Author: Robert Reeves

Who Needs a Will? When do I Need a Will?

Knowing who needs a will and when you should create a will is an important step in preparing for you future. A will is a legal document that spells out what will happen to your assets if you die. It also lays out who will be in charge of managing your assets. If you are married, you should create a will. If you have any children, you’ll want to create a will for their benefit. And anybody with positive assets should have a will in place. Having an experienced attorney guide you through the process of creating a will should give you peace of mind about your loved ones after you pass.

Who Needs a Will? When do I Need a Will?

Married

If you are married, then you’re someone who needs a will. When you die without a will, your assets would likely pass to your spouse, but it’s not a guarantee. Therefore, a will can ensure that your spouse receives your assets if that is what you wish. If there is anybody else that you want to give some assets to, this would be included in your will.

Children

Parents definitely fall into the category of people who need a will in place. In general, children inherit after your spouse has also died. So if you’d rather they inherit assets differently, you’ll need to spell that out. You can choose how to divide assets and property among your children however you’d like. In addition, a will lays out who the executor of your estate will be. It will also designate guardians for your children. This is obviously a huge part of why you need a will. The guardian will be in charge of raising your children after your passing. You’ll need to update your will if you have more children, or if anything changes with your guardianship plans.

Positive Assets

Finally, the question of who needs a will also depends on your assets and debt. If you have positive assets, you’ll want to create a will. Having positive assets means that your assets are greater than your debts. Therefore, if you’ve made and saved a lot of money and it exceeds any debts then you’ll want to designate what happens to it. Similarly, if you’ve inherited large sums of money or property, you’ll need to spell out what should be done in the event of your death.

If you’ve been wondering who needs a will, the answer really depends on whether or not it’s important to you to designate what happens to your assets or property after you die. For example, if you’re married and want to make absolutely sure your spouse inherits, or want to prevent that for any reason. If you have children, a will is important so that you can designate how they inherit assets and property from you. It also will spell out who should care for them after you die. And finally, if you’ve managed to save a bigger sum of money than your debts, you’ll want to designate who it goes to. By creating a will, you’ll be able to take care of loved ones even after you pass away.

The Do’s and Don’t of Visitation After Divorce

The transition from living in one house to two houses after a divorce can be very difficult for children. There are plenty of do’s and don’t of visitation after divorce to make this transition easier for your kids. You should try to be flexible on time and schedule with your ex-spouse. In addition, always be respectful when interacting with one another in front of your kids. Don’t try to win your children’s love by spoiling them. And don’t use your time with the children to bad mouth your ex. Your children need you to remain supportive and respectful to make this difficult period in their lives a little less stressful.

The Do’s and Don’t of Visitation After Divorce: Make the Transition Easier

Do: Be Flexible on Time

One important rule of visitation after divorce that can help smooth things out is to always remain flexible. If you and your ex are trading children back and forth between your houses, there will be times when you get off schedule. It’s inevitable that something will delay you at some point or another. If you set the precedence of being understanding with one another from the get-go, it can make any situation that comes up less combative.

Do: Be Respectful

When you and your spouse are interacting during visitation after divorce, always be respectful of one another. Whether or not you believe they or you are in the wrong, it’s important to put on a good face for your children. They will be watching how you interact with each other. Showing them that you can still be kind and respectful will teach them a valuable life lesson. In addition, parents yelling in front of children can induce anxiety. And surely the last thing you’d want for your children is to be scared when they are already having to adjust to so many changes.

Don’t: Spoil the Children

Visitation after divorce is a time to re-connect with your children. It should strengthen your relationship with them. Don’t try to buy their love by giving them tons of gifts. You’ll just wind up spoiling them. In the end, if you can use your time to connect with them and build trust, they’ll be closer to you in the long run. Children should look forward to spending time with you and not just getting presents.

Don’t: Bad Mouth Your Ex

One important rule for visitation after divorce is to remember never to bad mouth your ex. You and your partner might have a very contentious divorce. But your partner is still a parent to your kids. You don’t need to rope your children into the details of what went wrong in your relationship. In addition, don’t make your children feel guilty for spending time with their other parents. You should never try to disrupt the relationship between your ex and your children. Just like you wouldn’t want them disrupting yours.

Visitation after divorce can be complicated. It’s a large adjustment for children who are used to spending time with you both in one house. However, you can ease the transition by remembering to be respectful of your ex and never bad-mouthing them to your children. In addition, try to remain flexible about timing. And remember to make the most of your time together instead of just trying to buy their love with presents. They are going through a stressful time in their lives. They need to support and dedication of both parents working together. If you and your ex can put aside your differences and focus on what’s best for your children, you’ll be able to make visitation a very positive experience for them.

Divorcing Young: Why It Happens

These days, there’s less younger couples marrying than in the past. For those that do, many of them end up divorcing young as well. Much like with older couples, there’s a few reasons in particular why they tend to split up…

Divorcing Young: Why It Happens

Realizing they rushed

One common reason for divorcing young is that these couples realize they’ve rushed things. Relationships go in stages, and the “honeymoon” stage in particular can be misleading. During this stage, everything between you and your partner seems perfect. In fact, you might think you have no problems, because in your eyes, your partner can do no wrong.

It’s this mindset which causes many young couples to rush into marriage. However, much like an actual honeymoon, that phase doesn’t last forever. Eventually, reality will start to set in, and they’ll realize they’re not ready to be married just yet. As a result, they’ll end up divorcing.

You don’t know each other

This reason for divorcing young is somewhat related to rushing. When couples are in those early stages of dating, they don’t really know each other all too well. They might know some surface-level things, but they aren’t aware of say how living together might go.

Being in that mindset where you “think” you know them can lead you to tying the know. But, as you begin to spend more time with each other, you might realize you don’t get along like you thought. This can make you see that you’ve basically married someone who is still a stranger to you.

Different Future Goals

Divorcing young can also be due to both partners having different goals in mind for the future. For example, one partner might want to try and finish up school or find a good job before having kids. Meanwhile, the other one wants to have kids now and not wait.

Disagreements like this can paint a bigger picture. Eventually, both partners may realize that they want completely different things in the future. This can place them at odds with one another. Unfortunately, this usually means that they’ll have to split in order to achieve those goals.

Divorce Recovery: Bounce Back

Divorce can be hard to deal with, even when you’ve finished everything. That’s why it’s important to focus on your divorce recovery. There’s a few steps you can take which’ll help you start to move on with your life again…

Divorce Recovery: Turn Things Around

Focus & reflect

It’s helpful to start your divorce recovery by taking some time to focus and reflect on what’s happened. It can be tempting to try and move forward and not think about the past. However, by doing that, you won’t process the baggage you’re carrying. This can come back to hurt you, especially in future relationships.

Rather, think about the issues you had in your marriage. What was causing you guys the most distress and arguments? By reflecting on these things, you can learn what to work on and avoid in the future. This will also let you set some good goals for self-improvement.

Keep busy

Keeping busy is also helpful for your divorce recovery. Having nothing to do will have you not just be bored, but also can cause you to dwell on negative memories. Thinking about all the things you used to do with your spouse can make you feel more sad and isolated.

Therefore, it’s good to keep yourself busy. One good way to do this is by finding a new hobby or activity. It’s especially handy to try and find something that has groups which you can join. Doing so is great for making new friends.

Practice forgiveness

It’s important to practice forgiveness as part of your divorce recovery. In specific, there’s two types of forgiveness to do. First, you should forgive yourself and not place all the blame on your shoulders. There are many reasons as to why things didn’t work out, but you aren’t the only one responsible.

It’s also good to try and forgive your ex too. After all, it’s not like they went into the marriage wanting a divorce. Both of you made mistakes, so it’s good to be able to forgive and move on. Holding on to regret will just pull you down and get in the way of your recovery.

Conflicting Personalities: Opposites Attract

While everyone knows the phrase “opposites attract”, it’s also possible that conflicting personalities can lead to a divorce. This friction can even lead to some divorce conflict. While some traits can work with each other, they might also come with some potential for conflict…

Conflicting Personalities: Common Types

Introvert/extrovert

One of the most well-known conflicting personalities are introverts and extroverts. Introverts don’t like to be out socializing all the time. Meanwhile, extroverts love to be out doing things with other people. In some cases, this can work as an extrovert encourages an introvert to be more social. 

However, it usually leads to fighting. Spouses will start to feel resentful if they need to go out of their comfort zone for the sake of their partner. Instead, it’s good for a couple to have a similar balance for being social and staying in.

Organized/Disorganized

Another example of conflicting personalities is those who are organized and those who are disorganized. Organized people like structure and to have a place for everything. Those who are disorganized tend to be a bit more impulsive and will place things wherever they feel like.

Again, these kind of couples can help each other. A person can be either too rigid or too irresponsible on their own. Being with someone who’s their opposite can help them fix this. Still, they can also end up arguing if neither wants to change.

Adventurous/traditional

One type of conflicting personalities couples don’t pay too much attention to is being adventurous versus being traditional. The former is someone who is always down to try new things, while the latter is someone who likes to stick with what they know. For younger couples, this dynamic can work quite well. The adventurous one can encourage the other to experience things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Much of the conflict can stem over future plans. The idea of “settling down” somewhere may not appeal to an adventurous person. Rather, they want to keep doing fun things. Their partner may want to live a bit more of a quite life as they get older together. These disagreements can become constant fights as they get older.

Post-Divorce Healing: Helpful Methods

It can be a bit hard to start recovering from your divorce. However, a useful way to get this process started is by focusing on some post-divorce healing. These methods can help you to heal from your heartbreak and prepare for your post-divorce life…

 Post-Divorce Healing: Key Techniques

Accept the situation

It’s important to accept your situation in order to start your post-divorce healing process. Many people try to repress how they truly feel after their divorce. They may tell other that they’re fine, and even try to tell themselves that it isn’t all that big of a deal.

In reality, you might be hurting quite a lot, and that’s okay. You need to be able to accept that you don’t feel okay, and that the divorce has impacted you in this way. Once you’re able to accept that you don’t feel fine, you can really start working on feeling better again.

Take care of yourself

You’ll also want to take good care of yourself when doing post-divorce healing. When people feel depressed, they tend to stop taking care of themselves. For example, they may lay in bed all day, won’t practice good hygiene, and eat rather poorly. Some people may even turn to drug and alcohol to cope with their feelings.

Of course, not taking care of yourself will only cause you to feel even worse. This is why it’s so important for you to practice good, healthy habits. It might seem hard at first, but once you see how better you’ll feel, it’ll quickly become a part of your new routine.

Talk to others

One thing you don’t want to do is keep your emotions and feelings bottled up inside. While you may think this will help you get over your emotions, it’ll actually end up doing the opposite. What happens is these emotions stay below the surface and get stronger, until they eventually boil over in a way you won’t want them to.

Therefore, don’t be afraid to talk to others about how you feel. Talking out your feelings with friends and family is great for processing those emotions properly. Once you’re able to work through these negative ones, it becomes easier to focus on the positives instead.

Co-parenting with Your Ex: Communication

Co-parenting with your ex can be challenging for both the parents and the children. In some cases, there has been domestic violence or substance abuse that would make joint custody especially difficult. However, in most cases, there are ways to co-parent amicably that will be beneficial for everyone involved…

Co-parenting with Your Ex: Improving Communication

Communication Challenges of Co-parenting with Your Ex

Having different schedules, different homes, and other relationships and marriages can make co-parenting with your ex difficult. You will also likely have strong feelings of anger, disappointment and resentment towards your ex. Although it may be difficult, you must work past those for the sake of your children. This could help your child’s well-being, stability and happiness. 

In order to keep your emotions about your ex out of your co-parenting, you will likely need to address them elsewhere. Find a therapist, counselor, or a friend to vent to, or relieve stress through exercise. While it will be difficult, remember that you are doing this for your children.

Better Communication While Co-parenting with Your Ex

Since you will be co-parenting with your ex for your child’s entire childhood, forming good communication habits will be important. By making these guidelines early on, your communication may get easier over time.

To start, listen and show restraint. Even if you don’t agree with them, let your ex express his or her opinions. Try not to overreact to anything that they say. Overtime, this may get easier. Instead of making demands, try making requests. For example, replace “Do this” with “Would you be willing to…?” This could help keep your ex from building up walls against you. 

Keep Children Out of the Middle

Don’t get your children involved as the middleman. Talking negatively about your ex to your child may be harmful to your child’s relationship with their other parent. Your child deserves to have a relationship with their other parent without having your emotions thrown in. You certainly don’t want to make them have to take sides, as that isn’t fair to them. 

Also, don’t send negative messages to your ex through your children. Handle all issues with your ex directly. When communicating, it may help to speak to your ex like you are in a business meeting. In this case, you are in the business of co-parenting your child. As you would in business, be respectful and cordial.

If you find that communicating with your ex gets to be too difficult…

…find some quick and easy ways to relieve stress. Co-parenting with your ex may always be difficult. Start by taking steps to improve your communication can go a long way.

Post-Divorce Credit Score: Build Yours

Divorce can not only be an emotionally tough time, but a financially tough one as well. As such, it’s important you get your finances back on track. A big part of that will be building up your post-divorce credit score. With how important credit scores are, it’s key that you do so properly…

Post-Divorce Credit Score: Prepare For The Future

Check your current score

Of course, before you can improve your post-divorce credit score, you’ll need to know what it is. This is best done by ordering a credit report. You can do this via one of the three major credit bureaus. With this report, you’ll be able to see both individual and joint debts that you have.

Individual debts are ones which are solely tied to you. However, joint debts are ones are ones where both you and your spouse are responsible. If either one of you fails to make a payment, then you both will be negatively affected.  Therefore, keep track of these accounts, and they’ll be important for your next step.

Reorganize your accounts

Now that you know what your debts are, it’s good to reorganize your accounts. First, you may want to consider opening new individual ones. By starting now, you can help your post-divorce credit score in the long run. Still, if that isn’t something you want to do, then paying down any existing ones will also help.

Next, take steps to close any old joint accounts you have. Get in touch with your lenders and ask them to transfer these accounts to individual ones based on your divorce agreement and have them closed. You should also remove you and your ex’s name from any accounts which have you as authorized users. Taking these steps will help make this debt more manageable for the both of you.

Pay your bills

In the commotion of divorce, it’s easy for bill payments to fall by the wayside. However, missing these payments can be pretty bad for your post-divorce credit score. Therefore, you want to make sure you pay them on time as best as you can.

A good way to do this is by setting up automatic payments. That way, you won’t have to worry about accidentally forgetting to make a payment. Slowly but surely, your score will rise as you continue to make on-time payments.  

How-to Ask the Right Questions About Adoption

Whether you are unable to have kids of your own, or want to provide a home for a child who does not have one, adoption is a great option for many people. When looking into adoption, there is a lot to of things to consider. The adoption process can be confusing and overwhelming at times. This is a big decision for any individual or a family to make. Therefore, it is important to make sure you understand the the process from start to finish. Make sure you know how to ask the right questions about adoption.

How-to Ask the Right Questions About Adoption: Understand the Process

Adoption Types

First, you will need to know about the different types of adoptions. This is one of the first big questions about adoptions you should ask when starting the process. Children can be adopted internationally, through private agencies, the welfare system or even existing relationships. Understanding the different types of adoptions will help you decide which route you may want to go. There may be differences in requirements, rules and costs associated with all of the different types of adoptions.

If you choose a private or independent adoption, you will also need to understand the difference in an open and closed adoption. The difference in these are whether the birth parents want to select the adoptive parents, or even meet them. They could also choose to maintain an ongoing relationship with the adoptive family.

Cost

Another one of the important questions about adoption is about cost. Adoptions can be expensive, so you should find out how much money you will need to save up. Find out how long you have to pay the fees and ask about different payment options. Do not forget to find out about grants or tax credits to help offset adoption costs.

Preparation

When it comes to adoption, there may be some preparation work you need to do. This is another one of the questions about adoption that you should ask. There is not going to be a one-size-fits-all answer. However, there could be financial preparations you need to make. Also, you may need to find a living situation that is going to be appropriate for raising a child. Learn about the different legal, financial, medical, developmental, and behavioral issues related to adoption.

Adoption can be an amazing step in growing your family and providing a loving home for a child. Since it is also a big step, make sure that you ask all of the right questions about adoption. This way you know if this process is right for you.

How-to Remove Social Media From Your Marriage

Social media can ruin a perfectly good relationship. It can make people grow distant, change people’s attitudes and even open up the possibility for cheating. In order to keep yourself from getting into an unhappy marriage, you may need to remove social media from your marriage.

How-to Remove Social Media From Your Marriage: Relationship Building

Distraction

It is not a secret that social media can be a major distraction. Many people get buried in their phones and ignore everything else going on around them. If you start tuning out our spouse or even your children, you could be damaging those relationships. Make an effort to be present and stop paying so much attention to your phone. Stop scrolling and start participating in the lives of those around you.

There are different apps that will help limit or cut off your screen time. For example, Apple has a screen time feature that will allow you to set limits and remind you when you are over your limits. Other programs may block you off of the app all together for that period of time. Also, find someone to hold you accountable and do not get upset when they call you out on your screen time usage.

Compare Lives

Social media can make you feel miserable. When you are only spending time viewing everyone else’s highlight reels, you may start to think that your own life is not interesting or good enough. Studies have found a link between social media and depression. Eventually, this could affect your marriage. Additionally, if you are always comparing your life with others, this will take a toll on your own marriage too.

If this sounds like the path you are on, you may need to take a break from social media all together. For instance, delete the apps, or change your password to something difficult and hide the key. A social media detox can help you get back focusing on your own life.

Other Relationships

If you are always looking at other people’s highlight reals and curated, filtered pictures, you could end up becoming interested in someone else. However, depending on how far you let this go, you could jeopardize your marriage. Remember that in real life, people do not walk around with photoshopping and filters on them. Your spouse is a real person, and you cannot compare them to the picture perfect facades people post on social media. Put away your phone, and spend some quality time with the person you fell in love with in real life.