Year: 2020

Not that long ago, dividing assets after a divorce meant going through tangible objects and deciding who would get to have which items. When there was an argument about who could keep something, it was a matter of determining whether it belonged to the individual or the couple.

While many assets are still tangible items around the home, more assets are digital. These items may seem insignificant, but digital collections accumulated over the course of a marriage can add up quickly.

Here’s what you should know about dividing up your digital assets during a divorce.

Digital assets can add to the confusion

One of the advantages of digital assets is that there is a record of when you purchased it and how you paid for it. Depending on how you and your spouse managed your finances, this could make asset division simpler or more complex.

If you maintained separate accounts and did not buy digital items for each other, the process of dividing your digital belongings will be simple. On the other hand, if you had joint accounts or regularly made digital purchases for each other, it can be challenging to determine what items belong to which person.

Community property

Since Texas is a community property state, digital assets that you purchased jointly during the marriage belong to both of you. When it is time to part ways, you will have to decide on an even distribution.

Keep in mind that if your digital assets are kept in one commingled account, they could be considered community property. If you cannot show that items in the shared account belong to one of you or the other, all the items in the account could be common property.

As you look through your digital assets, it is essential to try to trace who purchased it and whether it was part of a comingled collection of assets.

When some people finally start talking about divorce, it comes as a relief. They realize that it’s something that they have wanted for a long time, but they were just delaying taking that step.

Why do they do it? The reasons are different for everyone, of course, but many people do it so that they don’t upset their lifestyle. It’s not just about the relationship. It’s about everything that goes along with it.

For instance, one woman found out her husband had been seeing someone else, but she convinced herself to stay in her marriage for another six years. She later admitted that she wished she had just been stronger and asked for a divorce at the time. The reasons she didn’t included:

• They had three children together
• They owned a home
• They had once been in love
• Her husband wasn’t abusive in any way

Essentially, she was just trying to preserve the life that they had previously had together. She enjoyed that stability. She wanted her kids to stay in a two-parent family with a “happy” marital home and a “normal” life. She even noted that she didn’t worry about not being married personally, but she was just trying to keep that lifestyle together. For many people, it just feels like that is what they are supposed to do and they don’t want to upset the balance.

It can be hard to break this mindset, but you don’t want to stay in a marriage too long and regret it later. If it is time to get divorced, make sure you know what steps to take. An attorney can help you understand more about the process and where to get started.

Divorce is difficult for both parents and children. No one involved planned to change how the family would interact and function.

Children can have an especially difficult time. Even young children can feel like their opinion is not considered when it is time to decide whom they will live with and how often they get to see the other parent.

Here’s what the court will consider when it comes to your children’s preference regarding custody.

Concern for children

While often resilient, children can be fragile beings. Even when children do not express it outwardly, they want their parents to be happy with them and their choices.

The court recognizes that children can be easily manipulated, even when the parents do not intend to influence their opinion. Testifying in a divorce proceeding can also be very difficult for children since they will often feel like one parent is asking them to choose sides over the other.

When children are young, the court looks almost exclusively at the child’s best interests when deciding custody or conservatorship. Parents will need to show their ability to care for their children and on what grounds one should have conservatorship over the other.

Age matters

As children get older and more capable of expressing their thoughts and opinions, the court gives their opinion more weight. While a small child may want to live with one parent or another because of certain toys or more relaxed rules, an older child will be able to articulate that they have common interests with a specific or that one parent has a more stable living environment.

Once children reach the age of 12, the court begins to consider the child’s opinion, and as they age, that opinion receives more weight than the other factors. Ultimately, the court will look to the child’s best interest, even if that conflicts with the child’s preference.

Many fathers feel frustrated when they are trying to gain custody of their children. Due to negative experiences and struggles to successfully gain custody, proponents of father’s rights believe that the legal system is biased toward mothers.

While the movement itself is known to be controversial, the general purpose is to help fathers to be treated equally in the child custody process. If you are a father and you are worried that the courts will presume that the children will be better cared for when in the custody of their mother, you should make sure that you are aware of your rights as well as some of the issues that the father’s rights movement tries to resolve.

Shared parenting over sole custody

Over recent years, shared parenting has become more popular when the parents of a child are not in a relationship. Child custody courts tend to advocate for shared custody when neither parent poses a risk to the child. The father’s rights movement has argued that shared parenting should always be presumed to be in the best interests of the child.

False claims of abuse and child custody

Many proponents of father’s rights are concerned that family courts are too influenced by false claims of abuse. An accusation of abuse can mean that the custody rights of the alleged abuser could be taken away, but only after a thorough investigation is undertaken.

If you want to make sure that you’ll be able to maintain a relationship with your child after divorce or separation, you should be proactive in your approach to gaining custody of your child.

Divorce can be devastating. Once you establish child custody, you and your family find a way to reach a new sense of normalcy.

Having a child starting college can be an exciting time. Now that one of your children is getting ready for college, it will be time to consider how things will change as you and your other children adjust to a member of your family being away at college.

Here’s what the court will consider when reconsidering child custody.

Age of the remaining children

In addition to one child starting college, your other children are now older and may have more of a say in which parent they live with. In Texas, once children reach age 12, the court gives more weight to their preferences.

While other children may not be old enough for the court to consider their opinion, the court’s decision could impact them as well. It is essential to represent the interest of both you and your children when it is time to reconsider child custody.

Best interests

Just like when the court considered child custody at the beginning of your divorce, the court will ultimately look to the children’s best interest, including:

• Stability of the custodial parent’s living situation
• Other members of the household
• Physical and emotional needs of the child
• The current condition of the parent-child relationship

The court wants children to be in stable environments and to be able to spend time with both parents as much as possible.

While it may be challenging to change your parenting time, it may be beneficial to your children to take another look at child custody now that one of your children will be away at college.