Houston Business and Family Law Blog

Like all good parents, you spend a lot of time thinking about your children, being strategic about decisions that you know will affect their well-being. It's understandable that when you decided to divorce, you may have felt nervous about telling your kids. The good news is that children are highly adaptable and resilient by nature. With a strong support system in place, your kids should be fine.  

That's not to say you won't encounter challenges along the way as you help them come to terms with the situation and move on in life. It can be quite helpful to try to view things from your children's perspective. Learning more about how children think about divorce may help you avoid problems down the line. It is also good to know how to access family justice support. 

If your foreign-born ex-spouse wants to take your child(ren) to his or her country of origin for a visit, you may fear that (s)he will not return them to you in Texas at the end of the visit. Unfortunately, parental abduction is a far too frequent occurrence and can pose a significant problem when parents abduct their child(ren) to a foreign country.

Should you face such a situation, you likely can get your child(ren) back in the most expeditious manner by applying for Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction assistance. As The Hague Conference on Private International Law explains, this international treaty signed by 98 countries, including the United States, provides not only that these countries will respect each other’s child custody laws, but also that they will cooperate with each other when an internationally abducted child needs to be returned to his or her “habitual residence,” i.e., the country in which (s)he resided prior to the abduction.

Once you have settled on the decision to get divorced from your spouse in Texas, you are immediately faced with the often-arduous task of separating everything you have ever shared. This includes everything from financial accounts to family heirlooms. At Laura Dale & Associates, P.C., we have helped many couples through the legal process of dividing shared assets. 

One of the most important and potentially complicated assets that you and your spouse will need to split are any shared retirement accounts. Getting your fair share of the net worth is critical to your stability and preparation for the future. Being too hasty or not pushing enough for a fair settlement could ultimately affect your ability to live comfortably in the future. According to time.com, some of the things that you can do to actively ensure the protection of your retirement assets include the following:

• Immediately make modifications to who you have listed as beneficiaries on all legal documents. 
• Understand how to properly label and disclose information about your distribution to notify the IRS. Doing so will eliminate costly penalties in the future. 
• Be aware of the individual tax consequences on the various types of retirement accounts you may have. 
• Try to remain flexible and willing to negotiate with your former spouse to give yourself the best chance at receiving a fair settlement. 

People who are entering into marriage may have every intention of staying married for life. However, even after 30 years of marriage, people are filing for divorce for different various, including irreconcilable differences. For some people, the marriage bond does not become stronger with time, but rather dissipates as couples change and gradually become independent of one another. The growing trend of gray divorce is used to explain why an increased number of people over the age of 50 are divorcing, even after years of marriage.

Some people in this age range have been married multiple times. Research shows that the likelihood of filing for divorce increases depending on whether the marriage is the first, second or third for the couple. Furthermore, major life changes can influence a couple’s choice to get a divorce as well. When children leave the home for school or during retirement, couples may find a decreased desire to spend time with one another after years of marriage. People go through major transformations during different parts of lives and in some cases, these changes leave people wanting more from their marriages. Rather than work on a broken relationship, a number of people find it best to leave the marriage and move on.