Before asking, “What am I going to be able to keep?” There are important questions that need to be answered first:
- What are the assets that need to be divided?
- How long have you been married?
- What are the educational levels of each party?
- What is the earning capacity of each party?
- Have both parties had careers during the marriage or has one been a stay-at-home parent?
- Are there any minor children?
- What are the educational levels of each party?
- Is there a child that has special needs in your household?
- Has one spouse committed adultery?
- Has one spouse transferred money to another family member in order to hide it or any other financial fraud?
- Have they gifted large sums of money to children from a prior marriage while you’ve been married?
- Has either party been gifted monies or inherited assets during the marriage that are still in existence?
- Has there been any type of abuse in the marriage?
These are just some of the questions that need to be answered before getting to, “What am I going to be able to keep?”
The Collaborative Divorce process has a great advantage over a traditional litigated divorce because it is an interest-based negotiation. It is nearly impossible to enter a divorce knowing all your post-divorce needs. In a Collaborative Divorce, you have a divorce team, including the attorneys, which can include a mental health professional, and a financial professional. The team will help you find where the parties’ interests are aligned and where they are different. The team will also help to identify creative ways of meeting those interests so that instead of your spouse saying, “I’m never agreeing to that” they will say, “Oh, yeah that’s doable. I can agree to that.”
In a traditionally litigated divorce, the judge can’t be very creative. However, your creativity knows no bounds in a Collaborative Divorce.
