“It’s always darkest just before the dawn.” It’s a saying you’ve heard hundreds of times, and it’s usually said by someone standing in a different “time zone,” where they are already in the light. Meanwhile, you may be stuck in a plac…
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The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently decided a case that could have implications for future cases involving spousal support in the state—not to mention existing spousal support cases. Let’s take a look at what In re: Marriage of Madden has to…
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When is divorce the best choice? Nobody plans to get divorced. Almost everyone who gets married hopes and believes it is the start of “happily ever after,” despite statistics that suggest almost half of all marriages end in divorce. When it turns…
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Let’s talk about contracts, especially contracts and divorce. A contract has three elements to it. There is an offer, an acceptance and something lawyers call “consideration.” So when you want to buy a car, the offer is for the car dealer to se…
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Before you file for divorce, you are simply married; After your divorce is granted, you are simply divorced, and your divorce decree becomes the “private law” of your divorce. In between, while you are still technically married, your relationship…
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We live in a society that has normalized drinking, even drinking to excess. T-shirts that say “It’s beer o’clock.” Insulated travel coffee mugs emblazoned with “This might be wine.” Most adults engage in this perfectly legal activity, and…
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Marriage is a partnership, which means each spouse has his or her own role in making things work. When divorce happens, you need to figure out how to make everything work on your own. A spouse who never shopped or cooked needs to figure out how to ge…
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In recent years, you may have noticed, some of the language around divorced parents and children has changed. What used to be called “visitation,” for instance, is now called “parenting time.” It’s an important distincti…
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If you have never been through a divorce, where did you learn what you know about divorce? Some people form their ideas about divorce from the experiences related by family and friends, or even from television shows and movies. While some of that inf…
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Alcoholism never affects just the person with the disease. The entire family, whether they realize it or not, is involved. From children trying extra hard to “be good” to avoid making Dad angry, to a husband calling his wife in “sic…
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We are all products, in one way or another, of our experiences. Sometimes those experiences shape our worlds to such an extent that we don’t realize that they’ve affected us; it’s just “the way things were.” In the past…
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I was recently asked if I had any blog posts or advice for adult children of divorced parents. I realized I didn’t. As I started to mull over the question, I had to think about the forty years of pain of being a child of two selfish people who cons…
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I was recently asked to write a blog for adult children of divorcing parents. I did that and I think you should read it. However, I thought that this blog was needed too. I am the adult child of divorced parents. I am also a divorced mother of adult…
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Raising children with another person is a challenge even when you are married. When you are divorcing, with separate households, different parenting styles, and your own rules, things often become much more difficult. Since your children are at the h…
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We deal with many family transitions in our law office, but one of the most joyful in which we get to take part is the creation of a new family through stepparent adoption. Many of our clients are part of a blended family in which the stepparent has…
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