New Jersey Family Law Blog

One of the most common things individuals may hear when they start considering a divorce is a plea to try marriage counseling first. This request may come from a spouse who wishes to stay married or a well-meaning friend or family member. With all the emotions and stress that may occur near the potential end of a marriage, it may be difficult for a person or a couple to determine whether they should try counseling. A relatively new option, discernment counseling, may help couples determine whether it is best to try to fix the marriage or pursue a divorce.

Although marriage counseling may help couples work through issues and improve their communication, it does not always fix relationships. As Psychology Today points out, marriage counseling may lead to negative consequences in some situations. This is especially common when counseling begins after one person has decided he or she wants the marriage to end. At that point, marriage counseling may provoke more negative emotions and reactions, because it becomes clear that the spouses do not have an equal desire to remain married.

Couples in New Jersey may be able to predict if divorce is potentially in the future if they pay attention to certain signs. Spouses who can identify warning signs and make the necessary changes have a much better chance of making things work than couples who ignore what is going on.

According to Reader's Digest, communication is always important to keep a marriage strong, and one warning sign is when couples stop truly talking and listening to each other. While infidelity is a sign there are problems in a marriage, if one spouse has multiple affairs it is much harder to fix and recover from. A general lack of intimacy is also a bad sign. Another signal is when a couple starts spending more time apart. While having independent interests is healthy, it becomes a problem if spouses chooses to spend time apart to avoid discussing difficult topics. 

There are many reasons people in New Jersey and elsewhere get divorced. When you filed a petition, you may have done so after a crisis event in your marriage or perhaps after a long period of issues building up between you and your spouse that you determined you were not able to resolve. Either way, while you are severing the ties of your personal relationship, you understood from the start that you'll always have a connection with your ex as co-parents.

The fact that your partner in parenting has a toxic personality may have you more than a bit concerned. It's understandable, as many people in similar situations have wound up in contentious courtroom battles when the co-parents with toxic personalities have caused child custody problems or have tried to impede the child/parent relationships of the other parents involved. To avoid such problems, it's critical to understand how to protect and exercise your rights, especially if your ex refuses to adhere to a court order.

With all of the different elements of your divorce case in Jersey City that you have to worry about, you may think that knowing what day your marital assets will officially be valued may not be one of them. Yet when dealing with property division, you will want to know all the you can to ensure that you are not taken advantage of. A valuation date may seem like a mundane detail if you do not also consider the potential for appreciation (or depreciation) that your marital assets present. 

For example, say that you own a vacation home with your ex-spouse, and after your initial separation, they move into it. Knowing that it will likely be sold during your divorce proceedings (and its proceeds split between you), your ex-spouse could conceivably neglect the property in hopes of lowering its value so that you end up with less. Yes, their stake in the property would be lowered as well, yet if their priority is punishing you over all else, they may be willing to accept such a loss.