By Ariana E. Cha and Jennifer Dixon

Here are some questions parents should ask themselves when considering joint custody:

Q: How well do you feel you and the other parent can get along?

A: Parents should cooperate with each other. "Support the child's relationship with both parents," Barbara Nordhaus, assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center, said Thursday. "Drop-offs and pickups should go smoothly. The better a couple can get along, the easier joint custody will be for the children," said Beth Clark, clinical psychologist and a consultant to the University of Michigan Center for the Family and Child. Leslie de Pietro, coordinator of Family Care Resources at the University of Michigan, agreed. "Children shouldn't be used a pawns." Parents should meet regularly to discuss the joint custody situation without the children.

Click to read more ...

Shelley Stile
Life Coach/Divorce Recovery for Women

The way to recover and thrive after divorce is simple: Until you can release the toxic emotions surrounding your divorce, it is impossible for you to move forward in life and be happy.  It takes enormous commitment and effort but it can be achieved.  If you want to lead a new life that is both fulfilling and happy, you must let go of the negative emotions and thoughts that hold you back from creating a life you love.  And guess what else?  Who do you suppose pays the biggest price when it comes to toxic emotions?  You.

During the divorce process, the negative emotions that you were already experiencing in your marriage go haywire!  During times of crisis, our world appears to crumble and with it our concept of whom we are. Our mind chatter turns up the volume to deafening levels.  We question everything.  We feel emotions so intense that we often wonder if we will survive them.  Anger, sadness, depression, rage, grief, resentment, bitterness, and confusion are some of the feelings we are hit with.  

Click to read more ...

By Henry Gornbein

We have been going through some of the worst economic times since The Great Depression.  Numerous articles and newscasts have stated either that the housing market has bottomed out, or is still going down.  In Michigan, we have the most depressed housing market in the United States.  Other states, including Florida, California, and Arizona – just to name a few, are also going through some horrible economic times with regard to housing.  In the past, before the economy bottomed out, homes were a family’s most valuable asset.  In the last year and a half, that has changed substantially.  In many of my divorce cases, the marital home is no longer an asset, but is heavily encumbered by debt.  Many people purchased homes in the past ten years, expecting their home to become a piggy bank for future savings and retirement.  Sadly, this is no longer the case.  Many people were obtaining mortgages, followed by home equity loans and second mortgages, based upon numbers that no longer exist.

Click to read more ...

Parenting time is the number of overnights that each parent has with the child or children as the result of a divorce action or a paternity action.  It is based upon the Child Custody Act, and the same factors that are reviewed by the courts in determining child custody, are also looked at with regard to parenting time.  Parenting time can run the gamut from one parent having the children most of the time, and the other parent having a set schedule, such as alternate weekends and maybe one evening a week for dinner and alternate holidays, along with time set forth during the summer and school breaks, to a situation where the parties may have equal parenting time with various schedules being set forth by agreement or set by the court.  Every situation is different and a parenting time schedule that makes sense for an infant or young child, will make no sense for a nine or ten-year-old.  Teenagers will often need very different schedules because they want to spend more time with their friends, along with their involvement in school activities, and less and less time with either parent.  

In these tough economic times, where people are trying to save money and want to have an amicable divorce, an excellent way to do this is through a pre-divorce mediation package.  I have handled several of these successfully, and would like to explain how it works.

Both the husband and wife meet with an attorney who specializes in family law and is also certified as a mediator, as are all of the attorneys at Gornbein Smith Peskin-Shepherd.  An agreement is reached at the first meeting that the attorney will be acting as a mediator and will not be representing either the husband or wife in the divorce.  The role of the attorney will be to meet with the parties to cover all issues in the divorce in an effort to help them resolve everything in an amicable fashion.

Click to read more ...