Canadian Husband and Wife divorce following a lengthy battle over alimony and property division.

Husband is court-ordered to pay Wife alimony, and Husband’s pension is divided between Husband and Wife.

Feeling “burned out” and “stressed”, Husband retired from his job at 55 years of age. Husband alleges that his doctor suggested that.

As a result of Husband’s early retirement, Husband enlisted the aid of the Canadian family court to reduce his court-ordered alimony payments based on this change in circumstances.

Only the Canadian family court did not agree with Husband, holding that Husband was not at liberty to voluntarily resign from his job to try to avoid his court-ordered alimony obligations.

Husband alleges that Wife works, as she did throughout most of their marriage, and Wife currently has greater income than Husband.

Husband appeals the family court’s holding to the intermediate appellate court.

Husband’s social media postings were part of the record on appeal. They depict a man with a much younger fiance, traveling to exotic places, mountain climbing, buying a new home; in other words, living the good life. The intermediate appellate court affirms the family court’s holding.

Husband would appeal to the highest appellate court, but he maintains that he simply cannot afford to.

Read more in this Toronto Sun article: Retiree forced to pay alimony denies living a glam life .

A financial planner offers some advice about how to approach getting a handle on your spouse’s and your current financial circumstances when preparing for a divorce. Too often, this can be very challenging for at least one spouse.

The methodical checklist-driven system suggested can make this process a bit less daunting and a bit more thorough for the spouse struggling with this process.

This approach won’t help much where a spouse doesn’t have access to information or documentation. But it can certainly help a spouse who is overwhelmed by the process and may have forgotten about various assets and liabilities over time.

Read more in this Norman [OK] Transcript article: Pre-divorce financial considerations and checklists .

New York Husband and Wife are having an unusual divorce.

It consists not of one case, but of two separate but related cases. Husband filed one case and Wife filed the other.

The Husband’s case was for divorce, but its scope was limited. The Wife’s case was for equitable distribution or property division.

(In Florida, this is known as a bifurcated divorce.)

The New York family court heard the entire divorce case, and issued an oral ruling granting Husband a divorce. The final judgment “on paper” was not issued at that time, however.

The New York family court went on to hear the equitable distribution case. After the trial was over but before the family court judge had ruled, Husband committed suicide.

Typically, an “unfinished” divorce grinds to a permanent halt upon the death of either one of the spouses.

In this divorce though, the Wife moved to substitute the personal representative of Husband’s estate in lieu of Husband … and continue with the cases.

The trial court granted Wife’s motion to substitute.

On appeal, the intermediate level appellate court upheld the family court’s ruling at trial.

Since the family court had already orally granted Husband his divorce, the appellate court did not view the divorce per se “unfinished” just because the paper judgment had not yet been entered.

And since the property division case was filed and begun before Husband’s death and Husband’s divorce was already granted before Husband’s death, the rights to property division in accordance with the divorce had already vested.

Read more in

• this New York Law Journal article: Panel Upholds Substitution of Estate in Divorce Action and
• this New York Law Journal report of the case .

Husband and Wife marry.

Wife enters the armed forces.

Wife decides to make a career in military service.

Husband and Wife travel extensively for Wife’s career.

Twenty years go by.

Wife retires.

Wife begins to collect her military pension.

Husband files for divorce.

Husband seeks half of Wife’s military pension.

Wife, shocked and angry, vigorously opposes.

After all, she earned that pension. It’s hers.

As bitter a pill as it may be for Wife to swallow, that’s not the law.

A military pension, like any retirement account or benefit accrued during the course of a marriage, is considered marital property.

As such, under Florida divorce law governing property division in divorce, a military pension will be equitably divided.

In Florida, that means there is a rebuttable presumption that the portion of the pension accrued during the marriage will be equally divided.

Really, just like any other property or assets acquired, earned or vested during the marriage.

(But it may still “hit” people differently.)

Perhaps because of the special demands of life in the service, the divorce rate among service members is higher than among nonmilitary couples, and even greater when the spouse in the military is the wife and the husband is not in the military.

Read more in this Las Vegas KLAS TV 8 CBS article: I-Team: Military pension treated like community property in divorce

Texas Husband and Wife have Daughter.

Husband and Wife divorce.

Husband allegedly absconds with US-born Daughter to Mexico in 2007, when Daughter is about 5 years old.

Wife seeks Daughter’s return through Mexican legal authorities under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, but Daughter cannot be located for eight years after her disappearance.

Mexican family court is made aware of another girl (Girl) with the same first name, approximate age and general appearance as Daughter.

Mexican family court orders that Girl be taken into custody, to be delivered to Wife.

Girl vigorously resists when Mexican law enforcement officers bodily remove Girl from her school classroom.

Once in Texas, Girl is DNA tested … and determined not to be Wife’s child.

Girl is returned to her family in Mexico.

Media attention over that fiasco rattles Husband.

Husband finally turns Daughter over to extended family, who turn her over to legal authorities in Mexico.

Daughter undergoes DNA test in Mexico, which confirms Daughter’s identity.

Wife travels to Mexico.

Wife appears in Mexican family court, where Mexican family court judge orders Daughter be restored to Wife’s custody.

Wife and Daughter return to Houston.

Husband will not face criminal charges as a result of Wife’s agreement to Daughter’s request

Read more in

1. this NBC News article: Mom, Long-Missing Daughter Back in Houston After Mexico DNA Battle
2. this NBC News article: DNA Proves Girl In Mexico Is Houston Mom’s Daughter
3. this BBC News article: Alondra Diaz case: Mexico custody battle teen back in US and
4. this Yahoo News article by way of AP: Mexico judge returns girl to custody of US mom after 8 years

New Jersey Mother has toddler twins. The twins’ putative (believed) Father is not in the picture.

Mother files a family court case for child support. To prove the identity of the Father, Mother is ordered to have the twins undergo a DNA Paternity Test.

And the DNA Paternity Test reports that one of the twins is the biological offspring of the putative Father … but not the other twin!

This may sound astonishing. But it is actually a recognized phenonomenon that occurs in a significant minority of pregancies, where the Mother has two or more sexual partners within five days of each other.

Read more in this Yahoo Parenting article: How Can Twins Have Two Different Fathers?

Need to make an alimony or child support? Odds are that you can do that online today.

But, what if you prefer the old-fashioned way, say a paper check?

Well, that could be a no go, at least in Spartanburg, NC. They no longer accept real, uh, traditional checks.

Credit cards, fine. Electronic checks; those work too. Just no paper.

According to the local government, their new online payments system saves the government quite a bit of money, speeds up collections, and frees up considerable staff time.

So what’s wrong with that? Probably not much for the vast majority of people paying support today.

But for some folks, the nominal credit card processing service charges passed on to them add an incremental but cumulative “insult” to the injury of paying support.

And for a handful of people who are not computer literate or who don’t own computers, it will be a real inconvenience at the very least.

Read more in this Spartanburg [SC] Herald-Journal article: Court takes online payments but refuses checks

Alimony reform (read reductions and restrictions) has been sweeping much of the nation over the last several years.

In Florida, a bill passed the legislature two years ago … but was vetoed by our governor.

This year, a bill was passed by the House … but fizzled out in the Senate due to a controversial presumption of equal timesharing embedded in the Senate version of the bill. And a lot of politicking.

So wives who fear being devastated by alimony reform have a reprieve for at least another year.

Read more in

1. this [Fort Lauderdale] Sun Sentinel article: Controversial alimony bill dies amid acrimony before House adjournment and
2. this Palm Beach Post article: Overhaul of alimony laws once again fails in Florida Legislature .

We’ve all heard that children do best after divorce when they are able to have unlimited access to both parents and/or divide their time equally between living with each of their parents. Some recent studies seem to bear this out.

A study in Sweden finds that children who rotate homes weekly to divide their time evenly between both of their parents actually experience less stress and fewer psychosomatic symptoms than children who live in one home with one parent.

Further, not entirely surprisingly, what causes kids the most stress is when their parents are constantly fighting.

Read more in

1. this Yahoo Parenting article: The Divorce Custody Arrangement That Benefits Kids Most
2. this Time magazine article: This Divorce Arrangement Stresses Kids Out Most and
3. this Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health article: Fifty moves a year: is there an association between joint physical custody and psychosomatic problems in children?

North Carolina Husband and Wife marry. Several years later, Wife becomes pregnant and later gives birth to a Child.

Husband and Wife try to reconcile for several more years, but then split up. Wife seeks child support.

Husband pays a modest amount of child support … until he becomes disabled and falls further and further behind. And decides to challenge the child support order in family court.

The thing is, years before Wife became pregnant, Husband underwent cancer treatment – and a vasectomy. Subsequently, Husband’s sperm count tested out at zero … three different times.

Scientifically, biologically, Husband cannot be Child’s father. Period.

But family court judge does not care. Husband and Wife were married at the time of Child’s birth.

And that is often how the law comes down when a child is born during a marriage, regardless of the pesky factual details. Unless the factual challenge is made fairly promptly.

And that is where Husband went wrong. And why he just may have to live with the consequences of his delay until the Child is legally emancipated.

For now, Husband has asked the family court to order a DNA paternity test. Time will tell whether this is something the family court will even entertain at this point in time.

Read more in this [Highpoint, NC] Fox 8 TV news article: ‘Impossible father’ paying child support for son that can’t be his .