Dallas Divorce Law Blog by Michelle O'Neil

Well, we survived another tax year.  Hopefully everyone got their returns in on time and the process was relatively painless.   For our readers who were recently divorced, its important to ensure the name on your tax return matches the name registered with the Social Security Administration (“SSA”).

After a divorce, it is important for the taxpayer to contact the SSA to change their last name.  Although standing in line at the SSA is never a pleasant experience, you can reduce your time in line by downloading and completing the appropriate form to change your last name here.  Once the taxpayer turns in the form, the SSA it takes about two weeks for the the change to be completed.  If a taxpayer submits a return with a name that does not match the SSA records, the return will be rejected.

For a good overview of divorce tax tips, check out Sharon Drew and Gregg Herman’s Ten Divorce Tax Tips.

Finally, check out Cary & Lipponcott’s blog post on tax issues presented on spousal maintenance ordered by a Texas court.

Continuing with the myths of divorce post from Rutgers University’s National Marriage Project:

8.  Myth:  “Because they are more cautious in entering marital relationships and also have a strong determination to avoid the possibility of divorce, children who grow up in a home broken by divorce tend to have as much success in their own marriages as those from intact homes.”  Marriages of children of divorce actually have a much higher rate of divorce than the marriages of children from intact families.  A major reason for this, according to a recent study, is that children learn about marital commitment or permanence by observing their parents.  In the children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined.

9.  Myth:  “Following divorce, the children involved are better off in stepfamilies than in single-parent families.”  The evidence suggests that stepfamilies are no improvement over single-parent families, even through typically income levels are higher and there is a father figure in the home.  Stepfamilies tend to have their own set of problems, including interpersonal conflicts with new parent figures and a very high risk of family breakup.

10.  Myth:  “Being very unhappy at certain points in a marriage is a good sign that the marriage will eventually end in divorce.”  All marriages have their ups and downs.  Recent research using a large national sample foudn that eighty-six percent of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, and stayed with the marriage, indicated when interviewed five years later that they were happier.  Indeed, three-fifths of the formerly unhappily married couples rated their marriages as either “very happy” or “quite happy”.

Extra Myth:  “It is usually men who initiate divorce proceedings.”  Two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women.  Reasons for this vary and are somewhat speculative.  Women tend to receive custody by agreement in many cases, so they have more reason to file the divorce.  Also, husbands are more likely than wives to have problems with drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity, creating the impetus for the wife to initiate the divorce.

More about the myths of divorce from Rutgers University’s National Marriage Project:

4.  Myth:  “Divorce may cause problems for many of the children who are affected by it, but by and large these problems are not long lasting and the children recover relatively quickly.”  Divorce increases the risk of interpersonal problems in children.  There is evidence, both from small qualitative studies and from large-scale empirical studies, that many of these problems are long-lasting and may even become worse in adulthood.

5.  Myth:  “Having a child together will help a couple to improve their marital satisfaction and prevent a divorce.”  Many studies have shown that the most stressful time in a marriage is after the first child is born.  Couples who have a child together have a slightly decreased risk of divorce compared to couples without children, but the decreased risk is far less than it used to be when parents with marital problems were more likely to stay together for the sake of the children.

6.  Myth:  “Following divorce, the woman’s standard of living plummets by seventy-three percent while that of the man’s improves by forty-two percent.”  This dramatic inequity, one of the most widely publicized statistics from the social sciences, was later found to be based on a faulty calculation.  A reanalysis of the data determined that the woman’s loss was twenty-seven percent, while the man’s gain was ten percent.  Irrespective of the magnitude of the differences, the gender gap is real and seems not to have narrowed much in recent decades.

7.  Myth:  “When parents don’t get along, children are better off if their parents divorce than if they stay together.”  A recent large-scale, long-term study suggests othewise.  While it found that parents’ marital unhappiness and discord have a broad negative impact on virtually every dimension of their children’s well-being, so does the fact of going through a divorce.  In examining the negative impacts on chidlren more closely, the study discovered that it was only the children in very high conflict homes who benefited from the conflict removal that divorce may bring.  In lower-conflict marriages that end in divorce — and the study found that perhaps as many as two-thirds of the divorces were of this type — the situation of the children was made much worse following a divorce.  Based on the fidnings of this study, therefore, except in the minority of high-conflict marriages, it is better for the children if their parents stay together and work out their problems than if they divorce.

An article from Rutgers University’s National Marriage Project lists the Top Ten Myths of Divorce 

1. Myth:  “Half of all marriages end in divorce.”  That may have been the case several decades ago, but the divorce rate has actually been dropping since the early 1980s.  In the early 2000s, the chances that a marriage contracted this year will end in divorce before one partner dies has been estimated to be between 40 and 45 percent.
2. Myth:  “Because people learn from their bad experiences, second marriages tend to be more successful than first marriages.”  Although many people who divorce have successful subsequent marriages, the divorce rate of remarriages is higher than that of first marriages.
3. Myth:  “Living together before marriage is a good way to reduce the chances of eventually divorcing.”  Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have a considerably higher chance of eventually divorcing.  This may be, in part, because people who are willing to cohabit may also be those who are more willing to divorce.

To upload a copy of the article, click here:  Top Ten Myths of Divorce

According to an article on KSAT website out of San Antonio, divorce lawyers nationwide are seeing a trend away from divorce in light of the recent economic woes.  We are seeing the same trends in Dallas divorces.  Usually bad economic times increase the stress on marriages, causing a rise in divorce rates.  But this time, it seems that couples are not splitting up as a result of the poor economy.  It isn’t that couples are rekindline their marriages, but more that they cannot afford to get divorced.  Housing values have falled, 401K values have fallen, and there is just not as much to divide.  Debt values may outweigh assets values, leaving nothing positive to gain from the divorce.  Spouses may not be able to get credit cards or personal loans to finance attorneys fees to obtain a divorce.  In fact, most credit card companies have reduced the credit limits on credit cards, leaving less available credit to borrow from.  I’ve even seen some spouses who cannot obtain new housing post-divorce, leaving them few options but to stay in an unhappy marriage just for a place to live.

How many times do I hear spouses in Dallas divorces say, “I just don’t know the man I married.”  Christie Brinkley in her divorce complained that she didn’t know the man she married after she found out that he had been spending $3000 per month on internet porn and had an 18-year-old mistress.

Catholic priest Pat Connor has been lecturing high schoolers for 40 years about choosing the right person to marry.  “Hollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work. But you can be deeply in love with someone to whome you cannot be successfully married,” says the white-haired priest.  Here are his tips:

• Never marry a man who has no friends.  This usually means that he will be incapably of the intimacy that marriage demands.
• Does he or she use money responsibly?  Most marriages flounder because of money — she’s thrifty and he’s on his 10th credit card.
• Steer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to your’s. It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband.
• Is he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings?  When he wants to make a decision, say, about where you should go on your honeymoon, he doesn’t consult you, he calls his mother.
• Does he have a sense of humor? A therapist said, “more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.” Of course, domestic violence is very serious, but in Dallas area divorces, I do see more people that have marital problems because of a lack of communication.  The strong silent type may be charming and intriguing at first, but ultimately destructive to the marriage.
• Don’t marry a problem character thinking you can change him.  People are the same after marriage as before, only more so.  If he’s a heavy drinker before marriage, he’s not going to change just because he marries a good woman.
• Take a good unsentimental look at his family — you’ll learn a lot about him and his attitudes towards women.  Is there a history of divorce in the family?  An atmosphere of racism, sexism, or prejudice?
• Are his goals and deepest beliefs worthy and similar to your’s?
• Does he possess those character traits add up to a good human being — the willingness to forgive, praise, be courteous?  Or is he inclined to be a fibber, to fits of rage, to be a control freak, to be envious or secretive?

The most common reasons a marriage fails include: changing life priorities, lack of communication, financial stress, and lack of loyalty to the spouse. Statistics show that husbands and wives spend three to four times more time watching television than communicating with each other. Unfortunately, many divorces have issues of infidelity, but my experience is that other issues preceded and lead to infidelity.

When I meet with a potential client for the first time, I always explore whether the marriage is irretrievably broken or whether reconciliation remains a possibility. If reconciliation is an option, I encourage my potential client to fully pursue those options before proceeding with the divorce. Divorce litigation can be very disasterous to a future relationship and destroy any chance of putting the pieces back together.

When both spouses are committed to making a permanent, lasting changes, a heartbroken marriage can be repaired. Here are some tips for rescuing your marriage before it’s too late:

• Remind yourself of the reasons you fell in love with the other spouse in the first place.
• Become best friends — treat your spouse as the most important person in your life.
• Accept your spouse as he/she is, without demanding changes.
• Don’t involve third parties — your mother, sister, best friend, co-workers — in your marriage.
• Take lemons and make lemonade — turn hurdles into opportunities to strengthen your relationship.
• Admit your mistakes.
• Be a positive influence in your spouse’s life; don’t say negative things to your spouse in public or private.
• Disagree respectfully without personal attacks or bringing up issues from the past.
• Be a problem solver, even if it means you don’t “win” the argument.
• Create opportunities to laugh together.

Although I am a Dallas divorce lawyer, I would rather spouses reconcile than to go through divorce and that is the advice I give my clients.

Michelle