Norfolk County Divorce Law Blog

When couples divorce, somebody has to move - that's part of the point. When the spouse who moves also has child custody, there are many other considerations besides the number of bedrooms and whether there's a garbage disposal installed in the kitchen sink. Moving with kids after divorce requires planning and careful attention to details that are far less important if there are no children involved.

We have written about the low Massachusetts divorce rate in previous blogs. Additionally, the bad economy in the past few years nearly killed off Massachusetts divorce entirely. However, the economic recovery carries with it an increase in the number of people who decide that they can afford to leave a marriage. The state's divorce rate jumped almost 30 percent over the past five years. That's a lot of pent-up demand. 

Are you one of the newly single who took advantage of the better economy? You may find that you are mourning not the loss of your marriage but the decrease in your confidence. An article in Boston Magazine offers tips to the newly divorced about regaining the spark that can speed up your healing from this undeniably traumatic event.

What if you divorced your military spouse and made no arrangements to share his or her military pension. Are you out of luck? It turns out that Massachusetts law allows for do-overs of division of property. Military pensions are indeed assets that are subject to property division during divorce, and so you may not be out of luck after all.

Summer vacation is just around the corner and you may be wondering how to make things easier on yourself and your kids when planning summer activities. Here are some tips to keep things positive and reduce stress when dealing with the intersection of child custody and summer planning. 

When you are a single mom, Mother's Day can be a reminder of what you don't have -- a picture-book family complete with picket fence and dog.  Before your divorce, the other spouse organized the children to get the cards, chose the present and pick out a place for lunch. Now, Mother's Day could just be another Sunday.

This blog and many others have discussed marriage rates, frequency of divorce and other statistical measures. We've even reported on gay marriage and gay divorce. What we haven't discussed, however, is whether the evidence around gay divorce actually reflects reality. Why? Statistics on gay divorce are quite difficult to come by, that's why.

Great news! Your child's first choice college sent the fat letter - the acceptance letter. Bad news: College is really, really expensive. It's challenging for most parents to come up with the money for college, but when mom and dad are divorced, it's even tougher. Was college tuition addressed in the child support agreement? Some parents just neglect to cover it, especially if they have a do-it-yourself divorce.

Massachusetts is among the 22 states that allow or require divorces to be granted because one of the parties committed one or more of the "faults" that can be used to justify a divorce to the court.  Additionally, that are are two "no fault'' types of divorcec, where the parties do not wish to blame each other. Both types of no-fault divorces are the result of an irretrivable breakdown of the marriage.  One is where the couple agrees on everything, the other is a contested divorce in which the parties do not agree on details such as child custody, alimony or property division. Because the Commonwealth allows both fault and no-fault divorce, it is known as a mixed state.