Divorce is very much on the rise these days and divorce lawyers are more in demand now then they were ever before. Almost everyday when you open a newspaper or a tabloid there is news about celebrities getting divorced from their spouses due to one reason or the other. Celebrity divorce lawyers are very much in the news and in demand these days as a result. So if you happen to be a celebrity or just any other individual and want to seek the services of a celebrity divorce lawyer you need to find out certain things before your hire their services. The first thing which you must be aware of before hiring a celebrity divorce lawyer is that their services are very expensive. Be prepared to tackle this, if you want a celebrity divorce lawyer to work for you.

Celebrity divorce lawyers can be difficult for any one to hire first due to the enormous number of cases that they have to handle and second it can be difficult to seek appointment with them. So, one must make sure that they are looking at the right places, if they are serious about hiring the services of a celebrity divorce lawyer to handle any kind of divorce cases. There are several law firms operating in the United States that have celebrity divorce lawyers working for their clients. Getting a divorce is a hard decision for any one to make and if some one decides to get a divorce they must make sure that they seek the services of an efficient lawyer who will handle their case.

The client must make sure that they discuss the case openly and freely with their celebrity divorce lawyer or any other lawyer that they hire to do the legal work for them. The person just needs to find out the capability of the lawyer and if this is found to be efficient, there is no reason why one could not hire the services of a celebrity divorce lawyer. Divorce cases where custody of children and division of assets are not involved are relatively easier to fight for divorce lawyers of any kind. However if a divorce case involved for lawyer to fight about child custody and division of assets, then the case can become lengthy and many legal issue may have to be dealt with this.

A person who is seeking divorce from a celebrity divorce lawyer of for that matter any other divorce lawyer must make sure that they talk to the lawyer about the different aspects related to the case. Well unless the divorce lawyer has complete knowledge about all the facets related to the case, he or she will not be able to make a strong legal point about the case. One thing people need to make sure about a celebrity divorce lawyer before hiring their services is to find out his track record. Surely one would not like to hire the services of lawyer who does not have a good track record of settling divorce cases favorable for clients.

Do you know your credit score or the details of your Social Security report? Can you find the deed to your house, mortgage, life insurance policies, car title, car insurance policies, tax returns for the past 5 years, brokerage and bank statements for the past year? Do you know what your spouse earns or how much is going into a 401k plan annually?

Getting divorced is often a wake up call when it comes to finding out what you know and don’t know about your family finances.

Managing your finances is not about knowing which stock, bond or mutual fund to buy. It’s about knowing what you own (assets); what you owe (liabilities); what’s coming in (income) and what’s going out (expenses). It is about paying attention to where your money is going and being organized.

You’re going to be asked to produce a lot of financial paperwork and documentation for the court, your attorney or mediator and for your soon-to-be ex spouse. So, let’s get started:

Clear off a workspace and gather all your statements: bank, brokerage, credit cards, etc. Other supplies to gather: paper, pen or pencil, 3-ring binder, hole punch, index dividers, highlighter and sense of humor.

First, we’re going to tabulate your net worth (difference of what you own versus what you owe): make a list of everything you own: house, car, brokerage accounts, life insurance, retirement accounts and their value (the internet can help- try KBB.com and zillo.com). Then, list everything you owe: mortgage, car loan, credit card debt, school loans and their outstanding balance. Keep this information stored in the first section of your 3 ring binder.

Next, find where your money is going (the cash flow), or the reality of not having a clue as to where you spent all that money. The easiest way to determine your cash flow is a computer program like Quicken or QuickBooks. A useful website is mint.com. If you prefer not to use the computer, this can be done with Excel, columns on lined paper or on graph paper.

To make a budget, gather your checkbooks, check stubs and charge card statements. Give each expenditure a category and a subcategory. Example: Utilities: phone, Utilities: cell phone, Utilities: cable and enter your expenses for each month. You will get a total for each subcategory as well as a total for the whole category of Utilities. Don’t forget to enter your income, including income from child support and alimony. Print a report every month, and a quarterly report every 3 months. Put these in a Cash Flow or Budget section of your binder.

It may take you several months to get a picture of your income and expenses but it will become the foundation to manage your finances as well as negotiate child support and alimony.

With a handle on your cash flow, you can look for places where you can reduce expenses or control spending. Try taking 10% off the top of your income as savings. Then, rework your expenses to see if you can still manage. Utilize whatever amount of money you are able to save to:

• Get out of debt – pay down credit cards and loans

• Have an emergency fund not invested in the stock market. Aim for a minimum of 3 months of household expenses in savings. If possible, have an additional 3 months in a short term CD or money market account

• Take advantage of retirement plans

Put this information in your Savings Goal section of the binder.

Armed with this information, a consultation with a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, early in the process, can help you meet the challenges of divorce with more confidence and dignity than might otherwise be the case.

Earl’s Kidnapped Son: A Real-Life Test of the Choice to be Right or to be Happy

After several years of marriage, a close friend of mine, I’ll call him Earl, got divorced from Sheryl. They had joint custody of their 8-year-old son. Sheryl asked Earl if she could take their son on a 7-day, church-sponsored tour to Israel. Earl gave his permission.

The kidnapping. When the tour group returned home again, Sheryl and their son were not with them. Sheryl had absconded with their they son with no intention of returning to the US. Earl contacted the State Department. They couldn’t help since Sheryl was the mother. Earl contacted INTERPOL. They were no help. Then Earl hired a local private investigator in Jerusalem, the last place the tour group had seen them. He couldn’t find them.

Meanwhile, Earl had planned to get remarried a week after his son and Sheryl were supposed to return. His son was going to be the ring bearer in the wedding ceremony. On the day of the wedding, Sheryl and his son had still not returned.

They went ahead with the wedding ceremony without his son’s presence. Earl and his new bride cancelled their honeymoon and booked airfare to Israel.

The search. After a week of fruitless searching throughout Jerusalem with the private investigator, Earl had about given up. Their return flight was Sunday evening. Then, Sunday morning, the day they were to return to the US, they tried one last time to “stake out” one of the few English-speaking churches in Jerusalem, thinking this would be a natural place for his wife to go.

Sure enough, right there in front of them, they watched Sheryl and his son enter the church. Sheryl went into the main sanctuary and their son went to a Sunday school class.

Earl walked into the Sunday school room, took his son by the hand, hailed a taxi to the airport, and returned home with him.

A few days later, Sheryl also returned to the US.

The decision. Now Earl had a choice to make. Should he have Sheryl arrested for kidnapping, or at least, violating the terms of their divorce? Should he tell his son the truth that his mother had tried to prevent him from seeing his father ever again? Should he stand up in the court of public opinion and paint an accurate picture of what Sheryl did and castigate her in front of her friends and relatives?

Or, should he do nothing to punish his ex for her heinous behavior?

Eric was under great pressure from his friends to lock Sheryl up and throw away the key. He chose not to.

All he did was get the custody agreement amended so he had full custody and require all visitations of his son with his mother be supervised by a court-appointed social worker. In essence, he gave his ex a pass on kidnapping his son and attempting to cut him off from his father forever.

The rationale. Earl figured his and his new wife’s happiness would be severely hampered by a long, drawn-out court case, and his son would suffer by seeing his mother arrested and ultimately incarcerated. His son would benefit by having a relationship with his mother, flawed as she was, and his son’s safety would be protected by the supervised visits.

Earl suffered from knowing his friends thought he let Sheryl off lightly, and their belief he looked weak in doing so. Many thought Sheryl should be severely punished for what she did.

Earl’s bottom line was “What would be best for him, his new wife, and his son? What would bring my family the greatest happiness going forward?” He was not concerned with what would be the most appropriate treatment for Sheryl.

So, What’s the Point?

By honoring his desire to bring the most happiness into his home with his son and new wife, Earl epitomizes the courage it takes to truly live the philosophy that being happy is more rewarding than being right.

Earl’s story stands as a beacon to every divorced person who dares to ask the question, “Am I strong enough to let being happy be enough?”

When you are going through a divorce, you shouldn’t make the most common mistake made by most people-going at it alone. To be on the safe side, hire a divorce lawyer.

Benefits of hiring a divorce lawyer

When you hire a lawyer, he/she will help you in many areas. Some of these areas include:

Filing the paperwork: If you decide to go the court way, you will be required to fill in plenty of paperwork, and this can be intimidating to you especially if it’s the first time you are doing it. You should note that the judge relies heavily on the papers you present in court; therefore, it’s paramount that you fill them accurately and at the right time. If you omit any crucial information, the court might deem you in-genuine which can be fatal in your case.

A divorce lawyer has been involved in numerous similar scenarios; thus he/she will have an easy time filling in the papers and presenting them in court.

Objective advice: Divorce is usually an emotional time. During this time, you feel sad, betrayed, depressed, confused, and vengeful. When you are having all these emotions, it’s difficult to make a sound decision. To give yourself time to work on your emotions, hire a family lawyer to handle your case. The professional will remove the burden off your shoulders. When you have to communicate with your ex, the lawyer will guide you on what to say and what to avoid. The professional will also guide you on how to handle yourself in court.

Plenty of options: Most people think that when they are facing divorce cases the only way out is to wait for the judge to make a ruling. It’s good to know that there are plenty of other options that you can go with. For example, you can have a sitting with your former spouse and reach a settlement. The lawyer will introduce you to the various options and help you choose the best one for your situation.

Tips for working with a divorce lawyer

To make the task easy for the divorce lawyer you need to consider a number of tips. Some of these tips include:

Don’t lie: This is probably the major mistake you should avoid making. Some people try to hide their property and lie to their lawyers. This is wrong as it makes the lawyer present inaccurate information in court. In the event the judge knows that you are hiding information, your image will be in the bad light which jeopardizes your chances of getting a favorable hearing.

Choosing a cheap lawyer: To save money, some people want the cheapest lawyer that they come across. You should note that cheap lawyers are usually inexperienced. Due to this, they don’t have the expertise to handle the process professionally. This increases your chances of losing the case.

Conclusion

This is what you need to know when going through the divorce. To have an easy time, work with a reputable divorce attorney.

When you had your child or children your life changed from being focused on yourself to suddenly having to consider how all your life choices would impact the kids. That is the way it should be. What is in the child’s best interest should always be a parent’s top priority especially when considering divorce. The first thing you should know is our adversarial legal system is not child focused or family friendly. The emotional and financial price you pay when you each hire separate divorce lawyers is higher than you can now imagine.

Before I became a divorce attorney I was a special education teacher. My Masters is in Special Education, focusing on teaching severely emotionally disturbed children, so I came to the law with a powerful bias to act only in the best interest of the children. The 2nd important fact to know is how comfortable so many divorce lawyers are in spending their client’s college fund instead of quickly and economically helping the couple to negotiate a fair deal. After 8 years of litigation and witnessing the total financial and emotional devastation of too many families I vowed to no longer take adversarial divorces and to do only divorce mediation. In the following 3 years, after working with over 150 couples with 100% success rate, I am convinced that divorce mediation should be the solution of first resort for 85% of the couples who are contemplating divorce. So the 3rd thing you need to know is there is an alternative to divorce court, mediation.

It is easier to deal with a situation when basic information is already known. In the 8 community property states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin) property division is pretty clear. What ever was totally owned prior to marriage or received by gift or inheritance is separate property that goes to the spouse who owns it. If it was partially paid for using wages or income earned during the marriage, the “community” gains an interest in it that can be calculated. Division of property in community property states is one of the easiest issues to deal with because it is so clear cut. But what about the other 42 states? These states use an equitable distribution system to divide marital property. Each state has its own rules that can be ascertained prior to starting the divorce process. So there is some uncertainty in non community property states but an experienced lawyer/mediator generally knows what the court will do in most situations and can be a valuable guide to couples who are unfamiliar with the laws. The 4th thing to keep in mind is that there is no point in fighting over property division. You can protect your co-parenting relationship and end up with more property if you divide everything the way a neutral 3rd party (mediator) suggests.

In litigated divorce cases, child custody and visitation issues can be the most contentious and emotional. If the parents can agree to a custody arrangement, which they eventually do in 90% of custody cases, they can avoid court altogether. Why should a couple wait until they are on the courthouse steps to make a deal? Only 10% of custody cases are litigated. A couple could always seek the services of a child therapist to advise them instead of going to court. The courts typically apply a “best interest of the child” standard in determining who should get primary custody. Wouldn’t the parents themselves be in the best position to decide how their children should be raised? When a couple works together in mediation they are in control of the final outcome, not lawyers or judges. When the couple has an intention to effectively co-parent by always keeping the best interest of the child foremost in their mind, they will produce a much more satisfying outcome than if a solution is imposed upon them from above. Child custody issues are the most inappropriate issues to be decided within an adversarial system. The win/lose game that is played in court always results in tension between the parents. Not only will this tension negatively affect the health and happiness of the parents but the children will be caught in the middle of a battle, ducking verbal and emotional bullets as they fly over their heads. The adversarial system does not protect the co-parenting relationship of parents and should be avoided if at all possible. An emotionally vulnerable client in the hands of a “zealous advocate” who is more concerned with enriching themselves than in helping their client is a dangerous combination. The last thing to keep in mind is that avoiding divorce attorneys and court should be the #1 priority if you want to protect your health, spirit, co-parenting relationship and pocketbook.

This Wasn’t On Starbucks’ Menu

Soon after he got divorced, a client of mine related a story about his ex wanting to remain friends. She asked to meet him at a local Starbucks. He was hesitant to meet because she had been very upset that he wanted the divorce. But he agreed to the meeting primarily because he did not want his ex telling their two grown children he was being a jerk. After ten or fifteen minutes of civil chit chat, she turned to him, stared him straight in his eyes, and screamed at the top of her lungs for everyone in the establishment to hear, “Does your whore of a girlfriend like your penis?!”

Needless to say, a post-divorce friendship was not in the cards for the two of them. But it dramatizes the difficulty of trying to return to the low-emotion relationship of friendship after losing the high-emotion relationship of a 20-year marriage.

What We Are Told about “Remaining Friends” after Divorce Is at Odds with What We See

Everywhere you look you can find therapists and self-help authors extolling the virtues of remaining friends after divorce. Also, everywhere you look you are hard pressed to find any ex-spouses who actually have remained friends after their divorce.

Terry Gaspard provides some insight in her January 7, 2020, article in DivorceMagazine.com, “7 Reasons Why Being Friends With Your Ex Usually Doesn’t Work,” in which she identifies seven problems with remaining friends after your divorce:

• Most of the time, a post-breakup friendship is a setup for further heartbreak.
• It does not give you or your ex time to grieve the loss of the relationship or marriage.
• You need to forge a new identity.
• It can cause confusion for your children.
• You might not have been true friends and it’s problematic to start now.
• You need energy to “take care of yourself.”
• Acceptance is the final stage of grieving the loss of a loved one.

OK, so there are problems with it. We still don’t know why it is so rare. The answer may lie in how friendships are developed.

Friendship by Addition – Friendship Based on Hope

When we speak of friendship, we normally are referring to a relationship that grows step by step over time by two people who hope to establish a non-intimate connection which will enrich their lives.

How we normally “grow” a friendship, is by meeting people with whom we have something in common, and then by continuing to spend time with each other as we find more things in common, find more ways we can validate who we are, and find more ways to develop agreement about the social situations we share. The process takes place over time in which we add to and solidify our commonalities and our shared interpretations of the social environment we share. It is a process of adding piece by piece over time with the result that the friendship deepens as we add each piece to the growing whole.

Summarizing the benefits of friendship, friends get to:

1. SHARE COMMON INTERESTS with their friend,

2. VALIDATE COMMON BELIEFS AND OUTLOOKS ON LIFE with their friend,

3. Help each other come to a consensus about the MEANING OF THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT which they share, and

4. Assist each other in developing a more accurate “SENSE OF SELF” with their friend.

Friendship by Subtraction – Friendship Based on Loss

Most marriages start out as normal friendships with the initial foundation of their relationship being the same as regular friends.

Like normal friendships, they share common interests, validate each other’s beliefs, and outlooks on life. They come to a consensus between the two of them about the meaning of their shared social environment and give interpersonal feedback that helps each other integrate their identity within their common social context.

When a divorced couple wants to remain friends, their initial friendship remains intact. They share the same benefits of a typical friendship that include:

1. They get to maintain their right to SHARE COMMON INTERESTS with their ex,

2. They get to maintain their right to VALIDATE COMMON BELIEFS AND OUTLOOKS ON LIFE with their ex,

3. They get to maintain their right to help each other come to a consensus about the MEANING OF THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT which they share with their ex, and

4. They get to assist each other in developing a more accurate “SENSE OF SELF” with their ex.

However, here is where things get messy. Regular friendships start from scratch and add positive brick by positive brick to the friendship’s foundation. However, for ex’s to “remain friends” after their divorce, they must give up, or subtract away, many aspects of their marriage they held dear until they got divorced. These losses are a painful reminder of what they used to have when married. Becoming friends with your ex becomes an exercise in acknowledging one loss after another after another. These losses include:

5. Spouses lose the right to have SEX with their ex.

6. Spouses lose the right to affirm the SEXUAL ATTRACTIVENESS of their ex.

7. Spouses lose the right to have INTIMATE PHYSICAL BEHAVIOR with their ex.

8. Spouses lose the right to have INTIMATE EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR with their ex.

9. Spouses lose the right to have highly INTIMATE CONVERSATIONS with their ex

10. Spouses lose the right to have unlimited PHYSICAL ACCESS with their ex.

11. Spouses lose the right to have unlimited EMOTIONAL ACCESS with their ex.

12. Spouses lose the right to DISCLOSE PRIVATE BELIEFS AND THOUGHTS to their ex.

13. Spouses lose the right to DISCLOSE THEIR DEEPEST HOPES & FEARS to their ex.

14. Spouses lose the expectation to FULLY TRUST their ex.

15. Spouses lose the right to enjoy very few PERSONAL BOUNDARIES with their ex.

16. Spouses lose the right to EXPRESS THEIR LOVE in an intimate way.

17. Spouses lose the right to have a full RANGE OF EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION with their ex, both positive and negative.

Normal Friendship versus Post-Divorce Friendship

While a normal friendship consists of adding one positive experience after another as the friendship grows, remaining friends after divorce requires acknowledging that major surgery was undertaken to cut out the heart of the marital relationship, leaving only the friendship to survive.

In terms of the list of relationship benefits listed above, wanting to remain friends with your ex means you keep the first four items in the list (items 1 through 4) while acknowledging the loss of the other thirteen benefits (items 5 through 17).

Forcing your ex, as well as yourself, to regularly live with the memory of the heart wrenching losses suffered in the divorce simply to maintain a “normal” friendship seems difficult at best and self-indulgent and selfish at worst. No wonder it happens so infrequently.

So, What’s the Point?

The harsh reality is the relationship is dead and gone. The divorce is final, or soon will be. Now is the time to invest your energy in recovering from the traumatic event you just went through and in getting prepared for the next chapter in your life.

Your ex can carry on without your friendship, and you can carry on without your ex’s friendship. In a nutshell, remaining friends with your ex is too much, too soon, and too hard. Let sending your goodwill to each other be enough and lay your friendship fantasies to rest.

I sometimes hear from wives who have spent a night away from their husband because he stormed out after a fight. Sometimes the wives know where their husband went and other times, he is not ready to disclose this information. Regardless of the specific details, many wives are shaken by this. No matter what the fight was about, it’s clear that having your spouse be so angry that he’s going to storm out and sleep somewhere else is not ideal. In fact, many wives worry that this type of fighting and outcome is going to eventually lead to a separation or divorce.

Someone might say, “I am very upset today. My husband and I have been having conflict for months. I guess at the heart of things is money, but honestly, I feel that there is more to it than this. My husband looks at me with disdain lately as though he can’t deal with me at all. And his anger is a serious turn off for me. So it’s like we don’t even identify with one another anymore. It used to be that it took quite a lot for us to even raise our voices or to get annoyed. But this just isn’t true anymore. Sometimes when my husband looks at me, I don’t see the love any more. I told my coworker about this and she says that I am overreacting. She says that you can not expect for your marriage to never experience conflict and that all couples fight. But my husband and I have never fought like this before. And it’s becoming more and more frequent. I worry that things are just going to keep getting worse and I’m starting to suspect that my husband doesn’t love me in the way that he used to. And that is a very big reason that people get separated or divorced. Am I way out of line here? I’m freaked out that my husband would want to sleep somewhere else other than with me.”

I definitely do not think that you are out of line. But I am biased. It was fights like the one that you are describing that lead up to my husband believing that we were no longer in love or compatible and we eventually separated and almost divorced. So yes, fights and a loss of intimacy or empathy can definitely be the first steps on the path to your marriage being in trouble. I don’t think that you can ever worry too much about your marriage – as long as that worry is causing you to be proactive and to attempt to make positive changes. If that is the worst that happens when you overreact, well, that’s a positive and a happy ending anyway.

Sure, everyone fights. But the way that you fight can be extremely telling. I once had a therapist who told me that she could tell which couples in pre-martial counseling would end divorced just by observing the way that they fought. Couples who fought fair and who tried to come up with a compromise or a resolution by the end of the fight (even when they were very angry at the time) were much more likely to stay together than couples who had fights that ended with someone either always storming out or with the couple personally insulting one another and tearing each other down. This counselor said that it was fine to be furious at the problem but you did not want to get into the habit of directing your fury at your spouse personally. She said couples whose fights became personal or that escalated to someone walking out all of the time were more likely to get divorced because they didn’t show the skills to move toward a solution.

That’s not to say that this is going to happen to you or your marriage. But I bring it up to illustrate the point that I don’t think that you are necessarily overreacting. When things calm down, you might sit your husband down and tell him that you are very concerned with the way that things are going between you. Stress that you were upset and very worried when he left and that it’s important that you improve your ability to communicate and compromise so that this trend doesn’t escalate. Tell him that you miss the easy rapport that you used to have (when you could work out things much more easily.) See how he responds. He may be relieved and he may be as worried as you are. Once the air is cleared, perhaps you will both make more of an effort. It’s very important to try to reestablish the connection and the intimacy because as you’ve already seen, once it is gone, the fights tend to escalate a lot more easily. When you are strongly connected with your spouse, it is much easier to move past issues that would cause a big fight with less close couples. It just makes many things in your marriage much easier and much more satisfying.

Most parents are always there for their children, support them, love them deeply and take care of them. It is every kid’s dream to have wonderful mom and dad who love him or her very much. Unfortunately, every year many couples get divorced, and if there are kids present in the marriage, parents will have to find the best ways of parenting after the divorce. For children with divorced parents, they often feel a deep loss and sadness when they have to move between homes. Justin Bieber is one of the lucky ones as he survived in a broken family and even became successful in music. As the most famous young singer today, he is always supported by his parents. His mother, Pattie Mallette, is always there for him and always supports him. She bought him his first set of drums that became Bieber’s music career inspiration.

Justin’s father, Jeremy Bieber, is also very supportive. He was the one who introduced Justin to classical rock when he is still a little child. Although both parents divorced when Justin was only 2 years old, they have always been there for him. At the age of four, Justin started his first music lessons. Pattie soon realized that her son had a talent and she uploaded the 4 year old in a video singing Neyo onto the Internet. Surprisingly, a lot of people viewed the video and liked it. It became the beginning of Justin’s music career. Pattie is such a great single mother. She is always present at Justin’s concerts to support him. As a devout Christian, she always gives Bieber a good example. While Pattie remains unmarried, Jeremy Bieber, on the contrary, decided to marry again and two wonderful children who are also Justin’s step-siblings were born from the marriage. Although it seems that Justin’s father is busier taking care of his new family, it does not mean that he does not care for Justin. In fact, if you browse the Internet, you will see many photos of Justin with his father on various occasions, such as on the beach on after or before concerts. There are also photos where Jeremy, Pattie and Justin appear in the same photo. Jeremy is indeed a great father for Justin.

Although the couple has long been divorced, Justin always comes first and therefore they often reunite with Justin on special occasions. This is how divorced couples should treat their children. They should always care for their children, so the children will still feel loved from both parents although they are not together anymore. Justin’s parents are successful in directing their son in a positive way, which is music in Justin’s case. You can now see exactly where Justin stands.

Child access, sometimes referred to as visitation, can prove to be very challenging for divorced or separated parents. Children are always best served when both parents act reasonably and civilly toward each other and realize that, whatever they think of one another, their children benefit most by having two loving and concerned adults in their lives even after divorce. Cooperation by both parents is critical in making sure that each has enough quality time with the children to maintain a healthy relationship despite the divorce.

But what about when a divorce is so bitter that it causes one parent to have so much resentment towards the other that the best interests of the children take second place to inflicting pain on the other parent. How can the so-called “access parent” have his or her access rights enforced? The answer is not straightforward.

When separation agreements or divorce orders, give one parent the right to “liberal”, “reasonable”, or “generous” access is nearly impossible to get a court to enforce it when the “custodial” parent or parent with “primary care” refuses to cooperate. When the access parent takes such a complaint to court the result is almost always a change to more specific access, one based on a fixed schedule. The reason is obvious. Words such as “reasonable” are just too vague to be easily enforced. Such terms are ideal when they allow to reasonable parents all the flexibility they need to act in the best interests of their children. But they are worse than useless when one or both parents set about to exploit the intentional vagueness. Changing the access terms in the divorce order to a fixed schedule allows a divorce judge to have a better idea of whether there actually has been a breach of the terms or not.

Even when scheduled access is denied a court is more likely to reissue a slightly revised divorce order and give a stern warning than it is to penalize the custodial parent in some meaningful way. It is only once the denial of access becomes chronic that a divorce judge will be likely to resort to sterner measures.

This is unfortunate of course, because it means that the parent who has been denied access has to incur the financial and emotional costs of repeated trips to court before a judge will actually “do something” about the other parent’s refusal to abide by the terms of access. Also, repeated court appearances take time, and meanwhile the children are being denied the opportunities the access is supposed to provide to build and maintain a strong relationship with the access parent.

The reason judges are so reluctant to act quickly and decisively in response to complaints about denial of access is because the responses available are usually far from attractive. Finding the custodial parent in contempt of the divorce order, can result in a fine or even imprisonment. A fine simply deprives the family, most importantly the children, of some usually much-needed money. Imprisonment obviously denies them their primary caregiver and is likely to exacerbate the already tense relationship between the parents.

Tweaking the amount of child support paid is an unattractive option, because, presumably, the amount previously set was determined to be in the best interests of the children. Allowing the aggrieved access parent to pay less or withhold payment simply denies the children necessary financial resources.

Another option is to order some form of makeup access but this amply begs the question of how the makeup access can be enforced. Appointing someone to be an access facilitator can help. However, unless the parents can agree on someone who will act free of charge, it is likely to be fairly expensive. Also, disputes between a parent and the access facilitator are likely to end up back before the judge.

A stiff, but usually effective, response is for the court to reverse the roles of the parents so that the children go into the primary care of the person who had been the access parent. Now it becomes the access parent’s responsibility to ensure that the children are provided with appropriate access with the other parent. This places the respective shoes on the other feet. Sometimes the mere threat of this is sufficient to bring about a change in the access deniers attitude. But the threat must be real.

The problem with this last approach is that, presumably, the roles of custodial and access parents were originally made because that was what was in the best interests of the children. The court must determine that the denial of access is so severe that it warrants. The role reversal, despite the other factors, which had originally led the court, or the parties themselves, to make the original assignment of roles.

Sometimes, when the denial of access is significant, when the change of roles is inappropriate, and when the adverse effects of the ongoing dispute are taking a toll on the children, the divorce court has to seriously consider reducing or even canceling access altogether. Of course this is totally unfair to the aggrieved access parent, and unjustly rewards the parent guilty of denying access, these considerations are secondary to the best interests of the children. Therefore, in some situations, it is an option, a divorce court will seriously consider.

The best course of action for a parent whose access is being denied by the other parent is to take the high road. This means making sure his or her own behavior is beyond reproach. It also means being reasonable, patient, and long-suffering and doing everything possible to minimize the adverse effects of the dispute on the children. However it does not mean to simply lie down and take it. But before you take an access dispute before a divorce court you need to think long and hard about what you are going to ask the divorce court to do to enforce it. It is up to you to convince the court that your remedy is in the best interests of the children.

A divorce decree is a ruling that summarizes the rights and responsibilities of the divorced parties. It is the final judgment of divorce. The divorce decree is a document that states the basic information regarding the divorce, case number, the names of the parties, date of divorce, and the terms the parties have agreed upon or the court’s decision. The divorce decree is usually only a few pages long.

The divorce decree is the final step in the divorce process. Though several documents are likely to have been generated through the process, the divorce decree is the most important. It gives the pertinent details of the settlement between the parties. The divorce decree outlines the financial responsibilities of each party. It dictates the division of property of the parties to the divorce. The divorce decree will name the responsible parties to the debts the couple has incurred during the marriage.

It will often give details as to the decisions regarding child support, custody, and visitation. The divorce decree will state which parent receives custody and what the visitation rights are of the non-custodial parent. Sometimes, a couple will use a separate state social services agency to handle the collection and disbursement of child support. If this has already been set up during the separation and prior to the divorce, the divorce decree may mention the existence of this arrangement.

A divorce decree is generally not issued until all the terms of the divorce have been resolved. Occasionally, the divorce decree is in conflict with government action, such as the Internal Revenue Service’s collection of taxes in the United States. The IRS retains the right to collect back-owed taxes from one spouse, even if a divorce decree states that the tax bill is the responsibility of the other spouse. In that and similar situations, the wronged spouse has the option of returning to divorce court to recoup the lost funds. They may also have the ability to take their ex-spouse to court to try to recover the money.

Once a divorce decree is filed and issued, the parties to the divorce are free to remarry. Some states have laws that require a waiting period after the divorce decree before the parties are free to remarry. The divorce decree is legally binding. If either party to the divorce fails to meet their obligations as set forth in the divorce decree, the other party has the right to take legal action to rectify the situation. The wronged party could take the other party back to divorce court or to small claims court.