Tag: Divorce

Is Divorce Genetic?

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Are children of divorced parents more likely to get divorced than those who grew up in two-parent families? University researchers in Virginia and in Sweden are looking into the question of whether divorce is genetic or psychological. The results are surprising.

New Study

According to the report: people who were adopted resembled their biological — but not adoptive — parents and siblings in their histories of divorce.

The report also found consistent evidence that genetic factors primarily explained the “intergenerational transmission of divorce.”

The study’s findings about genes and divorce are notable because they diverge from the predominant narrative in divorce, that the offspring of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced because they see their parents struggling to manage conflict or lacking the necessary commitment, and they grow up to internalize that behavior.

Serotonin and Divorce

I’ve written about genes and divorce before. Other scientists are finding that the fault for divorce may reside in our genetic code. One gene involved in the regulation of serotonin can predict how much our emotions affect our relationships.

Researchers found a link between relationship fulfillment and a gene variant, or “allele,” known as 5-HTTLPR. All humans inherit a copy of this gene variant from each parent.

Study participants with two short 5-HTTLPR alleles were found to be most unhappy in their marriages when there was anger and contempt. They were most happy when there was humor and affection.

By contrast, those with one or two long alleles were far less bothered by the emotional tenor of their marriages.

The new findings don’t mean that couples with different variations of 5-HTTLPR are incompatible, but couples with two short alleles are likelier to thrive in a good relationship and suffer in a bad one.

What Causes Divorce?

Nearly all the prior literature emphasized that divorce was transmitted across generations psychologically, and the recent results about genes contradict that, suggesting that genetic factors are more important.

By recognizing the role that genetics plays in the transmission of divorce, therapists may be able to better identify more appropriate targets when helping distressed couples.

Previous studies haven’t adequately controlled for or examined something else in addition to the environment that divorcing parents transmit to their children: namely genes!

The study’s findings suggest new areas might be useful for therapists to target. For example, addressing underlying, personality-driven cognitive distortions through cognitive-behavioral approaches may be a better strategy.

The article from Virginia Commonwealth University is here.

 

Sweden’s High Divorce Rate

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

In a recent study of women in Sweden, 28 percent of people born to Swedish parents had divorced. But the divorce rate was much higher for immigrant women, where almost 60 percent had divorced in Sweden. The country may explain a lot about international divorce rates.

Stockholm Syndrome?

The divorce rates for immigrants in Sweden seem especially high when compared to the divorce rates in their home countries.

That the divorce rates are higher in Sweden may not be solely due to women’s higher workforce participation. In many patriarchal countries, like Iran, divorce is less accepted, and it can be legally more difficult to get divorced than in Sweden.

Rules about children can differ too. I’ve written on international divorces, especially as they relate to child custody issues and The Hague Convention on abduction.

International Divorces

I’ve written frequently about international divorce issues, especially international child abductions. The Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty developed by The Hague Conference on Private International Law to provide for the prompt return of a child internationally abducted by a parent from one-member country to another.

Sweden is a signatory to The Hague Convention, but many of the countries where Sweden’s immigrant population are from, are not signatories at all. This can be a problem if child abduction is an issue.

There are some essential elements to every Hague Convention case:

  • The country must be a Hague signatory country;
  • The child must be under the age of 16 years of age;
  • The wrongful removal must be a violation of the left behind parent’s “rights of custody;”
  • The left behind parent’s rights of custody “were actually being exercised or would have been exercised but for the removal.”

So, if a child under the age of sixteen has been wrongfully removed, the child must be promptly returned to the child’s country of habitual residence, unless certain exceptions apply.

The catch, of course, is that a child must be taken from a signatory country to another signatory country, and that is where understanding The Hague Convention comes in.

There is also a problem with hiding assets overseas. The problem of discovery of hidden wealth is even bigger in an international divorce because multiple countries, and multiple rules on discovery, can be involved.

Welcome to Sweden

Often, divorce is seen as a negative development. When families split up, children can find it difficult to adjust emotionally. But, not always for immigrant women in Sweden.

In a country like Sweden, the dynamics between the men and women change. Men who dominated their families because they had the economic power in their home countries lose that power when they integrate into a more gender-equal country like Sweden.

Women from patriarchal societies gain power when they integrate into a country like Sweden. There are more economic opportunities for them, and resources for women’s rights are more developed.

The welfare system is also extensive in Sweden, meaning that even women of low socioeconomic status can leave their husbands with no jobs and receive low-cost health care, education, job training, and a stipend from the government.

For women in Sweden who have migrated from more patriarchal countries, divorce may be an opportunity.

The Atlantic article is here.

 

Divorce Perspectives

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Essence magazine’s Senior Editor, Charreah K. Jackson, wrote an interesting article on divorce entitled: “9 Interesting Facts About Divorce for Black Couples” in which she shares her insights into modern divorce issues that anyone can benefit from.

Although the article is from 2013, the wisdom is timeless . . . and in some ways surprising. Some of the surprising findings from the front-lines of divorce include:

It Takes a Village to Get a Divorce

“When you’re Black, you’re not just married to one person, you’re married to a family. You’re married to a community. You may be married to a church. We’ve always embraced the concept that it takes a village.

For instance, you’ll have a grandmother who will come to court and the judge will say, ‘Well this is between the mother and father.’ Well in many instances, that grandmother is the one who is taking care of the kids.”

Women Pull the Purse Strings

“What makes our divorces different is that our community is formed around a matriarch. African-American women tend to be better-educated and higher-wage earners so when you’re ending a marital relationship the economic factors come into play.

If you have an African-American woman who has her master’s degree and she’s married to someone who has a high school diploma and works at the post office, she’s not going to voluntarily pay alimony for maintenance to him.

Mental Health Neglect and Marriage Don’t Mix

“African-Americans don’t do as well with getting therapy. So for Black people who are having marital problems that may lead to divorce, we’re resistant to any kind of intervention by mental health.

We perceive that, if I have to see a therapist, then something’s wrong with me. Often times, we don’t have the same resources available to us that the broader community has and even when we do have those resources, the stigma can be very challenging.

Conditioned for Call and Response

“When we go to church, we yell out, ‘amen.’ If the preacher is off-tune, then you’re, ‘Oh Lord, please help ‘em.’ We’re just a more expressive people.

I’ve seen White judges and lawyers who don’t fully understand how we express ourselves. A couple could be fighting like cats and dogs before the judge, but in the hallway, they are back friends again. And the judge looks at them and says, ‘Oh my God those people are out of control.’

But they might drive back in the same car. Just because we express ourselves a certain way, doesn’t necessarily mean that others understand what we mean when we express ourselves.

Divorce is for Spouses, Not Children

“All children of a divorce are impacted by their parents’ divorce. Most children will tell you that they want their parents to be together. But they have little control over the outcome of a divorce situation.

What tends to happen in the African-American community is that many fathers who get divorces from their spouses simply divorce the whole family and walk away. I have seen lawyers who don’t look like myself who will think:

‘I’ve gotten her the house, I’ve gotten her the kids. I’ve gotten her alimony.’ But that wife is saying, ‘more important than all those things is that he has a relationship with our children at the end of the day.’

That lawyer thinks he or she has done a great job for that client and at the same time, they don’t recognize the impact this is having on this family in the future. When a father divorces his children, when he divorces his spouse is a very tragic thing in our community.”

The Essence article is here.

 

Emojis and divorce: What did ???? mean?

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Emails and texts have become regular exhibits in divorce trials. And increasingly, people are using emojis to express their intent. But did the witness’s champagne bottle and lipstick emoji mean what we thought? This is a post about emoji law.

Emojis

“Emoji” is Japanese for pictograph: e “picture” + moji “character”. Emojis are a writing system that uses symbols to represent an idea rather than words.

According to some studies, more than 90% of social media users communicate with emojis with some six billion emojis exchanged daily.

In a way, we’ve regressed to a hieroglyphics language not unlike the ancient Egyptians.

The Wall Street Journal has a great article on the increasing trend of people communicating through pictures and how we lawyers have to decipher the parties’ meaning.

Divorce Evidence

I’ve written about social media evidence in divorce before. The increasing use of emojis has put a new spin on things.

One of the first questions lawyers ask is about authenticity. Is the text, FaceBook or Instagram post even authentic? Usually, authentication of evidence like texts, emails, photographs, videos, audio recordings, and computer records is required as a condition to being admitted into evidence.

Some exhibits are so trustworthy, our Evidence Code doesn’t even require a witness. This is useful for things like: the law, and court rules for instance. For most other evidence, the Evidence Code lets the judge decide.

Over the years, the threat of false evidence being introduced in court has been diminished through the discovery process. We send out requests for admission and have pretrial conferences which have helped make authentication less of a concern.

Only after the evidence is found to be authentic can we discuss the intent of the text or post. Family law is unique. We have hearings early in the case, which means your emoji, and what you intended, can be discussed right away.

Emojis and the Law

Emojis are new, so there are no laws on the treatment of these emotion laden symbols. We only have a few cases to determine what courts do with emojis – and they do not consistently agree.

In some cases, emojis are taken under consideration when interpreting a commenter’s original intent.

For example, the appeals court in Michigan determined that “The use of the ‘:P’ emoticon makes it patently clear that the commenter was making a joke” because the face this emoticon represents usually “denotes a joke or sarcasm.”

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a conviction of making threatening communications. The primary issue was whether a husband intended a “true threat” to his wife. The husband argued that his text was in jest because he added a “smiley” emoji sticking its tongue out.

The Supreme Court did not discuss the emoji, but reversed the conviction on other grounds.

The Wall Street Journal article is here (paywall).

 

Does Size Matter in Divorce?

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

A Saudi Arabian woman has proven that height is important in matters of the heart after she filed to divorce her husband, citing his short height. The Saudi divorce filing raises the question of fault in divorce, and of course, does size matter?

According to Gulf News, the woman told the endowment department in Al Qatif that she wanted to be separated from her husband of seven months, saying:

she could no longer withstand the mockery and shocked looks of her friends because he was too short for her.

She added that the shocking attitudes by strangers in public when they remarked how she was towering over her husband made her feel painfully uneasy and distressingly uncomfortable, Saudi daily Okaz reported.

Florida No Fault Divorce

The Saudi Arabian case is interesting for Floridians interested in filing for divorce because granting divorces only in limited circumstances, by proving fault like being to short for instance, has become very foreign to Floridians.

I recently returned from speaking about international divorces at the prestigious, Florida Bar/AAML Certification Review Course in Orlando. I’ve also written about no-fault and fault standard divorces around the world.

Florida is a no-fault state. Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. The only ground you need to file for divorce in Florida is to prove your marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Many people argue that the introduction of no fault divorce is the reason the United States has a high divorce rate. In fact, many people think so, and want to return to the old “fault” system to promote families.

Saudi Divorces

The number of divorce cases in Saudi Arabia has exponentially increased in recent years. According to Saudi Open Data, 35,000 divorce cases were reported in 2015, and 40,000 in 2016.

Experts believe that divorce rates have gone up by around 50 per cent this year from last year. According to the General Authority of Statistics, currently one in five marriages end in divorce.

The recent divorce about being too short though, has got to be among the most peculiar the Saudis have received. Most Social media users condemned the move by the young woman, blaming her for accepting to marry him when he proposed.

The few who supported her said she was right to ask for the separation, arguing that her uneasiness was not a matter of days that could be overcome with patience, but of a lifetime.

Does Size Really Matter?

According to a study by New York University published last year, researchers found that height might affect “more than just a man’s suit size.”

The study concluded that:

“short men married later in life than average or tall men, but were 32 per cent less likely to divorce. They were also more likely to marry less educated and younger women. Once married, they did less of the housework and earned a much higher income than their spouse.”

According to the findings, tall men married sooner in life, but were more at risk for divorce later on, as shorter men had more stable marriages. Tall men were also more likely to marry women closer to their age, and who were better-educated.

The researchers argued that “from the perspective of relationship exchange models, this indicates that the tallest men exchange their attractive attribute (height) for better-educated spouses, while short men are unable to do so.”

The Gulf News article is here.

 

Divorce and Privacy

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s divorce are a lot of things: “Messy” comes to mind, and definitely “sordid.” It has also been front page news. However, now the divorce is going to be closed to the public. Is it about reconciliation or privacy?

A Very Public Divorce

Huma Abedin was a top aide to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and privacy has always been a struggle. She has been front page news most recently, as the State Department posted a number of her emails after the messages were found on her husband’s laptop by the FBI.

Several of the released documents were found to contain information classified “confidential,” and were heavily redacted.

If that wasn’t front page news enough, her husband is Anthony Weiner. Anthony is the former Democratic congressman from New York who won seven terms as a Democrat, never receiving less than 60% of the vote. Politicians don’t get elected by being shy.

In May last year, Weiner pled guilty to a sexting charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison and is required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

According to the New York Post, the couple withdrew their divorce proceeding from the New York court where it was being heard. They’re not reconciling though, it appears they are trying to keep their divorce private.

Divorce Privacy

I’ve written about the issue of privacy and public access to divorce records before. For example, in the Tom Cruise divorce, his ex-wife could have filed in New York or California, but they chose New York because of privacy laws there.

In Florida, court filings are not private. In fact, it has long been the policy of Florida that all state, county, and municipal records are open for personal inspection and copying by anyone.

In Florida, privacy is not the rule. Far from it. Here, providing access to public records is an affirmative duty of each agency. And, any agency that maintains a public record has to provide to any person, a copy of any public record which is not exempted by law from public disclosure.

The Weiners

In a statement to the New York Daily News, Abedin’s attorney said it’s for the privacy of their family.

“In order to ensure the proceedings have a minimal impact on their child, the parties have decided to finalize their divorce swiftly and privately.”

Privacy would certainly be a change for this couple’s tumultuous and much-scrutinized marriage, which is heading to an end after the sexting scandals.

The New York Daily News article is here.

 

India and Fault Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

A new Bollywood film concerns a woman who left her husband for failing to provide a toilet. It’s based on the true story of Anita Narre who threatened divorce to get her husband to build one. Do you need grounds to file for a divorce?

Indian Toilet Shortages

Many are surprised to learn that about 60% of India’s households lack access to toilets. That is surprising news for a country associated with ‘high tech’, but the situation is so bad, health advocates launched a “No toilet, No bride” campaign.

And, a family court judge in the state of Rajasthan has ruled that failure to provide a bathroom is an act of cruelty sufficiently significant to be grounds for divorce.

Florida No Fault Divorce

The Indian case is interesting for Floridians because Indian courts can grant divorces only in limited circumstances, by proving fault, such as physical abuse.

I’ve written about no-fault and fault standard divorces around the world before. Florida, as opposed to India, is a no-fault state.

Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. The only ground you need to file for divorce in Florida is to prove your marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Many people argue that the introduction of no fault divorce is the reason the United States has a high divorce rate. In fact, many people think so, and want to return to the old “fault” system to promote families and er flush away no fault.

Down the Drain

The divorce case in India, described as a first by The Times of India, came in the case of a woman whose husband refused to provide a toilet, saying they were unnecessary. This forced her to go to the bathroom outside.

“We spend money on buying tobacco, liquor, and mobile phones, but are unwilling to construct toilets to protect the dignity of our family”.

Private bathrooms are in rare supply, and in some places, women have to wait until sunset to answer nature’s call.

This is not only physical cruelty but also outraging the modesty of a woman,” said the judge Rajendra Kumar Sharma.

The ruling comes at a time when the government is running a crusade against open defecation under the `Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’.

The Times of India article is here.

 

Getting a Religious Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Just in time for the holidays is the problem of religious divorce. Many women are stuck in their former marriages because their secular divorce was not enough to allow them to remarry in their religion. This post looks at the problems and solutions for getting a religious divorce.

The Religious Problem

I’ve written about the issue of religious divorce many times. The religious nature of divorces for many couples, particularly for Muslim and Jewish women, complicates settlement.

That’s because religious courts have no enforcement authority in the United States, and the First Amendment of the Constitution prevents secular courts from intervening in purely religious disputes.

Also, religious authorities are very critical about the secular enforcement of divorce as it can contravene religious law. Among religious people, there’s also a reluctance on using secular courts against their coreligionists, which discourages people from getting help in state court.

Islamic Divorce

The Economist recently reported on Shirin Musa, and her bitter religious divorce experience which ultimately inspired her to help women caught between legal and cultural worlds.

A resident in the Netherlands, Shirin was unhappily married to a man from her native Pakistan. In 2009 a Dutch judge divorced them, but her husband would not grant an Islamic divorce.

Although she lived in secular Europe, her husband’s refusal to grant a religious divorce mattered. If she remarried without a religious divorce, she could be considered an adulteress under Islamic law. She also risked religious punishment if she ever tried to return to Pakistan.

So, Shirin sued her former spouse through the Dutch secular courts. In 2010 she received a landmark judgment: her ex-husband would be fined $295 a day, up to a maximum of $11,795 as long as he refused to cooperate.

The sanction had the desired effect on her ex-husband She then persuaded the Dutch parliament to make holding women in such “marital captivity” a criminal offence, in theory punishable by jail.

Jewish Divorce

Jewish women share a similar problem to Muslim women. Under the strict interpretations of Jewish law, only the husband can grant a divorce document, called a “get.” Without a get, the woman is still religiously married, regardless of how long it’s been since the civil divorce.

Without a get, a Jewish woman can’t remarry and have more children, lest she be declared an adulterer and her children from the second marriage shunned by the community.

Women in this situation can be trapped for years as their childbearing years fade away. In Hebrew, many call them agunot, or “chained women.”

Solutions

First, you may want to secure a religious divorce before even filing a secular divorce. This prevents the husband from using the religious divorce as a bargaining chip.

Securing a religious divorce before filing a civil divorce also prevents another common problem: imams and rabbis stepping in to negotiate large cash payments in exchange for a religious divorce.

Another civil legal remedy is a prenuptial agreement. Under a prenuptial agreement, the spouses could agree to arbitrate the marital dispute, and the husband agrees to pay the wife a set amount per day until he grants a religious divorce.

The Economist article is available here.

 

International Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

When a spouse is from a foreign country, divorce can be complicated — especially when the couple works in one county, assets are in another country, a pension is in another, and the kids are in a fourth country. What are the issues in an international divorce?

Divorce Around the World

As the Economist reports, globalization has resulted in multi-national marriages, which is common among wealthy, highly mobile families. When they stop being high-earning families, life gets tricky, and international divorce can get even trickier.

Families which got used to living on huge bonuses are unable to continue with the commitments they have taken on — housing and school tuition, and the cost of living the high life.

Where to Sue?

So, who sues whom and where in an international divorce? The answer is more difficult than people think. A British divorce might give more money because British courts can disregard prenuptial agreements, and the cost of living is high in London.

In France, things could be very different. Adultery can be penalized, but in the typical French divorce, any alimony could be less and for eight years at most; and prenuptial agreements are binding.

However, in Florida, the outcome could be different still. Under Florida law, alimony is constantly under threat of a major revision by the legislature, and child support is governed by a formula. Courts may award attorneys’ fees, and prenuptial agreements are generally enforceable.

International Child Custody

Rules about children can differ too. I’ve written on international divorces, especially as they relate to child custody issues and The Hague Convention on abduction.

The Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty developed by The Hague Conference on Private International Law to provide for the prompt return of a child internationally abducted by a parent from one-member country to another.

There are three essential elements to every Hague Convention case:

  • The child must be under the age of 16 years of age;
  • The wrongful removal must be a violation of the left behind parent’s “rights of custody;”
  • The left behind parent’s rights of custody “were actually being exercised or would have been exercised but for the removal.”

So, if a child under the age of sixteen has been wrongfully removed, the child must be promptly returned to the child’s country of habitual residence, unless certain exceptions apply.

The catch, of course, is that a child must be taken from a signatory country to another signatory country, and that is where understanding The Hague Convention comes in.

Even signatory countries may be bad at abiding by the convention, especially when it means enforcing the return of children to a parent alleged to have been abusive.

The annual State Department report to Congress on observance of The Hague Convention lists Honduras as “non-compliant” and nine other countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Poland and Venezuela) as showing “patterns of non-compliance”.

Hiding Assets

Hiding assets is a problem in every divorce. The problem of discovery of hidden wealth is even bigger in an international divorce because multiple countries, and multiple rules on discovery, can be involved.

The problems in an international divorce are more complicated because hiding assets from a spouse is much easier in some countries than in others.

Florida, at one extreme, requires complete disclosure of assets and liabilities. In fact, in Florida certain financial disclosure is mandatory. At the other extreme, are countries which require very little disclosure from people going through divorce.

Court Shopping

Choosing possible countries to file your divorce in can be construed as “forum shopping”.

The European Union introduced a reform called Brussels II, which prevents “forum shopping”, with a rule that the first court to be approached decides the divorce.

But the stakes are high: ending up in the wrong legal system, or with the wrong approach, may mean not just poverty but misery.

The Economist article is here.

 

Divorce Benefits?

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Divorce comes at a high price. You walk away from your marriage with significantly fewer assets and retirement savings by virtue of the property division. You can lose more if you have to pay support or alimony. Then there’s the emotional toll. But there may be a silver lining, some divorce benefits you were not aware of.

As U.S. News and World Report shows, divorce may have a few silver linings, some unknown or hidden benefits to take some of the sting away from an otherwise painful process.

The benefits of a divorce are not enough to make you run out and get one, but there are a few financial benefits that could make a very bad situation seem a little better if you look hard enough.

Financial Control

The end of a marriage can mean the end of fights over money. That is a divorce benefit. There is no more struggle over which categories get priority in the budget; no more evenings spent fighting or pleading with a spouse to rein in spending.

On the other side of divorce is some freedom.

Some people have also found that after a divorce from a spendthrift, you can accumulate big savings, thanks to budgeting on your priorities.

Early Access to Retirement Money

Another benefit is that a divorce is one of the few times you can pull money out of your retirement account early and not pay an early withdrawal penalty.

When the court enters a QDRO (a Qualified Domestic Relations Order) as part of a divorce, it allows for an early withdrawal from the account.

This money may be exempt from the typical penalty assessed, although income tax still needs to be paid if the money is not rolled into an IRA.

Cashing out part of your retirement account can be very risky, but it gives you some benefit to your money you may not otherwise have.

Potentially Better Investment returns

Divorce could mean better investment returns. After a divorce, you have the opportunity to take over your own retirement planning and investments. Being the captain of your own financial ship could be a financial benefit in the long run. I have also written about there being some tax issues in divorce which may benefit you.

More College Financial Aid

Divorce can be difficult for children, but there is one place where they may have a benefit: college financial aid.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid only requires financial information from the custodial parent rather than both parents.

If you are divorced the FAFSA will consider only the custodial parent’s income.

For financial aid purposes, the custodial parent is the one your student lived with the most in the last 12 months, or the parent who provided the student with the most financial support.

The custodial parent for FAFSA purposes may be different from the parent who has legal custody.

Sometimes you can structure your marital settlement agreement so that the lower-earning parent becomes the custodial parent, giving your student the best chance of qualifying for the most financial aid.

Conclusion

Getting a divorce isn’t something to rush into, but if you find yourself in the midst of a crumbling marriage, don’t despair. You may still come out ahead thanks to these little-known financial benefits of divorce.

The U.S. News and World Report article is here.