This is an Important Update to MensDivorceHQ.com, and we ask that all of our visitors please take a moment to read this announcement…

When we developed this website, there were a number of goals that we wanted to accomplish.  The first was to provide a continuous stream of information about separation, divorce, and child custody that any man could use in order to get a much-needed head-start.  The best method for this was pretty straightforward when you consider how easily one can add information to site that is based on a blogging platform.  So far that has gone very well with the only complaint being that there are only 24 hours in a day, and time constraints have made constantly updating the website with fresh divorce advice and tips a little difficult.  But that may change when we implement the changes that will be described below.  The idea is to make the best out of bad situation and we believe we have found a way to do that.

Anyway, here is the problem that we have run into….

For those of you who are fairly new to this site, you may not know, but we have spent a great deal of our time answering specific divorce questions and providing tips, via email and IM, about how to make it through their divorce “successfully”.  This became a popular part of the website, as many visitors made their way to the contact page and asked every question that they could think of.  Most of these questions were very specific to their divorce and were not covered on the website.  This was great, because it allowed us to help other guys out who were looking for some kind of information that would help them personally.  Granted is was very time-consuming, and took away from updating the website on a regular basis, but at least we knew that someone was definitely getting some feedback in their divorce issues.

But something happened that had to screw it all up…

Throughout any email conversations that we had with men who were seeking help with their divorce, we would state, on numerous occasions, that none of us were trained divorce attorneys and any information and/or tips that we provided were never to be used as substitute for an attorney.  Well, apparently somebody didn’t fully understand that disclaimer and attempted to pursue his divorce, without a lawyer, based completely on the information that we provided.

We would have been fully able to explain the problem with this had he notified any of us of his intentions.  But since he did not reveal to any of us about his plans to represent himself in his divorce, we omitted some of the minor legal crap that those that have a divorce attorney would never have to worry about.  You see, 100% of the divorce attorneys out there take care this part of the service they provide to their clients.  In this case, a single page form concerning property matters, that was exclusive to the county that this gentleman resided in.

To make a long story short, he only had part of the information that he needed to complete his divorce, and was completely blown out of the water by his ex-wife’s divorce attorney.  And having no one to blame but himself (for not hiring an attorney or at least letting someone here know of his intentions to represent himself ), low and behold he finally employed the services of a lawyer.  But his intentions, this time, was to try and sue someone here at mensdivorcehq.com, saying that we provided him with misleading “legal” advice that lead to a bad outcome in his divorce.

Believe it or not, we had expected this to happen at some point and that is why the disclaimer is added in the first place.  There was absolutely no basis for his lawsuit, and it did not even make it past the first couple of stages.  But we did receive a stern recommendation from the judge and given the fact that none of us can afford any serious legal issues (it cost us $2500 just to get a lawyer just to get it thrown out), we are going to abide by his advice… “stick to the website and leave the courtroom to the attorneys”, which was actually our plan in the first place.

We have a win:win solution…

As a result of all of this, we will no longer be able to work with anyone one-on-one via e-mail, IM, snail mail, or any other method. We especially want to apologize to everyone that was awaiting responses to their questions.  Instead, we will be looking through all emails (past, current, and future) and using those to anonymously pull out questions or issues about divorce to use in future updates.  That way the information will be available to all our visitors, some of whom have similar questions, and yet your questions can still be answered.  So the format can stay the same as it is now, just any e-mails that you sent will be answered on the website.  And don’t worry… No personal details will ever be used on the site. We won’t even let be know if you are a man or woman!

So keep sending us any questions about your divorce that you can think of and then pay close attention to the website as we answer it without providing any direct legal advice.  Pretty smart, huh?  We think so too..

Just wanted to write a quick post to let you know what you could be missing by not being a subscriber to our “Mens Divorce” e-mail newsletter.  We have started to seriously add to the newsletter as of late. For no other reason but that we have discovered that those that take action here, by simply signing up, are those that are more likely to take action during their divorce.  There is no offense intended to our “casual visitors”, but the willingness to take action is an extremely important attribute that you will need to make it through your divorce with minimal damage.  The exact same reason why we started this site in the first place!

Note: Notice that there is no mention of being a “member”.  To be a member of something you have to “pay” for it, but it costs you nothing to be a “subscriber”.  We don’t want members! It seems that you have to pay for just about everything these days. It’s refreshing to find something once and a while that actually has some value, but doesn’t actually cost you a penny.

There are some direct benefits, as well as, a number of tips that are already available only to our subscribers.  The first benefit is getting top priority in any questions that you send to us.  All you have to do is add “subscriber” to the subject line and it automatically moves up to the top of the list.  We have also been granted permission to give out a FREE report on identifying the problems in your marriage in the hopes that you may be able to stop your divorce from even happening (No… we didn’t write it, but a well-known relationship expert did). She has already given us a hint that another report will be available in the very near future.

Subscribers have also received information on what they can do to protect their retirement from having it all pulled out from underneath them during a divorce.  If you have been married for a long time, 10 years or more, then there is a good chance that your soon to be ex-wife and her divorce attorney will try to get their hands on YOUR retirement.  Sometimes you can’t stop it, but you can take steps to minimize what she gets to put in her pocket.  Best thing about it is that the longer the divorce takes, the more you can keep out of her hands.

Also, we are researching and sending out simple tips that you can use to save Big money during your divorce.  These are NOT blatant tips, like “go out and hire the cheapest divorce attorney you can find”.  These are real tips that you can start using today without having to sacrifice anything that is crucial to your divorce, and making it go over as smoothly as possible.  There are probably an infinite number of tips that you can use to save some money, and we will be sending them out in our e-mail newsletters as soon as we get them.

There will be so much more to come for our newsletter subscribers, especially since we have only began to really get in to it.  Reports, guides, tips, and different services are all in the future for the “Mens Divorce” e-mail newsletter, and if you are one those who is more likely to take action, rather than step back and see what happens, then I highly encourage you to sign up.  It’s free.  It’s more interactive.  It has more information that you can use.  And sooner or later, it will likely become the backbone of our entire website.

All you have to do is fill in your name and email into the form on the right.  Follow some simple instructions, and you should receive your first email newsletter within a few minutes.  Nothing else is needed… more emails will follow with all kinds of tips and tactics that you will be able to use during your divorce.

We truly hope to see you on our list of subscribers.  Just like we hope that more and more men will start to take the action that is needed to even out the playing field and make divorce something that does not have to ruin the lives of the men involved.

(In case you are concerned, Privacy is our #1 priority.  Your information is 100% secure.  It will never be given out, or sold to anyone at any time….EVER!  You will NOT be spammed…. Ever!  Just as much as we do not want to be accused as spammers…..EVER!)

We have already covered what steps that need to be taken in order to conduct your future business privately, out of the prying eyes of your soon to be ex-wife and her divorce attorney.  You’ve got the new mailing address, new e-mail address, and a safe  place to store your hard copies of everything.  Now is the time to start separating yourself financially.  The cost of the divorce will be bad enough…you do not want to find yourself in some sort of financial crisis because you left yourself vulnerable.  These things can be done fairly easily, but the headaches that they could cause if they aren’t taken care of could be astronomical.  The sad thing is that you would have nobody else to blame but yourself.

So read each step carefully, and consider putting them into practice as soon as possible:

1) Close any joint credit card accounts immediately. You do not want to find out later that your wife paid her divorce attorney’s retainer with a credit card that you are both responsible for.  Think of it… what if you get off scott-free and do not have to pay any of your wife’s legal fees (believe me they will try), but you find out that she used your joint credit card to pay for them in the first place.  Now with the debt likely to be split 50/50 you have to pay half her legal fees by default.  This is just one example, as she could simply go on one last shopping spree knowing that you will have to pay for at least half of it in the end.  It is just a safety precaution that every man going through a divorce should consider.

If there happens to be a credit card account under your name, and she is an authorized user, by all means have her “unauthorized” immediately.  But do not close that account.  You will need a credit card account or two to help with your expenses and/or any emergencies.  If you do not have your own account once you close out the joint accounts, then be sure and open one up.  You never know when it might come in handy, and you can trust me when I say that it will be a lot tougher to get a new account once you are officially divorced.  You are going to need a way to start building your credit up again and a new credit card account is a good way to start.

2)  Open a new checking and/or savings account in your name only. Some of you may already have one, but for those that don’t make sure to do it immediately.  You are going to need to keep your finances separate at some point in the divorce, so why not start now.  Besides this new account will be crucial for the next couple of steps.  And if you want some added security pick a bank or credit union that neither of you have used before.  If she doesn’t know where you are banking, it will be hard for her to come up with some scheme in the first place.  But just to be even safer, have it noted on your account that your wife (give them her full married and maiden name) is not to have access to this account in anyway.  That way they can be on alert for all sorts of possibilities, the most common being when she finds your checkbook and tries to write herself a check while forging your name.  She has probably forged your name before, in fact you may have asked her to, but now is not the time for her to start practicing your signature again.

3)  Re-route any direct deposits into your new bank account. This is just simply the practical thing to do.  If your paycheck gets direct deposited, then make sure that gets changed first.  This by no way means that you should stop paying any bills that you would normally.  It is just a way to make sure that she cannot get her hands on any extra money and use it as she pleases.  There is a very good chance that this will piss her off, but just remind her that this is what comes with a divorce and that you are still going to cover all the expenses that you have been… just out of another account that she doesn’t have access to.  If she usually handles all the bills, then just find out what needs to go where.  Eventually, you will have to be taking care of all your own bills anyway, so there is no better reason to start now.

4)  Optional, but recommended… Withdrawal exactly 50% of the funds in a joint account and deposit it into your new account. Now this may be considered a little sneaky, and you may be questioned (by the judge) as to why you did this.  But I consider this as being proactive.  Let’s say that you leave all the money in the joint account and someday you find that it has been completely cleared out by your wife.  Your are still entitled to 50% of this money, and with the right financial records it will be awarded back to you during the actual divorce.  But at that point, you are at the mercy of your new ex-wife as to when she will be able to get the money together to pay you back… if she ever does.  She will likely test your determination at first, and you will be forced to spend extra money in legal fees to file contempt charges, having the courts pressure her into paying you back that money.  In the end there is no way of knowing how long that will take.

How much simpler would it have been if you would have just transferred that 50% into your new account months earlier?  This can be done safely.  It’s just very important that you keep excellent financial records.  You need to have the definitive evidence that you transferred only 50% or less.  If there is just the least bit of question, make sure you always error on the lower side, which means it is always better to transfer say 48% than it is to transfer 51%.  If you are not confident in your financial records enough to back your actions up in court, by all means don’t do it.  If you have great records and are still skeptical, by all means consult with a divorce attorney first.  But now is the time to start protecting yourself, your kids, and your future, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Important Note: If there are any non-marital funds in the joint account (ie. money that she inherited or funds that she had saved prior to you getting married) be sure not to include that in calculating the 50%.  You are not entitled to money that will not be considered as marital, and if you make such a mistake, I promise that her divorce attorney will try and make you out to be a money-hungry thief.  This is definitely not worth risking, so remember to always error on the low side.

For anyone who has never been through it, a child custody battle seems like an dreadful ordeal, and I personally would not wish it on any one.  Unfortunately, with a divorce that involves children there is no way to avoid it.  The best approach is to be prepared, research the issue in its entirety, and be fair throughout the ordeal.  There is no reason to ask for more than joint (50:50) custody unless your children are truly in danger by living with their mother.  Many people, men and women, make the mistake of trying to get full custody just to punish the other.  Everybody suffers in this, but no one more than your kids.

To start out our coverage of child custody, I have put together a list of common questions with answers that have been agreed to by several child custody lawyers.  First, it is very important to note that child custody laws differ from state to state.  And the information that you find here works for most areas, but it is still very important that you check that your state has similar views on these issues.

What is the “True” Definition of Custody?

In short, “Custody” deals with the person who is responsible for providing for the children in the case that both parents do not live together anymore.  Which will be the case when you get a divorce.  But this also applies to parents who have never been married, in which case the mother generally has custody most of the time, with the father getting visitation rights.  That is a tradition that is hard to fight, but when the parents were married and taking care of the children under the same roof then there are more options available.

What is the Difference between “Physical Custody” and “Legal Custody”?

Physical custody is more straightforward and refers to the parent who has the child (or children) living with them on a regular basis.  There can be a situation of “joint physical custody” where both parents have the child living with them for an equal amount of time, and they are moved between each parent’s home on a regular basis.

Legal custody is what is awarded when a parent has the responsibility of making the major decisions on issues such as the child’s education, health, and overall well being.  There can be joint legal custody, but it is only recommended when the parents are able to get along, at least for the sake of their kids.

So, How is the Decision about Custody Made?

The ideal way that a decision is made is when the judge approves a plan that is presented and agreed upon by both parents.  But in the case that the parents are unable to come to a decision on their own, they will likely be ordered to speak with a mediator who is experienced in this matter.  In the worst case scenario, the parents cannot come up with an agreement by themselves or with the help of a mediator.  In this case, the judge will have the final say after hearing both sides of the story.  It is very important that you do not let it get to this point, because it is not only very hard on you (emotionally and financially), but it can be devastating to your kids.

Are your kids still allowed to see a parent who has not been awarded Physical Custody?

It truly depends on the situation, but commonly the parent who does not have physical custody is allowed certain visitation periods, which could range from a couple days a week to every other weekend to once a month.  Obviously, this depends heavily on your particular situation.  If there is a chance that a child may be in danger because of a history of abuse or if the parent in question cannot physically and/or financially take care of the child, then visitation could be seriously restricted.  Under the most extreme situations visitation will only be allowed if it is supervised.

What happens if the parent with custody won’t let the children visit the other parent?

If the parent who has been awarded physical custody makes the decision that the children will not be allowed to visit with the other parent, then that parent should file a contempt charge with the court.  When either parent does not abide by a court order that was issued during a divorce, they are guilty of contempt of court.  The judge could then issue sanctions against the offending parent in the form of fines or even jail time.  If it can be proven without a doubt that the parent has been doing this on purpose, then is could be used as grounds to change the child custody situation. But it is more likely that the judge will order counseling or mediation to work things out before he/she will even consider changing the custody agreement.

If the current custody plan is not working, can it be changed?

It is possible for the custody plan to be modified if both parents agree on the changes, draw up a new arrangement, and bring it before the judge, who is the only person that can make it official.  In the case that both parents acknowledge that something is working, but cannot not agree on a new custody plan, they may ask the judge to come up with the changes.  Whatever the judge decides, you can be certain that it is done with the child’s best interests in mind.  Getting a change to the child custody plan gets more difficult if the original arrangement has been working for an extended period, or if the child is already taken care of in his/her current situation.  So if you wish ask for a change in the custody arrangement, you’d better have some valid complaints and plenty of evidence to back it up.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is just the beginning to what will be a large selection of information on child custody.  It is by far one of the most important issues in a divorce, and it has implications for many years to come.  So if you are considering a divorce, or are already in progress, remember that it is not just about you and your soon-to-be ex-wife.  Your children are there too, and they should be a top priority for you throughout the entire divorce.

(Quick note: We will get into this more a little later, but you need to know that all divorce attorneys are not qualified to be child custody lawyers.  So be sure that when you talk to a lawyer for the first time, and you know that child custody will be an issue, make sure talk to them about it.  If they don’t appear to be very experienced, then it would be wise to look for an attorney elsewhere.)

As you will soon see, Item #3 of the divorce checklist is where the real action begins.  The time has come to stop questioning yourself.  The time to be depressed about the end of you marriage is over, and you need to get excited at the chance that you will soon be a “free man” again.  You have spent a lot of your energy wondering where everything went wrong, and whether or not your marriage was worth saving.  Some of you tried to no avail, others knew that there was no point in saving something that turned out to be so miserable.  It is extremely difficult to fight love, and if that love is strong enough it makes us do stupid things, like get married to a person who has only showed one side to us.  And it’s sad to think that it is a common thought among women..”I am married now, I don’t have to try so hard anymore”.  Ironically, it is often a thought like this that leads to them being divorced.

Hopefully, you have done your homework up until now.  You have created a private side to you that will help launch you back into the world once the divorce is over.  You contained all your finances, and prevented yourself from falling deeper in the hole.  You have taken the time to research the better known divorce attorneys in your area, and have possibly talked to one or two of them.  You should have an idea by now about what your divorce has in store for you.  Are you in for an all-out court battle, or you going to be able agree, sign some forms, shake hands, and part ways?  In reality, 90% of all divorces are somewhere in between, but the closer you come to achieving the latter, the better of both of you will be at the end of the day.

There are a number of questions that you need answers for and some action you need to take before you can move on from this stage.  Does your state require you to be separated for a certain period of time before you can file for a divorce?  Have you officially separated from your wife, and if you are still staying in the same home, do you have proper documentation of when the marriage separation began?  Have you spoken to her about how you are going to split up the debts and assets?  In most states, it is a 50/50 split, but you need to know the actual details of that split.

And what about a divorce attorney?  Are you and your wife going to be one of the lucky ones who can start and finish your divorce with total agreement and  thus have no need for a divorce attorney.  If not then you should be very close to hiring an attorney by this point in your divorce.  And if you haven’t gone so far as to find some good attorneys and/or haven’t consulted with any of them, then you need to get the ball rolling on this immediately.  I would be shocked to find that your wife hasn’t at least talked to one attorney by this point.  She will likely be the one to actually file the divorce, but you need to be ready for it.

How about the emotional roller coaster you are about to get on?  Up to this point, you have been probably feeling a lot of resentment and/or depression.  But now that the ball is going to start rolling a lot faster and your emotions are going to do the same.  Some days you will feel fine, others will be filled with anger.  The stress will pile up and you will have problems sleeping, even if you have never had this issue before.  But it is not all bad, some days you will actually find happiness and/or excitement because something has really gone your way.  The emotions that YOU will actually go through will be tough to predict, but it is crucial that you don’t let them steer your decision making.  Use your brains, not your emotions, to make the decisions from here on out.  If, for instance, you let anger rule your decision making, then there will be a very bumpy road ahead of you.

We will go over all these issues and more.  There will be tips that help with you make educated decisions, and other information on how to get through this step with as little stress as possible, and your finances intact.

Quick Review of Item #3 of the Divorce Checklist

• If you haven’t completed some of the goals of the previous section, it’s time to make some progress.
• This step will require some of the biggest decisions yet, with the exception of the deciding to get a divorce.
• The marriage separation becomes a part of the divorce process now, not just a way to get away from your wife for a while.
• Each state has different rules/requirements for the marriage separation and you need to know what your state has to say about it.
• If you determine that a divorce attorney will be required, you need to be moving rather quickly on this.
• The divorce attorney will make sure that everything that is done from here on out will be accepted into your divorce case.
• Be ready for the emotions to start spinning.  There will be such a change from day to day, you will likely start to feel a lot of stress, anger, pressure, and even embarrassment.  It’s normal, but DO NOT let it cloud your judgment.
• As always send us an e-mail, if there are specific questions that you cannot find an answer to.

The following divorce tip might not be completely new to you.  It is quite possible that you may already putting this into action without realizing the added benefit it may have.  There is, however, a means to locking in the top divorce lawyers in town, without having to officially hire any of them.  This divorce tactic is based solely on a lttle thing known as attorney-client privileges.  To put it simply, your soon to be ex-wife will not be able to hire a divorce attorney that you have already had a meeting with and talked to at length about your divorce case.

The concept would be to set up and attend meetings or consultations with 4 to 8 of the most notable divorce attorneys from around your county.  A lot of these attorneys offer intial consultations at no charge in an attempt to convince you that they are the ideal person to work for you as part of your divorce proceedings.  You may find that some will tack on a small  fee (ie $75), but they will likely get into more information about your divorce.  A small group of the veteran attorneys might actually ask for payment that will amount to their actual hourly rate ($150 – $300).  Many of these services may result in some type of action occuring by the time your consultation is over, which is exactly what happened to me.  Regardless of what takes place during your meeting with the attorney, as long as you spend a decent amount of time going over the specifics of you divorce, it will create a professional relationship.  This results in a conflict of interest if any of these divorce attorneys were to even spend time talking to your soon-to-be ex, and it gets even worse if they were to actually represent her in your divorce.

And so essentially, it really is your choice concerning how much effort and money that you want to put into this.  If you live in a small city, this can be quite a potent divorce strategy, but if you reside in a larger metropolitan area it’s less likely that you could take the time or spend the amount of money it would take to essentially “lock in” every good divorce attorney in your area.  But on the other hand, you might get to feel the aggravation yourself when you find that several divorce attorneys that you try to contact can’t even give you the time of day because your wife has gotten to them first.  But it does go to show you that there is still some benefit to not hiring the first attorney that you talk to.

We have come up with yet another category of posts that will continue to make “Divorce Advice for Men” user-friendly for whatever type of visitor comes across our path.  We have been around the web long enough to know that there are several unique types of internet users.  One of these types won’t likely be around long enough to even read this post.  These are the “speed browsers”.  A class of internet users that aim to visit as many sites as possible, only taking enough time to skim over the content, read over anything that catches their eye, and quickly move on to the next website.

For these guys, we have developed our own set of divorce quick tips.  These will be very short posts that contain only the most pertinent  information, wrapped up in no more than 2 paragraphs so that it can be skimmed over in a matter of seconds.

These divorce tips may consist of  shortened versions of our main posts about men’s divorce strategies, or it could be a brand new tip or tactic that does not require anymore than 2 paragraphs to explain what it is and how it may impact your divorce.   So in that matter, these divorce tips will actually benefit anyone who happens to stop by our site, because it will work well as a summary to help those remember the important points of our featured posts, or it may introduce brand new information.  Regardless, these quick divorce tips will be no less important that any of our other posts.

The divorce tips will not have any numbers, or specific order to them, but they will still be easily recognized.  First, every one of these tips that we post can be brought up by clicking on a special category named “Divorce Quick Tips”. Also, there will be a unique picture associated will all our quick tips and will not be used for any other divorce post.   As you will see, this photo stands out and will be noticed immediately just by scanning over our front page…

This is just another way for us to get as much advice out there to any man who is going through a divorce.  Honestly, we don’t care if you spend hours going through all the divorce strategies that will eventually fill this site, or if you have only 30 seconds or so before your brain tells you to move on.  The biggest concern that we have is for those who don’t realize how much they can learn (and prepare) from the all the information that is available on the internet.

As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can make this website, Do Not Hesitate to comment on any of our posts or send us an e-mail via the contact page.  As far as we or concern no suggestion is too trivial or pointless.

Now that your divorce is coming, the time has come for you to start thinking about living your own separate life again.  For however long you were married, you have shared virtually everything with your wife, from financial issues to medical decisions, but that is no longer the case.  You are going to have to strive to keep your stuff private and away from her prying eyes for the first time in a long while.  This is particularly important with any issues and/or information that will be involved in your divorce process.  Financial statements, correspondence with you divorce attorney, constant knowledge of your whereabouts are no longer her business anymore, and it is your responsibility to take the necessary steps to keep that way!

The following are a few easy steps that you can do get things started.  Just know that this officially marks the time where you are on your way to living your own private life again.  It may make you a little nervous at first, but after a little while the nervousness may change into a sense of liberation, which should be a good feeling…

• Find yourself a place that you can use as a address that your wife does not have access to.  This will be used for all future legal and financial matters that she has no business knowing about.  You could simply change your mailing address to a family member’s or friend’s house, but the best option is to go ahead an get a P.O. box.  It is much more secure and you won’t have to go into any explanations as to why your mailing address is different, even though you claim to be living in the same home.

Note: If you do decide to use someone else’s house as a new mailing address, then make sure that you trust this person 100%, even if someone offers them a little money to disclose sensitive information about you.  Also, only change the mailing addresses of important stuff, like bank accounts and credit cards, and let the utility bills and junk mail continue to come to the house.

• In this age of technology, it is also important to have an e-mail address that only you have access to.  There is just as much correspondence coming in via email as there is through regular mail these days.  Many attorneys and their paralegals use e-mail to discuss issues in your case and send you papers to be signed.  You definitely don’t want you wife poking into this kind information.  Also, if you get any important information (ie. financial statements, divorce attorney correspondence, etc) sent to you through your e-mail address, then make sure you print out a hard copy to store with your other important files.

Another Note: Google’s email service, gMail, works just fine for something like this.  It’s secure, free to use, and can be accessed anywhere you have internet.  Just make sure that you use a password that your wife will not be able to guess, and that your computer will not accidentally store the password so that she can log in to your account the second you turn your back.

• I have already talked about having hard copies of everything, but want to re-iterate it one more time.  Save all statements, bills, correspondence, and anything that even looks like it could be important.  Find a place to store these files so that you wife cannot get a hold of it.  I found a place at work amid all my other work folders.  So even if she went to the trouble of sneaking into my office, she would have one hell of a time trying to find anything that was actually important.

Final Note: We will talk about this more in a later post, but this is a good time to mention it.  Let your boss and your co-workers know that you are in the process in going through a divorce.  Not only do they make good support (they are always good for a confidence boost), but they will know that if your wife or some other strange person comes snooping around to tell them to get lost.  And they are always good to let you know if she came around or if they saw here out and about town.  They tend to make for some good (& free) private investigators by just keeping there eyes open.

If you complete these steps and make a good effort to make sure she doesn’t find out about the specifics, then you are well on your way to being properly prepared for your divorce.  Immediately following this post, we will talk about the first couple of things that you can do to protect your finances.  This financial advice will be the first to make good use of the work that we hope you accomplished from the information here.

For now this is just going to be a quick post, but later we will get into the topic of divorce and how to properly divide your marital debt.  There is a sort of urgency when I am writing this because of a recent email that was sent by one of our visitors.  I am not sure how common this situation is, but it happened to me and I have recently found out that it has happened to a few other people as well.

What I am referring to is when your wife, or a vengeful soon to be ex wife, finds a way to take out a credit card solely in your name.  It may be more difficult to do now because of the all the issues that credit card companies have gone through recently, but I am sure that it is still happening.  All it requires is some lack of respect by your significant other and some personal information that she can easily get a hold of (really, how hard would it be to for her to get a hold of your social security number,birthday, etc.)

This is how it works and why it can come back to bite YOU in the ass…

Your wife fills out some credit card application online (or one of those they send to you in the mail), and has the information sent to a different location (ie. her work, a friends house, etc).  She is issued the credit card and has some male friend, who is probably jealous of you and has a crush on your wife, activate it for her over the phone.  Now she has a working credit card with your name all over it, and an expendable income.  The kicker is that during the spending spree she pays the minimum payments each month to keep it under wraps for a while longer.  Think about it… How much would it suck if she used that same credit card to hire the most expensive divorce lawyer in town.

My question to you… When was the last time that you saw your credit report?  When you got it was she involved in any way?  Are you 100% sure that there were no missing pages?  There is a specific reason that I ask you this…

Let’s say that she pulled this off early in the marriage and has built up one hell of a debt and making only minimal payments.  You happen to find out at some point, but you are still responsible for 50% of it… Why, you ask?  Because it will be very hard to prove to the judge that you were completely oblivious to it.  After all, it is your credit and you are a responsible adult who always knows what’s on it.  At this point, its your word against you wife’s that you didn’t know about it, and the judge will still order to divide that debt 99% of the time.  You can pursue a different route, like trying to get her on identity theft, but that is a completely different legal issue and the judge in your divorce case won’t even consider that without a charge and/or conviction.  This is exactly what happened to me… Yes, I wasn’t keeping track of my credit report for a long time and it cost me in the end.  Trust me I won’t make that mistake again!

Scenario #2… You are actually being proactive and got a copy of your credit report in the last month or so.  However; your wife could have just as easily opened up a credit card account after you obtained your report and is now able to use it just as freely because you are too confident about knowing all the information that is on your credit report.  You check your report 6 months down the road and found out then, what she did, but now the divorce is final.  It’s too late to even make her responsible for 50% of the debt.  Meanwhile the credit card company is calling you to get payment 3 or 4 times a day, because she stopped paying anything on it.  You explain the situation, but again without a charge and/or conviction of identity theft, they could care less.  Your name is on the account and you are legally still responsible.  The end result: Suck it up or go through another lengthy legal battle.  Meanwhile, your credit rating falls through the floor.

With my ordeal, I have found the easiest way to have prevented the problem is to report the issue as soon as it happened.  But of course it was too late for me and rather than spend even more time in court, I reluctantly agreed to pay on the $7000 credit card account.  I am still trying to repair my credit from this more than a year later!

So what is the moral of this story… Always know what is going on inside your credit report! At least until this divorce issue is over and you feel “confident” that you are in the clear.  But all of us here highly recommend that you take it one step farther and enroll in a credit monitoring service, like the one at CreditReport.com, so that even if someone, aka your ex-wife, tries something then you will know about it immediately.  Hell, you will even be notified when the credit card company simply looks at you credit report to see if “you” qualify.  It should always raise a red flag when some company pulls up your credit report and you don’t even know who they are.  If that happens, report it immediately, before something even worse happens.

It really doesn’t matter if you use CreditReport.com or not.  There are several different monitoring services available.  But make sure that you use somebody who will look out for you while you have to focus on other, more pertinent issues at home.  The cheap expense of a monitoring service is tiny compared to what it could cost if anything like this happens to you. For example, Creditreport.com has a free trial and then only costs $14.95 a month; That equals to 39 years of credit monitoring to add up to the $7000 I have to pay.

So please be careful and remember “Hope for the Best, but Prepare for the Worst!”.  And in case you were wondering… Yes, I used (and still do) CreditReport.com to keep an eye on my credit.

In item #2 of the divorce checklist, we will go over some different strategies and information that you will need to take into account, plans that need to be made in case you have to take quick action once your efforts to save your marriage stop working and/or things start taking a turn for the worse.  Some of you may be here because you are considering a divorce, others are here because you already know in your mind that you are getting a divorce and a few of you just learned that your wife has suddenly demanded a divorce.  In any case, once you determine that a divorce is inevitable you need to start preparing immediately.  Your livelihood, your future may be at stake here, and its imperative that you stay one step ahead of everyone else.

The primary reason why you have to be a head of the game is because you are already starting out from behind.  Unless you have been purposely ignoring everything that has to do with divorce (i.e. TV, news, magazines, the internet) for the majority of your life, you already know that there is still a gender bias in our country’s divorce process.  For the better part of our history, the men in a divorce have been required to keep providing for his ex-wife for well after the divorce.  This was important in the past when the husband was the primary source of income while the wife took care of the house and family.  Just think back to any 50’s or 60’s television show when they often depicted the “perfect family life”… The husband announces that he is home from a long day at the office as the family sits down to a big dinner that the wife has been busy preparing all afternoon.

Times have changed a lot since those days, and yet the divorce process is still lagging behind.  Women are now more likely to have careers, they have just as much education, and earn an income that is comparable to their husbands.  Sure they still have the children (we couldn’t change that even if we wanted to), but that no longer means that she is required to become a stay-at-home Mom.  There are laws that protect their jobs, when they have to take time off to have a child.  Stay-at-home dads are even becoming more common.  Equal rights for women have progressed a lot in this country, as they should, and yet there is still the issue where the wife is considered the victim of a divorce.  And oftentimes, under the guidance of her divorce attorney, she plays the part very well.

So in order to generate a level playing field, you as the man in the divorce is going to have to work a lot harder than anyone else.  That is the way it is, and is not going to change anytime soon, so it’s not worth dwelling on it for any longer than it takes to read this post.  Use the time you have now wisely.

This time should be used for gathering information.  Information on your assets, your debts, and all sources of income.  Now is the time to speculate on what your divorce will bring you.  Are you lucky enough to have a uncontested divorce that you can finish quickly and at minimal cost? Or will it turn into an all-out divorce battle?  If you are going to need a divorce attorney, now is the time to do some research and schedule consultations (But don’t hire anyone yet, unless you absolutely need to).  Also, during this time, keep your emotions at bay!  Don’t go getting yourself into a bind because you can’t control your anger, resentment, and/or jealousy.  Besides the less emotion that you show, the more mysterious you will be to your wife.  It makes it hard for her to guess what you are up to, giving you more freedom to plan your next move.

The most important thing is that you do not fall behind on what you need to get done.  It is very easy to do during this period because there is no one there to direct you, you don’t know how long you have before things really start to heat up, and unless you are able to go days without sleep, and/or going to work, you will not know what exactly your wife is up to.  We will try and give you some guidance on what to do during this time, but because every marriage and divorce is different, it is impossible to cover every detail.  So you will have to make some decisions on your own!

Quick Review of Item #2 of the Divorce Checklist

• Now is not the time to sit and wait for something to happen… Now is the time to prepare for what is to come!
• You, as the man in the divorce, are going to start from behind; that the nature of the divorce process in this country.
• If doesn’t look like you are working harder than everyone else, then your not doing enough.
• You need to start gathering important information (ie financial info) and storing it in a safe place.
• It’s time to determine if you will need a divorce attorney, if so, do your research and schedule consultations.
• Keep your emotions in check! One outburst could certainly lead to problems and gives your wife too much ammo.
• Do Not Move Out of Your House Voluntarily! This in itself has repercussions.  If you want to move out, then make sure the time is right.
• Prepare yourself mentally for what is to come.  Remember, the woman that you are divorcing is obviously not the same woman that you married.
• As always send us an e-mail, if there are specific questions that you cannot find an answer to.