Divorce is a life-changing experience for any family. For the stay-at-home mom, the consequences of ending a marriage can be even more dramatic. Many stay-at-home moms believe they will be able to maintain their current lifestyle after a divorce. This is often not possible. With this in mind, we offer a few suggestions for stay-at-home moms to consider before initiating the divorce process.
Obtain Financial Records
Perhaps you are in the beginning stages of the divorce process, and you are still considering whether or not you want to move forward. One of the most important things for you to do is to establish a snapshot of your finances. You will want to make a personal copy of your financial records and important information. This includes assets as well as debts, and may include letters, emails, texts, photographs, recordings, home closing documents, mortgage information, automobile titles, non-retirement account statements, retirement account statements, tax returns and supporting documents, monthly bills, and credit card statements. You will want to keep the copies in a safe place, so you will have easy access to them.
Meet with a Financial Planner
Once you have a personal copy of all financial records in your estate, you may want to consult with a divorce attorney, before you meet with the financial planner, to discuss the potential benefits and protections of meeting with a financial planner through your divorce attorney. You will want to meet with a financial planner that is independent of your marital estate. A financial planner can quickly compile your financial information, to provide your legal team with a fair and accurate summary of the marital estate and monthly budget. The financial planner's purpose is not to leverage outcomes, but to provide a summary of your current financial situation. You will learn the value of marital assets, the balance of the marital debt, the net worth of your estate, and what the cost is to run the household each month. With this information, you may contemplate next steps, including the timing of a potential divorce filing, possible employment outside the home, and re-education possibilities.
Consider Division of Assets
Keep in mind that with divorce comes a division of assets. If your husband was the sole breadwinner and must now pay for a second residence, the monthly household income will be affected and, as such, so will the monies for monthly expenses. For example, your husband's income may not support both your current home and an additional residence, so other options may need to be considered, including employment outside the home and the sale of assets.
Learn About Alimony
Depending upon your state of residence, you may be entitled to alimony. States law varies considerably on the issue of alimony. In some states alimony may not be an option, and in others, the amount of alimony may be determined by the length of marriage. Furthermore, there may be limits upon the duration of the alimony after the divorce. In many states such as Texas, Florida and Maine, judges are given strict guidelines to follow. These laws are evolving as two income households become more prevalent. You should research your state's laws and get an idea of what amount of alimony you may be entitled to after divorce. An experienced attorney will know the laws of your jurisdiction.
Learn Child-Support and Domicile Restriction Laws
If you are awarded custody of the children, your child's father may be required to pay child support following a divorce. The amount will vary, depending on the state and the income level of the father. Child support does not typically cover all child-related expenses. You can work with your legal team to find out how much you can expect to receive each month. Knowing this information at the beginning of the legal process may be beneficial to you as you make plans for the future.
Many courts restrict where children can live after divorce. This is often referred to as a residence restriction or domicile restriction. In many jurisdictions, if a father continues to live in close proximity to the children after the divorce, the children will be required to live in a certain area. If the father moves outside of the designated area, the domicile restriction is usually lifted and the mother and children are free to move outside of the designated area. Every jurisdiction is different; therefore, it is important that you know the policies and laws of your jurisdiction before you file for divorce.
Make A Plan
Before you decide to move forward with a divorce, you will want to have a plan in place. Some states require a waiting period of a year or more, before a divorce can be finalized. This time of transition can be stressful for both you and your children. Often, the more time you dedicate to research and organization at the beginning of this process, the easier the transition will be for you and your family.
Visualize The Life You Want To Lead
If you decide to proceed with the divorce, you will be starting the next stage of your life. Think about how you will meet your financial obligations and where you will live. Many things will change for the better. Many things will be more challenging. We advocate visualizing what sort of life you want to lead when you are no longer married. This process helps you mentally prepare for this new stage in your life, and the challenges and joys you will face.
All the stay-at-home "services" women talk about as having all this uncalculated monetary value cease, from the husband's perspective, when (frequently well before) the divorce is final. If you are getting custody, the husband should pay HALF, max, what the support costs are for the kids. He should not pay for the roof over your heads; that is now YOUR responsibility. He should not pay for the car; that is now YOUR responsibility. I could continue; but you see where this is going.
If you don't need the husband anymore...stop leeching off him. If you insist on doing so, great.
Just let him know what nights you will be over to cook, clean, decorate, do laundry and provide all those other "economic services" you are withdrawing, as part of the divorce agreement.
It is what the selfish and greedy spread all over the place -- on their children and their divorcing spouse and themselves -- in a divorce.
They must not be able to smell it as well as the children and others.
I guess some people can get used to the smell of manure if they are spreading it around all day. (And it is said that some people don't that think their doesn't smell.)
But it is left all over the place.
Check your shoes.
Almost all the advice here would apply to any person getting a divorce, whether they stayed at home or not or even had kids. This article isn't really all that useful to an at-home parent.
"I don't want to cook for and clean for and share parenting with the jerk ... I want him out of the house and I want to have the children to myself. ... I just want his money."
Sometimes also ...
"I don't want to have to get a job either. When will I get to watch my soaps?"
and ...
"I want the very same life I had -- except with him gone physically but not financially. I want him in an apartment and mailing in monthly checks or dropping them off here with me at the house every other weekend when I let him see the children for a few hours."
the other big issue is that if they've been out of the labor force taking care of your kids, they don't have the same ability to earn money that you do.
You want "freedom" and "independence"? Great. Get a job and support yourself independently.
Divorce will change the situation of the divorcing family. That includes everyone in the household.
If you had the privilege of staying at home with the children while your divorcing/divorce spouse worked and earned for the household before the divorce, after the divorce that you had that privilege should be taken into account -- it will become your turn to work and maybe your divorcing/divorced spouse's turn to have extra time with the children.
That would be fair, wouldn't it?
It is hard to get a job after being out of the workforce? In today's economy, it is hard for everyone. Fewer people have the same ability to earn money in a bad economy.
Divorce should not be an ongoing free ride for someone simply because they previously had the privilege of staying at home with the children.
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Stay-at-home moms certainly tend to have preschool aged children, but I don't think the poor and uneducated part fits. I think it's a middle class but not rich or professional phenomenon.
Ideally, marriage is a partnership and both parties value each other's contribution. Many will say that a sahp need not be compensated since the stay at home parent benefits from the fruits of the working parent's labors. This premise is infantilizing. It sounds like the sahp is a dependent and a burden on the working spouse, offering nothing of value to the family.
I would advise against staying home for more than two years, suggest that sahp keep skills and contacts current, do volunteer work that is meaningful to those skills. I would also say: Get paid for staying home. Not passive pay as in enjoying the things the working spouse pays for, but actual money. If one parent agrees to provide a service to the family, he or she should be treated like an equal partner who has earned a share of the family income.
During those years, the burnen of insuring the stay at home parent, male or female, is upon the primary income earner. It is their responsibility to insure the stay at home parents gets the support, time, and resources they need that will enable them to return to work when the time comes. Too often, the primary income earner, after years of building a career for themselves have the attitude that 'poo' the primary care give can just jump back into a career and back to work. It is tough enough for women to do so but for men it is very difficult. On a basic level, stay at home parents are vulnerable due to the opportunity of some primary income earners willingess to exploit the position of the stay at home parent.
Being an at-home parent isn't usually about helping kids with homework so much as taking care of small children. It's a full-time job like any other job, except the pay sucks.
I'm not sure that giving a salary to an at-home parent is that meaningful. Generally speaking, the couple has to spend all their money on living expenses. So the salary would be half the income and then you'd both put your money back in the pot to pay for your kids' clothes. Now if you have extra for the parents to play around with, two accounts are good.
My advice to an at-home parent is to have joint accounts and be the one who pays all the bills, does the budget, and the taxes. Know what's going on. Value your contributions to the family and have an equal say in how the money is spent.
What I'd really like to see would be a law allowing couples to jointly own IRAs.
Only staying home two years may be good financial advice, but it's not great for child raising. Two kids two years apart until they hit school full-time take six to eight years.
However, I agree with you that at-home parents should make plans for what they will do once the kids are older and how they will transition back to the workplace.
Who initiated the divorce and were the financial consequences of divorce considered at that time? (Sometimes divorces are initiated with stars in the eyes but most of the time feet remain on the ground -- planted in reality.)
How much has been spent on legal fees in the divorce? (Divorce lawyers sometimes end up with the equivalent of multiple years worth of alimony/maintenance/support. Then the divorced spouses realize that they would have done better to split that and keep half for themselves. Would the money that you paid in legal fees be nice to have in your pocket/account now that you are in a time of apparent financial difficulty? There is a lesson in that for those who want to litigate a divorce.)
Why don't you start a business of your own? What are you good at? Make a career of it.
It may take you a year or two of hard-work/diligent effort to get a business going -- but go do it.
Doing for yourself is probably a better life strategy than complaining about or making your life/situation be about your divorced husband?
If you initiated the divorce, then be responsible for your choice. You wanted a divorce. So BE divorced.
(In any event, you are divorced. So BE divorced.)
Take responsibility for own life.
You say 2k/mo. is not "meager?" Can you live and raise 3 kids on 24k/yr., some of which IS taxable? It's damn hard.
BTW, it takes money to start a business.
Smart people handle divorce in that manner.
Smart people don't take the college fund of their children and transfer it to the college funds of the children of their divorce lawyers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-willett/are-stayathome-parents-at_b_907792.html
Beverly Willett, Esq.
Vice Chair, Coalition for Divorce Reform
Even though stay at home parents do have a lift long last positive impact upon early childhood development by being the stable parent in the home, by contributing to a childs sense of security throught consistent presence and routine in their lives, primary income earners will exploit the spouse who contributes not only to the children's lives, the family, but also to the careers and income of the income earning spouse.
It is trully a vulgar let alone unfair situation faced by parents and spouses who dedicate their lives to children and the family only to have the working spouse leave the house to go out and press the flesh and return one day to inform the parent at home that they have been seeing other people. It is a reality faced and an ugly one at that.
In the stay-at-home parent situation one (working) parent creates the financial means and the other (at home) parent is granted the privilege.
And just because a parent is the privileged/at-home parent does not mean that parent is the "better" or even a good parent. Half of parents are below average.
In any event, the at-home/working arrangement is well and good when there is a marriage.
But divorce changes things.
The at-home parent who decides to initiate a divorce should have no expectation of continuing the privilege during or after a divorce.
Parenting of the children will change in a divorce. The former at-home parent will need to share the privilege of child care. The former working parent will want a greater role in the lives of the children. Each parent should have shared joint custody and equal placement time with the children. That result is best for the children.
If you are an at-home parent and want a divorce, your pre-divorce planning should include getting yourself a job and accepting that you no longer will have complete control over the children.
==> What happens when the at-home parent wants it all ways in the divorce -- the house, the children, the money and no need to get a job -- is divorce at its worst.
And THAT, my friend, is repulsive.
My ex and I divided up the assets, I paid her some alimony and bought the house from her. The cost to me was substantial, but at least it went toward the purchase of real assets, not money thrown away on divorce industry services. We divorced uncontested, no kids and ended up paying only the $25 recording fee. It's never easy to divorce, but it doesn't have to cost you everything, either. Both parties have to realize that giving money to 3rd parties only makes you both poorer.