Florida Divorce: Five Common Questions 

Getting a divorce can, at first, seem scary. There are a lot of unknowns, and yes, your life will change to some extent. But often, it is not the divorce or the prospect of being divorced that is so scary—it is the fear of the unknown.

Having some peace of mind about what happens in a divorce and getting some common questions answered can go a long way to making you feel better about it.

Will I Lose the Kids?

In almost every divorce involving children, nobody “loses” their kids. A court may or may not give you the amount of time-sharing (overnights) with the kids that you want, but the court will almost never completely prohibit a parent from seeing their kids or prohibit a parent from making decisions about the kids’ lives or from having a meaningful relationship with the kids.

Even if you ultimately do not get the number of overnights that you wanted, you still would have equal custody over your kids—that is, the ability to share in decisions about the child, like schooling, health, and other major decisions.

Even things that you think may disqualify a parent from having meaningful time with children, like adultery or alcohol or drug abuse, will not necessarily mean that a parent does not have custody or time-sharing over his or her children, so long as there is not an immediate, present danger to the children.

The exception is when a parent may present a danger to a child. But where possible, the court will allow a parent supervised visitation or allow a parent to get help to get over whatever is in their background that presents a danger, and then the court can revisit time sharing or custody in the future.

How Will I Pay My Bills?

Certainly, divorce is a financial strain; you are going from sharing expenses, like a mortgage, food, car payments, etc, to now having two separate sets of expenses. That is compounded by situations where there was, during the marriage, only one income earner.

If there are kids involved, the court can and will order that a fair amount of child support be awarded based on the child support guidelines, which will help pay for the kids’ expenses.

Outside of child support, the court can award alimony to a parent. Marriages that last more than seven years have a better chance at an alimony award, but even shorter-term marriages can, in some cases, have an alimony award.

Alimony payments can help the spouse receiving alimony through a temporary period or can even help pay the spouse’s expenses while the spouse “gets back on his or her feet” by going to college, getting training, or doing something to try to assimilate him or herself back into the workforce.

There is even the possibility of temporary alimony, which is paid while the divorce proceeding is going on. This can allow a spouse to live without having to worry about bills, even during the course of a longer-term, more contentious divorce.

How Long Will the Divorce Case Last?

The answer to this depends on you and your spouse. Like any legal case, the more you fight and the less room there is for compromise, the longer the case will go. Some couples that generally agree on most of the issues in the divorce may find that the case only lasts a few months.

Of course, there are some things that you cannot compromise on, and there are some people that just cannot be compromised with. So, the length of time your divorce goes on is somewhat, but not completely, dependent on you. Going to alternative dispute resolution, like mediation, can help resolve some, and sometimes all, of the issues in your case more quickly than they otherwise would be resolved.

Will I Lose My Property in the Divorce?

In most cases, people do not lose property entirely they will often have to divide property that is considered marital property.

Whatever belonged to a spouse before the marriage and which was not intermingled with the other spouse’s property will remain separate property and cannot be divided in the divorce. So, if you had an inheritance, kept it in a separate bank account in your name, and did not change that, that inheritance would remain yours.

But if you deposited that inheritance into a joint marital bank account, and then used some of the money to pay marital expenses during the marriage, then that property could be considered marital property subject to division.

Because most married couples tend to share property—not protect and hoard it for their own personal use—a lot of property tends to be subject to division. But not all property—and you can “trade off” property, where one spouse keeps 100% of some property, and the other spouse keeps 100% of another property, instead of liquidating or dividing a given asset.

Some property may not be able to be neatly divided, like a business, property, or land. That property may need to be sold, and the profits shared. Some property may even have to be valued by an expert to see what it is worth before it can be divided.

Again, mediation tends to work well for this kind of “give and take” or back and forth when it comes to property division.

How Do I Prepare for My Divorce Before it Happens?

How much to prepare depends on your situation. If you and your spouse are amicable, and both agree on the divorce and can cooperate, you may not need to prepare as much, knowing you will be OK, even after the divorce starts.

Absent that, some things you can do include:

• Make sure that you have access to important documents that you need, including any (online or real-world) passwords or account numbers; although it is rare, to be safe, assume you will not be able to access this information the way you do now once the divorce starts.
• The divorce will not leave you homeless, but in an emergency, have a friend or relative you and the kids can go to if you need a “safe space” or just somewhere to be for a night, just as a safe backup.
• If you share online accounts with your spouse, like emails or bank accounts, print out hard copies of documents that you think you may need in case you lose access to those accounts

Do not let the unknown frighten you–get the answers you need in your divorce case.

Anthony J. Diaz is an experienced family law attorney focusing on Mediation and Collaborative Divorce. His offices are located at 2431 Aloma Ave Suite #124, Winter Park, FL. 32792 and 3720 Suntree Blvd., Suite 103G, Melbourne, FL. 32940.

You may contact Anthony Diaz by calling 407-212-7807 or by email an*****@************aw.com or visit anthonydiazlaw.com for more information.

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