Failure To Launch!

To no one’s great surprise, especially you and your spouse, you’ve decided to call it quits, and separate. So now how can you both make the most productive use of your time and money, resolve your legal issues, and move on with the next chapter of your lives?? Read on.

But first, let’s make several assumptions. Your relationship was not violent, or abusive. You and your spouse can still talk to each other in a civil, and respectful, manner. Neither of you feels compelled to rush to court for the purpose of punishing the other (although tempting). Reducing your legal fees sounds better than paying legal fees.

Congratulations, you’ve qualified as candidates for the kitchentabledivorce.ca approach to separation and divorce.

It’s an approach which encourages spouses, whenever possible, to meet and talk, around the kitchen table, or in fact any table, other than a courtroom table, to hopefully settle legal issues, before launching costly legal proceedings into an unfriendly legal universe. This is definitely one failure to launch which is a very good thing!!

But just what is there to talk about? That all depends on your unique family situation. If there are children most couples begin with addressing child related issues, such as custody, access, support etc. If there are no children there will be issues of assets, and liabilities, and possibly spousal support.

So to assist, I have developed a checklist of key issues, which you can use in discussions with your ex, and over the course of the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing this checklist with you. (As I’ve mentioned before, when someone tells me that they and their spouse have reached an “agreement” it will always be deeply flawed, because many important issues have not been discussed or addressed). Having a completed checklist can also form the basis of a Separation Agreement, dramatically reducing the chance that something critical has been ignored.

Next up – what you need to know and discuss with your ex about the children.