Everyone enters a marriage with plans that the marriage will succeed – that you will be married forever. But, despite your best intentions, it’s sometimes impossible to avoid the dissolution of a marriage.
While you may have never planned on getting a divorce, you are about to join the ranks of almost two million people getting divorced in the United States. Divorce is big business, resulting in legal costs of well over $1 billion dollars each year.
Even though calculating the financial cost of a divorce is easy, it’s impossible to predict the emotional and psychological costs when divorcing. How can you end a marriage without arguments, hurt feelings, ultimatums, and harsh words?
Many couples have every intention of having an amicable divorce, at least for the sake of children. Unfortunately, more often than not, a divorce quickly escalates to a painful, antagonistic process.
In part, divorce becomes difficult because the U.S. legal system is based on an adversarial system – two lawyers going head-to-head. For the lawyers, your divorce is just another case to put in the win/loss column. They forget that there are people involved – often people that will have to continue to see one another and interact, especially if there are children involved.
While it’s difficult to walk away from a marriage, especially when it comes to divvying up furniture, household goods, and finances, you can take control over your divorce proceedings. This means you can walk away from the marriage with money in your pockets – instead of the hands of the attorneys.
What do you need to prepare your own divorce? You and your spouse:
- Must agree to the divorce;
- Be willing to save time and money by working through issues together;
- Reach agreement without the intervention of an attorney;
- Be prepared to do some research and work together to put together an agreement.
In a couple’s agreement, the spouses are able to sit down and peacefully negotiate how they want to divide property and bills, and arrangements for the care of their children. This negotiation is amicable and peaceful.
When you have reached an agreement on how to divide property, assets and bills, this agreement is put into a legal form referred to as the Marital Settlement Agreement. This is a legally binding contract that settles the issues regarding separation and serves as a foundation for the impending divorce.
Downloading a Divorce Kit from MyDivorceDocuments.com cover the information you need to obtain a divorce through a couple’s agreement. We’ll discuss the laws relating to divorce and the legal process for obtaining a divorce. We’ll also discuss what a “no-fault” divorce entails, how to approach considerations for a divorce, what grounds are appropriate for divorce, and how to legally obtain a divorce.
We’ll also discuss preparing and signing a Marital Settlement Agreement. When you develop a marital settlement agreement, you have to consider the following factors:
- Division of property
- Division of bills and financial responsibilities
- Payment of Alimony
- Child custody, child support and visitation agreements
MyDivorcedocuments.com has created sample forms and agreements, questionnaires, and worksheets. Use these forms to determine your property and get the information in place to begin preparing your separation agreement, and ultimately your Marital Settlement Agreement.
