Petaluma Mediation

What Is Spousal Support About?

2012-12-17T14:13:05-08:00

Let's talk . . . here and in the two preceding posts . . .

Spousal support is the most contentious divorce issue there is. Not only does no one want to pay it, it's difficult to compute; it brings up all kinds of painful emotions; and it is almost always hard to fund, i.e., hard to figure out where the money is going to come from to now support two households.

In California we have laws on the books that tell us spousal support can be ordered for a while (maybe half the length of the marriage) or "permanently", that is, until it is stopped by a triggering event or by court order.

While there is a uniform child support guideline to compute child support, spousal support is different. If you have a child, you can use the state's online child support calculator to compute both temporary child and temporary spousal support. If you don't have a child, you can't compute temporary spousal support using the online calculator (but you can use a different calculator at the Family Facilitator's Office at the Family Law Courthouse).

But for on-going, "permanent" spousal support? If you're in court, the judge "shall" use the factors in Family Code Section 4320 to figure out how much (amount) and how long (duration) the spousal support shall be.

If you're trying to figure out spousal support, look at 4320 to see what the various factors are that make up what you might call the formula. You'll see it isn't easy to work with. Why? Because most of the factors are subjective, not objective.

Now, if you're so unlucky as to be in court trying to figure this out, you will have to put on a very expensive and detailed presentation about how the subjective factors should be interpreted in your case.

If you luckier and are in mediation instead, you and your spouse can look at the 4320 factors as a guide, but then do your own computing. Generally what's going to rule is how much income there is to divide.

In divorce mediation, common sense, reality, and fairness prevail. Smart couples work hardest on figuring out how to get the supported spouse self-supporting so the support will end as quickly as possible. Then the ex-spouses can get on leading their separate lives without being tied to each other.

And that is what most divorcing spouses want the most.

How Are Some Husbands Feeling?

2012-12-13T12:56:05-08:00

Trapped

What I'm addressing in this post and in the last one "What Are Some Wives Feeling?" is the universal fear, resentment, and anger about paying spousal support.

Most parents don't resent paying child support. But spousal support? Once the marriage is over, neither spouse wants to continue being financially responsible for the "ex."

If both spouses have been working and can be self-supporting, then there is no need for support. But if one spouse did not work, then that spouse is going to need to be supported until he or she can become self-supporting.

Why hasn't the spouse been working? There are various reasons including:

The couple chose for one of the spouses (until recently, the wife) to stay home with the children
The couple chose as a life style for one of the spouses (typically the wife) to stay home to manage the household and social life
One of the spouses doesn't have sufficient marketable skills or education to get a decent paying job (often this has been the wife)

So . . . in relationships in which one spouse has been the income-earner, that person is now faced with on-going support of the non-working spouse.

The spouses face many questions:

How much will the support be?
When will it start?
When will it end?
What event will trigger the end of the support?
What does the non-working spouse need to do to become self-supporting?

Spousal support is also a tax issue: it is a deduction for the payor and income for the payee. But only if there is a court order for the support. Google the IRS "spousal support" to see how to comply.

All these issues can be discussed and decided in divorce mediation as part of what I call the "financial divorce." But know that you must have your "ducks in a row" before you begin the negotiations or you're just wasting your time and possibly ending up with a poor decision.

More on spousal support in the next post.

How Are Some Wives Feeling?

2012-12-10T13:38:52-08:00

Over It!

And what is the "It"?

The "It" is supporting their non-working husbands.

For the last couple years a good share of my divorce mediation clients have been couples in which the wives are teachers, nurses, and managers who have been supporting their non-working husbands for more years than they care to do.

The husbands lost their jobs for a myriad of reasons including the economy, employers re-locating out of the area, down-sizing businesses, obsolete skills, and failure to change with the times.

Understandably, for the husbands it's absolutely horrible to be unemployed. It's absolutely horrible to job hunt. They find it a very arduous task requiring networking and research skills they don't easily utilize or even possess. Some husbands spend their time online hoping to unearth jobs. The job experts tell us this is rarely successful. Yes, the Internet is a fabulous resource for information, but after that it's the same old grind it has always been of getting "face time" with prospective employers.

Job hunting also requires networking. Job seekers need to let everyone in the world know that they are looking for a job so they can help you. Yes, I know this is harder for men to do than it is for women, but it still must be done.

Here are a few tips for the unemployed husband (or wife):

See what resources Santa Rosa Jr. College has to offer.
Let everyone know that you are job hunting; be specific about what you are looking for.
Consider consulting with a vocational counselor to identify transferable skills and to see what additional training or education you might need for today's economy.
Consider entry level jobs even if they're "below" what you did before.

And the biggest tip? Realize job hunting takes place most of all in our heads: our most important assets are our confidence, self-esteem, and courage. We are all worthy human beings; we all have something to contribute.

Why am I telling you all this? Because this could save your marriage.

What Happens to Some Couples During the Holidays?

2012-11-30T12:52:15-08:00

They split up.

But why then? Why during the holidays or shortly thereafter?

Is it because we grow up with unrealistic expectations about the holidays? When our expectations aren't met, we're not only disappointed in the holidays, some of us are also facing the reality that we're disappointed in our relationship as well.

Other possible factors:

Dreary weather
Alcohol or drug abuse
Unemployment
Lack of money to pay holiday expenses
Not wanting to go into the New Year with an unsatisfactory relationship
Anticipating lack of money to pay taxes

Does this apply to you?

If you're thinking about splitting up or already have, one of the best steps you can take is meeting with a divorce mediator to help you sort out the initial decisions you're going to be making about children, paying bills, who lives where, etc. These are critical questions that must be immediately addressed. If you can't do it alone, then a divorce mediator can help you have the conversations you need to have.

How to get started?

All decisions start with information. Go online and google basic divorce concepts like community property and separate property; co-parenting agreements; child and spousal support. Once you're armed with information, you're in a much better position to discuss the important issues.

The holidays are hard and so is splitting up.

How Do You Decide to Mediate?

2012-11-13T12:01:40-08:00

Consider the options

Once you know that you and your spouse are going separate ways, the next big question is this: how are you going to get divorced?

There are several processes you can choose from:

Litigation with adversarial divorce lawyers
Collaboration with non-adversarial lawyers
Do-it-yourself or DIY
Mediation with a 3rd party neutral

Elsewhere on this blog I've written posts about the problems with adversarial divorce lawyers so you can read them to learn about the pitfalls of this choice.

Collaboration is an out-of-court process utilizing a team of non-adversarial experts including lawyers, divorce coaches, child experts, and certified divorce financial analysts. This is a good choice if you feel more comfortable with a lawyer by your side, but you have to keep a close check on costs.

DIY: many couples choose to do their own divorce because, well, it's the cheapest way to go. The problem is that the arguments and poor communication that led to the divorce in the first place now make it difficult to have the discussions you need to have to get divorced.

Thus, more and more couples are turning to mediation. It becomes a great choice for those who need a neutral third party to keep the discussions on track and civil.

Wanna Know a Secret about Support?

2012-11-10T11:39:20-08:00

There's a free, easy-to-use online calculator

One of the biggest and most feared problems in a divorce is figuring out child and spousal support: how much will it be? who will pay it? for how long?

You don't have to wonder; there is an answer. The State of California provides a free, easy-to-use online calculator that you can use to compute temporary child and spousal support. In mediation, these can also be used as a starting place in your discussion about on-going or "permanent" support.

Wanna give it a try? Click here

Hint: to calculate temporary spousal support, select "Alameda" as the formula if you're filing for divorce in Sonoma County.

What Decision-Making Standard Do Spouses Choose in Divorce Mediation?

2012-11-08T13:31:29-08:00

Fairness

Most couples choose "fairness" as their standard for making the important financial decisions they need to make in dividing up the marital pie.

The problem is that "fairness" like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If one spouse had an affair, the other spouse may want a larger share of the pie to make up for the betrayal. "It's only fair."

Another spouse may have had a larger share of the pie during the marriage and now the other spouse wants to even the division. "It's only fair."

Yet another spouse may have greater separate resources including assets, income-earning ability, or an inheritance. The other spouse wants more of the marital pie so as to not get left so far behind. "It's only fair."

At the end of the day though most spouses truly want to be fair to each other. The mediator helps the spouses to sort through their complex feelings and changing realities to figure out what "fairness" means to them and how to apply it to their decision making.

Who Gets to Talk in Divorce Mediation?

2012-11-07T15:11:59-08:00

Both Spouses!

Does this look familiar? Maybe at home, but you won't see this in divorce mediation.

The role of the divorce mediator is to make sure that both spouses are heard. This is important because many times in a marriage one spouse dominates the conversation - in fact, it's a monologue instead of a dialogue.

Not so in mediation. The mediator helps both spouses to participate in their important decision-making conversations. After all, in mediation the spouses make their own choices, their own decisions. Not a judge, not the mediator, but the spouses.

Here's another way to say it: Cate Griffiths, executive director of Recourse Mediation, Sonoma County's community mediation center, describes mediation as giving people a "voice and a choice."

Perfectly said.

What's One of the Most Difficult Initial Issues in Divorce Mediation?

2012-11-06T08:57:47-08:00

Moving

When the family physically splits up, the reality of divorce can't be denied. Whether one spouse moves out to make a new home or both move out to make new homes, the result is the same: raw pain. This is part of the emotional divorce for the spouse/parents and the children.

Unfortunately, this pain is often compounded by the spouses not figuring out ahead of time how they're going to support two households on incomes that may previously had difficulty supporting one household. Thus, this becomes an urgent problem to solve in the first mediation.

Here's how some people solve the problem: they decide to live together while they're processing the divorce. It's an awkward solution for sure. It's made even more awkward by the fact that for many couples one of the spouses is unemployed and has no way to move out.

A better solution: plan for the move financially and emotionally. Especially important is keeping the children's feeling front and center.

Can Adversarial Divorce Lawyers Run Amok?

2012-11-05T14:29:57-08:00

Yup, and here's a story to prove it

Just today I got a phone call from a bruised client who was financially and emotionally gouged by a divorce lawyer who - of all things - was pretending to be a non-adversarial lawyer in a collaborative law case.

Here are a few of the injustices he suffered at the hands of his lawyer:

He was billed for work not performed
He was billed for work the client didn't ask to be done; in fact, the client specifically instructed the lawyer not to do the work
The lawyer blew up a critical agreement the client and his spouse had already made
The lawyer went AWOL for months at a time, not communicating with the client, yet still billing the client
The lawyer didn't send regular bills to the client so he had no idea what to expect
When the bill was finally presented, the lawyer overcharged the client thousands of dollars

Once again, a black eye for the legal profession. The client said he wished he had chosen divorce mediation instead. Me too.

The difference?

I charge an hourly fee of $220 that is paid at the end of each 2 hour session. $220 x 2 hours = $440
I don't do work for the clients outside the mediation so there are no other fees.
I support clients in reaching and strengthening their agreements.