New Year, New Beginnings!
Valuable Action Steps for Divorce in 2025
This year, let’s shift our focus away from impossible resolutions and body-shaming goals. Instead, let’s prioritize making positive changes that allow us to become our happiest and best selves. Sometimes, this means letting go of things that are no longer serving us— like a partner who’s had countless chances to change but hasn’t. If you’re considering divorce in 2025, here are some practical steps to set you up for success:
1. Organize Your Financials:
Get a clear picture of your assets and liabilities is one of the essential steps for divorce. This can include reviewing bank and credit card statements, pay stubs, tax returns, retirement statements, deeds to property (like the marital home), or titles to personal property (like vehicles). If you aren’t sure of everything, that’s OK! The more organized and informed you are ahead of time will help to streamline the process, but financial discovery will also be conducted along the way, so there’s time to figure these things out.
2. Alert/Assemble Your Support Team:
Confide in your closest friends and family who can keep your plans private and offer emotional support. If you aren’t already working with a professional, consider engaging with a therapist or divorce coach. This will help you to avoid making emotionally-based decisions in the divorce process, which often leads to increased conflict, fees, and delays in resolution. There are also support groups available for divorcing individuals that can offer camaraderie and validation through this time of transition. As experienced divorce attorneys, we can offer you these two truths: 1. You want to pay your lawyer for legal advice, not emotional support (we aren’t qualified for this and cost too much!); and, 2. Don’t delay your emotional healing until after the divorce is over. Your new chapter starts now.
3. Plan for your Kids’ Needs:
Breaking the news to your children can be one of the toughest steps of the divorce process. “Experts” recommend that the best way to tell kids about a divorce is by having both parents tell them at the same time to be able to reassure them that even though the family dynamic will be changing, the children are still very loved, and the divorce is not their fault. But in reality, this scenario isn’t always possible. Regardless of how they find out, it can be helpful to have a list of trusted adults at the ready who can offer your children additional support if they need someone to talk to other than you/your spouse. This can include family members, parents of their closest friends, teachers, guidance counselors, and/or professionals.
4. Brainstorm Housing Alternatives:
Consider your housing options, especially if your partner is hostile. Would you and your partner able to stay in separate, designated parts of the marital home? Is there a friend, family member, or work colleague that you could stay with short-term if a cooling off period is needed? Are there affordable rentals in your area? Some advance research and planning can be crucial if a crisis situation were to occur. If things are likely to remain civil, you’ll likely have more time to determine what will happen with the marital home until the divorce is finalized.
5. Schedule a Consultation with an Attorney:
Empower yourself with information! Bring as much details as possible along with any questions you may have to help us understand your situation. With that information, we’ll be able to provide a clearer timeline and discuss option and potential outcomes. Come with a notebook and an open mind— we’ll take it from there!
If you’re ready to have that first conversation to better understand the process, book a FREE discovery call with Foundations Family Law.