New Here
I know I need to get a lawyer but wondering if any of you ladies had any experience first hand. I figure our divorce will be drawn out and very messy.
Financially we are a mess. He is currently getting sued and it sucked our saving account dry with the lawyer fees. We owed back taxes and now he is taking money out left and right. Right now I would need to take out a loan to even hire a lawyer. I plan to open a new account with a different bank and change my direct deposit. If I do this can he (during the divorce) demand any of that money? He would not know the account even exists. I need to make sure I have money that is safe.
We own a home so its not like I can just walk away have a mortgage and a lease at the same time.
Also before the divorce would be final how is child custody arranged?? We would not be able to make a decision about this without a 3rd party making and enforcing the decision.
Thanks for any help.
Re: New Here
I can't answer any of the ?'s except the last one...
Until you have a finalized Judge signed Parenting Plan, you can do a couple of things.
1) Go to court or do it yourselves and get a temporary parenting plan. If you can talk it out on your own you can put it in writing and submit it to a judge to sign off on. This would be a temporary parenting plan, and whatever it says would be what it is until you have a finalized plan. Usually your finalized plan will be similar if not exactly the same so make sure you are comfortable with what it says.
2) Whoever has the child (assuming you are not still living together) gives the other parent visitation. NOW, with this you are not protected if you hand LO over to STBXH, he has rights to the child to and can take him/her and it's not considered kidnapping. If you supervise, ie. meet him at a park you can prevent this from happening OR if you know he wouldn't do such a thing and you trust him not to and to abide by what you agree to then I would advise letting him have visitation as you and LO are comfortable with. My exH tried to use it against me that I only allowed him supervised (by me) visits with our LO when we were waiting for a temporary plan, so if you think it's going to be messy - be prepared for that.
This is just from my experience. I would suggest #1, to protect yourself and LO, something in writing signed off by a judge is the best. Even if the judge is the one that is deciding what the Temp. PP is going to do because you can't agree. That's what happened in my case. exH fought for 50/50 and I knew that would be a disaster so I fought for 3 2 hour visits during the week and then all day one weekend day. The judge gave him the 3 2 hour visits and 1 sat overnight. LO was 15 mo. old at the time FYI.