowing that you are not relying on anyone will help out even if you have to hire an attorney.

Since late 2008 when everyone finally came to grips with the fact that the economy was in recession there was much speculation on how it would affect the divorce rate. Most looked to the past to predict the future, but with the state of how and why we get divorce changing this made the past a kaleidoscope of miss information. And after reading many articles about the issue one thing has become very clear to me, no one really knows how the economy will affect the divorce rate during the current recession or even if it has any real affect on it at all. Several articles stated that the rate would go up sighting past data that others said was grossly incorrect. Many said it would go down. Others said it had been steadily declining since the 70’s and divorce was not affected by the economy. And still others said that mostly the working class divorce rate would spike and be off set by the decline in the divorce rate in the upper class.
My opinion after studying the issue more is that the true “divorce rate” will never be known. As is with most things in the age of information over load the true nature of things is rarely known as what you see is completely dependent on those that are trying to use the data to make a point or sell something by manipulating the data for their own purposes. I have learned that often there are too many factors left out or not accounted for in statistics that make it very easy to make it say what ever you need it to say at the moment. As well it has become the trend to simply Google something and think it is the truth regardless to who wrote it or if it actually has any factual base. While I think decades ago the simple “divorce rate” was a good way to measure many trends within the family values in America. Today with so many couples living together for years and breaking up without ever getting married as well as the having children within these “dating families” or having children from short term encounters it is not the simple “black or white” of days gone by. Trying to define the state of the family by simply looking at the few that get married excludes a growing part of what has become American culture today, and further complicates understanding the true nature of the decaying state of family within our country.
I believe the rate of family breakups are a long term trend over time, and the trends are more defined by our society and its core beliefs in family and its values than whether we have a few dollars in the bank or are in fear of loosing our jobs. Hard times are when people reflect on what is most important to them and they act on these beliefs to survive the hard times they face.  Yes there are some that will use the good times to mask there marital unhappiness and bail out when the going gets tough. But there are also those that forgot what is really important to them and a bad economy is there wake up call to get back on track.   The bad economy only helps to hasten the inevitable.