I came across this excellent article entitled, 7 Steps to Help You Get Through Divorce.  It doesn’t appear that the author is an attorney, but his advice is right on the money.  If you are facing a divorce in Kentucky (or anywhere, for that matter), the article is worth a read.

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Going through a divorce is a very challenging time in a woman’s life. After divorce, most women continue to be dependent for their survival either on their ex-husbands in the form of support payments, or on the state in the form of welfare. Neither of these options allows women to attain economic self-sufficiency following divorce and both continue a dynamic of dependency reminiscent of the marriage relationship for many. It is of the utmost importance that when such a pain descends upon you, you should realize that you can recover. The following information may help you get rid of this pain.

Properly control your emotion. After breaking up, you may feel angry, guilty, upset and frustrated. There feeling might be appearing to grow stronger with each passing day. These feelings are persistent and are even threatening to lead you towards a depression. Therefore, you have to control these feelings and adjust yourself to the changing situation, through which you can restart your happy life. In addition, your children are deeply hurt by the divorce. They need your help and you can help them only if you deal with your emotions. So stop feeling victimized, change your thought process by creating a new self-image of yourself.

After a divorce you can give yourself a break. Many women feel the need to stay busy to keep their minds off of this stressful time, such as working overtime or cleaning the house from top to bottom, but let this time also include pampering yourself. Barter with a friend or neighbor to watch your children or leave work a few minutes early so you can stop to sit on a park bench long enough to get that sense of the unique and special you. Take this time to experience life without feeling like a wife, mother, sister or daughter… simply you!

Once you have regained control of yourself, you can turn your concentration on to other important issues that require your attention like personal safety, rebuilding career and handling personal finances. Those may cost most of your energy and time, which can help you forget the sadness. However, do not be in a hurry to find someone to remarry. Remarriage, immediately after divorce, is not advisable.

Learn to handle your finances well. Apart from the emotional turmoil, you may experience the financial difficulty. In martial phase, two persons’ income meets a household or your husband can provide you. But after the divorce, you must support yourself. Your finances have to be managed well to meet the current and future requirements. Work hard to make yourself economically stronger. Try to find employment if you had been a ’stay at home mom.’ Rebuild your career that might have been interspersed by breaks while you cared for your children.

Divorce is not the end of life. Begin by discovering your lost self. Recollect your premarital years and try to be the person you once were.

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The decision to adopt is one of the most exciting moments in one’s life. Yet, financing an adoption is an overwhelming stress for most adoptive families. The costs involved in the adoption process can be devastating, and prospective adoptive parents may get discouraged.

The Adoption Tax Credit is one of the valuable funding options available to prospective adoptive families, but also one of the most intricate tax law provisions. Received by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Adoption Tax Credit asserts that the adoption expenses are subtracted against the yearly tax liability. However, adoptive families need to learn what the tax credit covers, what the directly related adoption expenses are, who qualifies, and how the provision works.

The tax credit is applicable both to domestic and international adoptions. For a domestic adoption, adoptive families can claim the credit regardless if the adoption process is not finalized. Instead, for an international adoption, adoptive families cannot apply for the credit until the adoption process is finalized. In case the adoption process of an international adoption is interrupted, families may claim the adoption expenses to the maximum amount that may be credited on a second adoption.

Eligibility requirements of the adoption tax credit require that adoptive families have adopted an eligible child and that they have paid qualified expenses on their own. The tax credit defines as eligible any child younger than 17 or any child who is US citizen, or resident alien, mentally and physically incapable of taking care of oneself.

If the adopted child is a US citizen or resident alien, adoptive parents collect the credit for qualified expenses based on when the adoption was finalized. For example, for expenses paid before the adoption is finalized, tax credit is collected the next year; for expenses  paid the same year that the adoption is finalized, tax credit is collected the same year; for expenses paid after the adoption is finalized, tax credit is paid the year the expenses are made.

If the adopted child is a foreigner, adoptive parents collect the credit for qualified expenses the same year that the adoption is finalized. Also, for any expenses made after the finalization of the adoption, adoptive families are eligible for collecting tax credit the same year that they made the expenses.

The IRS (Publication 968) defines as directly related adoption expenses the adoption fees, legal fees, transportation fees, meals, and accommodation expenses provided they are all “reasonable and necessary.” Prospective adoptive parents should revise the IRS guidelines very carefully with a tax expert so that they are sure about the expenses they are eligible to claim. For example, expenses related to surrogate families are not included in the qualified expenses for the tax credit. Also, expenses that are already reimbursed by private programs such as employee benefits are not qualified either.

Currently, the States of Arizona, California, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin exercise the Adoption Tax Credit providing a full credit of $12,150 for offsetting adoption expenses. Adoptive families that have been reimbursed by the tax credit provision consider that is more valuable than plain tax reduction because qualified adoption expenses are subtracted on a dollar to dollar basis. Hence, if someone has a tax liability of $8,000 and has incurred adoption expenses of $5,000, tax liability will be reduced to $3,000. In case the tax liability is lesser amount than the tax credit, the difference is carried forward for up to five years.

Generally, prospective adoptive parents should consult tax experts in order to clarify their eligibility, to investigate if their State offers the Adoption Tax Credit, and overall, to ensure that all their claims are appropriately filed.

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A good article that applies to Kentucky divorce as well as to divorce in Alabama.

I read a lot of articles on divorce. I am always tracking what is going on in my field and trying to pass on good information to the readers of my Alabama Family Law Blog.  Recently, I have noticed a lot of articles with the headline: How to Stop Your Divorce!  I’ve noticed that most of these lead to sites that are selling some product to people facing divorce. Perhaps, some of these products are worthwhile. But, I can’t help but think some of these are simply an attempt to play on the emotions of someone going through one of the worst times of their lives.

The fact is, under Alabama divorce laws, if one of the spouses insists on a divorce, they are going to get it. There is nothing you can do to stop. You can make it take longer, and you can make it cost more money (but why would you want to?), but you can’t stop it.  I tell my divorce clients all of the time, “It takes two people to decide to get married, it only takes one to decide to get a divorce.”

Can you try to convince your spouse to reconcile? Of course. Can you try to convince a spouse considering a divorce to not file and give it another chance. Sure. I always encourage reconciliation. And, if you are struggling in your marriage, a good book to take a look at is, The Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Staying Married. The author is a divorce lawyer and in it, she interviews other divorce lawyers around the country. Because we see so many marriages that end in divorce, divorce attorneys have a unique perspective on the issue.

But, as far as these websites that promise to stop your divorce case, I would just be careful.  A few sessions with a qualified marriage counselor or pastor will have a much better chance of being effective than an e-book slapped together by someone trying to capitalize on your desire to avoid divorce.

photo credit: raulsantosdelacamara

This post from the AlabamaFamilyLawBlog.com where you can find information about Alabama divorce and family law.

How to Stop Your Divorce

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Working Together to Resolve Divorce

The Orlando Sentinel posted an article today on Collaborative Divorce.  Collaborative divorce is an alternative way to resolve a divorce case without resorting to litigation. I was actually trained as a collaborative lawyer in 2001.  However, it has been slow to pick up steam in Alabama.  In fact, many divorce attorneys in Alabama that I have spoken to have expressed their reluctance to hanlde cases collaboratively. I think that will change.  As it becomes more common and more people find out about it, there will be a market demand for it.

The only real down side to collaborative divorce can be the expense. But, it is far less costly than a traditional adversarial divorce.

I have been working on something called the No Nonsense Divorce that I think will provide another viable option for families in Alabama trying to cope with divorce.  It is a way for divorcing couples to streamline the divorce process and to resolve their case for a fixed fee that is far less than would be incurred in litigation. I’ll be posting more about No Nonsense Divorce here as soon as we have all of the parts in place.

Until then, I encourage you to read the article linked above on Collaborative Divorce. It captures some of the same themes that I urge my clients to consider in the way we handle their divorce case.

This post from the AlabamaFamilyLawBlog.com where you can find information about Alabama divorce and family law.

Collaborative Divorce: A Kinder, Gentler Approach?

Related divorce and family law info:

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3. Divorce Mediation is Often a Smart Way to Resolve Your Case I recently read an article on divorce mediation. The article…
4. A Kid’s Guide to Divorce Just a short note today about a nice divorce resource…
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View full post on AlabamaFamilyLawBlog.com

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Explaining adoption to a child is a very important as well as intricate issue. Adoptive parents need to consider the importance of telling their child that he or she is adopted at an age that the child would be able to understand without getting hurt. 

In the past, adoptive parents avoided to tell their children they were adopted in the fear of causing turbulence in the family. Without a doubt, this has been an utterly wrong tactics, mainly because adopted children always learn the truth at some point of their life. Sometimes, people who know about the adoption reveal the truth accidentally or even intentionally. In other cases, adoptees find documents that prove they have been adopted.

Almost all experts agree that children should be told about adoption prior to adolescence. However, deciding the best age to talk to a child about adoption is not an one-time decision. Instead, it is an ongoing process. 

Some adoptive parents choose to repeat the word “adoption” to their infants so that they get used to listening to the word without, of course, understanding the meaning. However, as the infant grows to a child, it comes natural that he or she asks what adoption is about. 

Other adoptive parents choose to talk about adoption when their children turns 2 years old. Some experts suggest that this is wrong because explaining adoption to a preschooler may cause permanent emotional trauma. Many preschoolers express feelings of confusion and anxiety and feel insecure in their homes. This is mainly explained by the fact that, at this age, children have not yet fully developed their understanding about important issues such as adoption. However, instead of ignoring the issue, they keep on thinking that they live with strangers who are not their birth parents and they develop fear and anger. Other experts disagree and assert that, at this age, children consider adoption as a game, as something positive that has happened in their lives. Particularly, if they grow up in a warm and loving environment, they develop positive feelings for their adoptive parents and feel protected in the family. By the time they grow up, they are fully affiliated with the idea of adoption. 

Some adoptive parents wait until their children become 8 years old or even older. From one hand, children of this age have already understood concepts that relate to family and motherhood and maybe they have heard about adoption as well. Also, they are old enough to participate in this sensitive process. On the other hand, they are old enough to realize that for 8 years or more the people they consider biological parents are people who made the decision to adopt. And at the same time, their biological parents are absent for 8 years. So, what is of utmost importance is how delicately adoptive parents will treat this moment to communicate to their adopted children that there is nothing to fear of because they are adopted. 

Finally, there are adoptive parents that talk to their children about adoption when they become teenagers. Teenagers always deal with how they feet in society, what they want to become as adults and so on. Particularly, adopted teenagers have a strong need to find their personal identity, where they come from and where they belong. They may ask questions about their characteristics, talents and abilities. Therefore, adoptive parents must exploit any opportunity they get to explain adoption to their children in a simple, straightforward way. 

In any case, adoptive parents should have in mind that children need to know. It is unfair for a child not to know the truth about such an important issue. Family and home is a holy place. Typically, adopted children spend a lot of their lifetime to understand why they have been placed for adoption and what their life would have been like it they hadn’t been adopted. They also think that something was wrong with them and therefore their biological parents gave them up.

Considering all the above, adoption should be explained the earliest possible. Even if the child is too young to understand, still having heard about adoption will be helpful in the future. Adoptive parents should communicate the idea that they were so lucky to adopt a wonderful child. Using emotional overtone will definitely help in evoking a feeling of gratitude and excitement to the child. In any case, the least adopted people deserve is to get told the truth the soonest possible so that they don’t waste their lives trying to understand why.

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