In all the questions that we would get from our visitors, this was probably one of the most common. Unfortunately, many men who are going through a divorce assume that they would be expected to move out of the house as the divorce is finalized.  You see it on TV all the time… The wife and the kids stay in the family home while a husband gets an apartment in the area.  And a lot of guys will actually do this before they even get a divorce attorney, assuming that the details will be worked out at a later date.

Are you ready for what you should really do?… Never move out of the house voluntarily!

There are several reasons why this is so important.  First off, you are telling everyone including the judge that you have the financial means to afford your own place, and in which case you will also likely have to help pay for the mortgage on the house that you don’t even live in.  Secondly, you are inadvertently telling the judge that you have no issues with letting your wife have custody of the kids.  If this wasn’t the case then why did you have no problem moving out of the house and leaving them behind.  None of this is probably your intentions, but it gives that perception and like always “actions speak louder the words”.

Then what is it that you should do? Especially when your wife keeps pushing you to leave… There a couple of alternatives to voluntarily moving out of your house.

• If your wife is so uncomfortable being around you during this time, then you can give her the option to move out.  She won’t like this option one bit, but if by some very slim chance she decides to leaves… Do not let her take the kids when she moves!!!  The children should not be uprooted from their home, their friends, because you and your wife are having issues.  Let her visit the kids when ever she wants, but she should not be allowed to move them.
• Since the first option is unlikely, you can suggest to your wife that you do a 50-50 share of the home until your divorce is finalized.  You each can live in the house 2 weeks out of the month, get to see your kids 50% of the time, and you can still claim the house as your permanent residence.  The other part of the time, live with a friend or family member so that you don’t have to get a whole other place to live the other 50% of the time (or work out a deal where you and your wife get an apartment together, where each of you can live while not staying at the house.
• And finally, if you have a big enough home, then set up separate living spaces at opposite sides of the house.  And come up with a schedule where you have minimal contact with your wife, until the divorce is figured out.  In the past this may have been an issue because some states required a specific separation period where the husband and wife live apart for a certain length of time.  But with the current economic times, many states have amended this to allow a husband and wife to separate without anyone moving out of the house, under the terms that there is no sexual relationship during this period.

It is very important to stick to your guns on this.  But you also need to be very cautious during this time period, because your wife and her divorce attorney may be cooking up a scheme on how to get you out of the house via a restraining order or no contact order using false accusations of abuse, or claim that you are a threat to her safety.  We will get in more detail on this in the near future, and talk about some ways that you can go about protecting yourself from this.  In the meantime, avoid all unnecessary confrontations with your wife.

You can also speak with your attorney about writing up some paperwork so that you can move out of the house without worrying about the perception issues mentioned earlier.  This often comes in the form of a separation agreement, again something we will go into more detail in a later post (including how you can come up with your own bullet-proof agreement).

Note: If you are concerned about false accusations made by your wife and her divorce attorney or have already been victimized by this unethical, yet common, divorce tactic, then you should seriously check out Restraining Order 911 by Ron Lasorsa.  A very unique guide that will show you how to “cover your ass” in this situation.

We are excited to announce that we will be starting yet another new section that will likely be of great benefit to our visitors.  Since we have been online in some form for the past 3+ years, we have had a great deal of interaction with our visitors.  We have always offered full support via e-mail and have continuously encouraged our visitors to post their comments, which they have done quite regularly.  What this has allowed us to do is start a list of questions about divorce that have been asked by real people, real men who were going through a divorce.  Now the plan is to put this list of divorce questions to good use.

In the very near future, you will start seeing posts with a title that is just a simple question.  These posts will cover one question a piece and will contain a single straightforward answer and any links to other pages on our site that will explain the issue any further.  Our goal will be to eventually cover all the questions on the list, as well as, new ones that will undoubtedly come in as we get more and more visitors.  If you have sent us any specific divorce questions or planned to in the near future, do not worry one bit about your privacy!  It is our iron-clad promise that there will be no sign of personal information in these posts.  In fact, the question will likely be re-worded to help it pertain to men’s divorce in general, and will probably look like a completely different question to you.  But the overall point of the question and subsequent answer will be very similar.

There will be 2 very easy ways that you will be able to tell if a post is part of the Divorce Q&A section.

• First, as was already mentioned, the title of the post will be a simple question.

• Secondly, every one of these posts will be marked by the following picture when it is up on the home page of the site:

We fully expect this to be a useful new feature of the site, especially if someone is stuck on a specific issue and doesn’t want have to pay the minimum charge it would take to call and talk to his divorce attorney for one single question.

Which reminds me…We are required to make sure that read the following statement, especially when it comes to answering questions, so that you understand our background:  We are not divorce lawyers so any information that we offer should not be construed as legal advice. But we are all very familiar with with certain aspects on the how the divorce process works so we can present and discuss your options with you.