White Bear Lake Divorce Attorney

White Bear Lake Divorce Attorney

Divorce is never easy, but it is sometimes necessary to end your marriage for various reasons. The fact is that the consequences of your divorce will have significant consequences in your future, and this makes carefully attending to the divorce process especially critical. Your divorce will not only significantly affect your finances but will also determine your child custody arrangement, and this makes the consequences far too important to take a wait and see attitude. If you are facing a divorce, you need an experienced White Bear Lake divorce attorney on your side. 

Divorce Basics

While every divorce has its own unique complications, there are some basic components that apply to every divorce across the board, including:

• Your child custody arrangements
• Your child support payment arrangements
• The division of your marital property (both assets and debts)
• Spousal maintenance arrangements

Each of these (as applicable) will play a major role in the outcome of your divorce and must be given the careful individual attention they require. 

Child Custody Arrangements and Child Support

If you have children, your child custody arrangements will be a top divorce concern. Generally, both parents share joint legal custody. This means that both parents share the legal rights and responsibilities related to parenting their shared children, which includes making important decisions on their behalves regarding their education, their health care, their religious upbringing, and the childcare they receive. 

Divorced parents typically also have joint physical custody, but often, one parent will have primary physical custody – the children live primarily with this parent – and the other parent will have a visitation schedule that delineates when he or she will have the children. The parent with the visitation schedule usually makes child support payments to the primary custodial parent depending on their income and other factors. 

The Division of Marital Property

In the course of your divorce, you and your soon-to-be-ex will divide the property you acquired as a married couple in a just and equitable manner, which does not necessarily mean an equal manner. The court takes a variety of relevant factors into consideration in making its determinations related to the division of marital property, including:

• The duration of your marriage
• The age and relative health of both of you
• You and your divorcing spouse’s station in life, your occupations, and your individual incomes
• You and your divorcing spouse’s employability, education, and vocational skills
• Each of your estates and your presumed future financial needs, liabilities, and opportunities
• Each of your separate contributions to the marriage – financial and otherwise
• Any prior marriages and attendant financial responsibilities that either of you have

The division of your marital assets is critical, and it can become very complicated very quickly.

Spousal Maintenance

Spousal maintenance – also called alimony – is by no means a certainty and is only awarded when the spouse requesting maintenance doesn’t have the financial resources to meet his or her reasonable needs to continue within the marital standard of living; cannot adequately support oneself via employment; or is the primary custodial parent for a child whose health precludes the parent from obtaining employment. When maintenance is awarded, it is generally short term and ends upon a specified date.  

If You Are Facing a Divorce, an Experienced White Bear Lake Divorce Attorney Can Help

If you are facing a divorce, you have questions and the experienced divorce attorneys at 

Atticus Family Law in White Bear Lake are here to answer them for you. Our dedicated legal team has extensive experience helping clients like you obtain favorable divorce outcomes, and we can help you. To learn more, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.