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DIVORCE
TIPS
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10 Divorce / Separation tips that you need to know going in; if
you end up as the non-custodial parent.
1 - The first thing you must do is to set aside any of your preconceived
notions that somehow you are going to be treated with dignity
and with fairness as you prepare yourself to be judged on your
parenting and spousal behavior from the system that is in place
... Nothing could be further from the truth ...
2 - The sooner that you realize and understand that you are much
better off keeping your divorce or separation as far away from
the system as possible and look to settle with your soon to be
ex in a way which is as amicable as possible. This is difficult
as we all know, but the way to look at this realistically is that
if you let the system decide your fate, it will feel like you
are taking on, in addition to your soon to be ex, the powerful
court, the law guardians, the councilors, and anyone else that
helps to move your case through the court and obtain as much monetarial
awards for the soon to be custodial parent ... Even when the parents
mutually decide to shared custody, the dirty little secret is
that the term residential parent means the same as custodial,
and in an adversarial system, to the victor goes the spoils as
they say ... You will see in the following tips below ...
3 - Mediation is the smartest and best way to settle. You will
spend far less and it is better for your children. Don't get caught
up with statements and advice from relatives and friends stating
that you need a good attorney, or that somehow this attorney will
make everything right for you .... The only thing that an attorney
will do for you is cost a lot of money. If you happen to be the
moneyed spouse, you may also be ordered to pay for your ex's attorney
fees ... All the non-moneyed spouse has to do is ask for it ...
This is especially rigid for the moneyed spouse if in addition
you are ordered to pay a maintenance on top of legal fees, psychological
counseling fees, court costs associated with an appeal, etc. It
can only get worse as you progress through the cesspool which
they affectionately call the justice system ...
4 - Child support obligations are often enforced by Draconian
methods and really do not make any sense. Ask anyone who is thrown
into this horrific bureaucracy which was founded upon unconstitutional
and erroneous parameters derived from a welfare study in Wisconsin
during the 1980's. This is so typical of inept government trying
to figure out what the cost was for the government, when a deadbeat
dad left his family on welfare. Imagine that the study came up
with percentages based upon an average wage in the neighborhood
of 8-10-k, and so they extrapolated these percentages erroneously
to all levels of pay to come up with 17% of gross when 1 child,
25% when 2 children and 29% for 3 children, etc ... Remember this
when you find yourself trying to make sense of the formulas that
are in play ... they don't make any sense because they were ill
conceived in the first place. You must understand that the formulas
that are in place really mean nothing when it comes to application.
To start with, these numbers are gross dollars based upon gross
annual income, so the reality is with increased taxes, your portion
left over goes backwards as taxes go up ... The child support
collections has the ability to take up to 2/3 of your take home
pay. While other entities like banks, etc are limited to garnishments
of maximum 10%, the government makes an exception when it comes
to child support. Most people find it hard to believe that they
could take up to 2/3 of your check ... In reality it could be
worse, if you happen to provide healthcare for your family, this
calculation does not factor in to the formula, and it actually
deducts the healthcare premium form your 1/3 leftover ... If you
are not able to pay the ordered amount of child support and maintenance
award, the difference will accrue and it will continue to build
arrears. Another wonderful technique which the government bureaucracy
uses is the tool known as imputing an income to someone who does
not have all W-2 income. If you own a business and file quarterly,
this is a common way of extracting more money from you under the
pretense of justice. Finally, it is all too painful of a reality
that it can take a long time to get through the system with papers
that officially divorce or separate you officially from the partner
who you once fondly referred to as Honey, and has now reverted
into one giant bloodsucking slob who now dictates when you are
allowed to visit your kids. When the 2-3 years is up often awards
are pro-rated for the length of time from the day that the papers
were delivered, to the final day in court ... If the custodial
parent is awarded a maintenance of $100,000, pro-rated over 3
years time, this puts you $60,000 in arrears, which puts you into
the formula mentioned above ... It can be very brutal, but you
need to know this going in ... Fair and equitable as the courts
like to mention as they hand down the sanctions....
5 - Another much under publicized fact that in some states like
NY, sole custody is the default position of the court. This makes
no sense what so ever, but what this means to you as the non-custodial
parent, is essentially you do not exist other than a visitor to
your children ... Yes that is right, a judge will determine who
the custodial parent will be if it goes to trial ... If you challenge
in court, be prepared to pay a pretty penny, and more if the plan
is to appeal the verdict ... By the way, the dirty little secret
that the court does not want you to know about, is the way which
they put into verbiage"residential parent" for those
who agree on some form of joint custody ... Currently about 90%
of the residential parents are women....
6
- Here is an example of the disparity of income that can exist
... I use this only to explain what it means to be the payer,
or the non-custodial parent. This is how it would work if you
had a family breaking up with 3 children between the adult spouses.
Most people would agree that this formula is unfair but I use
it to clarify some points .... Here are the givens in this example:
Custodial parent - a doctor who makes $500,000 yearly; non-custodial
parent makes $50,000 as a technician yearly. The calculation of
child support would be as follows: The award would go to the custodial
parent and paid by the non-custodial parent in the guise of fairness
and obligation ... The residential or custodial parent would receive
29% of the non-custodial parent's income ... 50,000 x .29 = 14,500
per year .....This would leave the paying spouse with approximately
$500 per week to live on. Because the awards are based upon erroneous
gross dollar calculations, clearly this does not make any sense
at all to leave the $$ residential income out of the picture completely
... I could use other extremes, but no matter which one you use
it is painfully obvious that the formulas in place only complicate
the separation and make any sense of equality unlikely for the
non custodial parent ... I won't complicate the issue bringing
in gender, but the scenario above was real, and the custodial
residential doctor was a female who threw the non -custodial parent
out of the home with an order of protection ...
7
- Our prisons are full of single parent families, and what you
need to know is that any way possible for both parents to stay
involved with their children, will mean that your children have
the best statistical probability of leading a healthy life....
8 - Protective Orders are being abused predominately by females
to take the upper hand in a split or divorce. Most people would
find such use of a protective order to be despicable behavior,
until you realize that from a pure strategy standpoint it is a
brilliant move by the spouse alleging the protective order. If
you have been served a stay away notice you need to take it very
seriously ... Any violation of the protective order (whether it
was legit or not ) could lead to criminal charges for the one
violating it. An example, I was told not to leave any messages
on my ex's phone recorder, but I did not take it seriously and
left a sarcastic message thanking her for the wonderful experience
I had with the mandated domestic violence class that I was forced
to take ... I was promptly arrested and fingerprinted, and had
to face criminal charges ... Eventually the charges were dropped
but lawyer fees, etc can be costly. Judges are giving out orders
of protection like candy on Halloween. It is a joke, and I know
that there are some good judges who try to get to the bottom of
the false allegations , but most give out orders at a clip of
nearly 100% ....all they have to do is ask...
9 - What you need to do is to make every attempt to either find
a way to make it work, which might not be very realistic after
an order of protection is in place, or work through a mediator.
This is the most practical way, but often hard to stop the ugly
strength of the mighty tide working in the system. You may be
asking yourself how does this continue to happen ??? ... The simple
truth is the State is incented to break up families ... The federal
guidelines are mandated that the states comply under the pretense
that the money supplied by the feds to the states open general
state funds ... The State, in effect is commissioned to terminate
the marriages, and the clout which it yields over the sanctions
in place is far too powerful for any individual to fight. We need
structural changes to the laws and as I have learned, the forces
in place are very protected ... We can't even get a shared parenting
law out of our legislative committees ... It has sat in committee
for 9 years and the committee pretends to listen, but refuses
to take action with a vote. Imagine the disgrace which accompany
a vote turning down a bill which simply states that the default
position in NYS should be what everyone already knows it should
be ... Shared parenting ...
10 - Last advice to all ... Almost everyone is touched in some
way by divorce and separation. To help cope, support and join
an organization ... You will find friendship and camaraderie for
many years. Most of the people in our organization are everyday
people (fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers
and sisters) all with a common goal ... Fix the system that is
broken ... If you can't fix it stay as far away as you are able
to navigate ... You will be smart to mediate ... No matter how
painful it seems now. It is like quick sand, the more you struggle
the more you lose and the more expensive it becomes. Do yourself
and your family a favor ... Stay away from this corrupted and
archaic system that they commonly refer to as a "justice
system."
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