In recent weeks your spouse has been floating crazy ideas like selling the house, cancelling the family’s health insurance, or borrowing a huge amount of money to invest in the stock market. Or perhaps you overhead a phone call or saw a letter from an investment company that raised serious concerns about your spouse’s financial management ability. Maybe you’re concerned about some issue related to your children.
Religion teaches us to hate the sin but love the sinner. Maybe your appreciation for your husband’s suggestions or your wife’s sense of adventure is stronger than ever, but at the same time, you have a nagging feeling that the earth is sinking below your feet.
Filing a divorce suit is not a step to be taken lightly, but among the advantages of doing so is that potentially reckless unilateral financial actions (like those listed at the beginning of this post)may be limited once the suit is initiated. Upon service of divorce pleadings, your spouse is placed on notice of the court’s Automatic Orders which can protect you from your spouse engaging in potentially harmful or vindictive behavior when it comes to your children and/or your assets. Motions can be filed to outline rules that must be followed until the divorce is finalized. Early on in the process, both spouses must file sworn affidavits detailing their financial assets and liabilities, and if children are involved, the court requires mandatory parenting education class to be completed and a temporary parenting plan to be put in place.
If you have the sense that your spouse is hell-bent on making unilateral decisions that would make your life untenable in an effort to set themselves up post-divorce, filing a divorce suit before that conduct is undertaken is certainly an effective way to prevent potential harm to your long-term sustainability.
Like Pandora’s box, filing a divorce lawsuit may set in motion a chain of events you have tried to avoid; but if Pandora’s box was about to be opened by your spouse anyway, maybe this is a risk worth taking.
Whether you want to nip an affair in the bud or protect your financial future, you should not threaten a divorce without a clear-headed understanding of the legal consequences and advantages of ending your marriage.
Hirsch Legal LLC, a divorce and family law practice based in Shelton, provides experienced legal advice to clients in New Haven and upper Fairfield County (Danbury, Bridgeport, Trumbull, Monroe, Milford, Waterbury). Our principal attorney, Carmina K. Hirsch, can help you explore whether divorce might be an effective strategy in your circumstances. Don’t wait until the iceberg sinks your boat: give us a call now!