When you divorce, you must adjust many details of your life. From deciding where you will live and how to pay your expenses to adjusting your work and social schedule to fit your new life, divorced or divorcing individuals have many things to do. If you have student loan debt, learning how your divorce will affect that debt and deciding how you will manage it now and into the future is something that you must do. The first thing that all divorced or divorcing individuals with student loans need to know is that it is crucial that you keep your loans in good standing.  If you or your soon to be former spouse are having trouble making your scheduled student loan payments, contact your lender right away. Tell the lender what is happening in your life, and ask them to explain your options for keeping your loans in good standing. You may be able to postpone your student loan payments to a later date, temporarily suspend payments through forbearance, or make reduced payments for a while. Taking action to keep your loans in good standing now can help you avoid defaulting on your student loans, no matter how awful your current financial picture may be.

In addition to taking steps to keep all student loans in good standing, divorcing couples must decide who will ultimately assume legal responsibility for each student loan debt. This is a part of the property settlement process, where the couple works with their attorneys to determine who will pay which debts and who will walk away from the divorce with which assets. Texas is a community property state. The deciding factor for who must assume responsibility for each student loan debt is when each of those debts was acquired. If either of you obtained student loans before you married, those loans are the responsibility of the spouse who obtained them. Some couples attend college after they marry or they take turns going to college and working. If either of you took out student loans after you got married, those loans are part of your marital property. In a Texas divorce, marital property is divided equally among the divorcing spouses. Since marital property includes the total of all of the debts and all of the assets that the divorcing spouses obtained during their marriage, you and your soon to be former spouse can each expect to be held responsible for an equal dollar amount of those shared debts and to receive an equal dollar amount of the shared assets.

Whether you, your spouse or both are ordered by the court to take responsibility for student loan debt according to your divorce decree, it is critical that the lenders receive notice of the divorce and of the order stating who is responsible for each loan. As I mentioned before, if you run into trouble with making timely payments on your loans, contact your lenders right away. Many lenders will be able to present you with a variety of options for keeping your student loan repayment on track, and you can select a repayment option that meets your current needs.

Keeping your student loan payments on track is part of working through your Texas divorce. For help with all of your Texas divorce questions, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499.

It is no secret that many kids look forward to summer. The extended break from school gives kids more time to relax, spend time with friends and family, and enjoy their favorite activities. Parents love summer too, but work schedules and other adult responsibilities can sometimes make planning a fun summer for the whole family challenging. If a parent is divorced or divorcing, the challenges they face in designing their summer are multiplied by the fact that they must make their plans within the confines of their possession and access schedule. If divorcing parents have not yet come up with a workable possession and access schedule, the task of planning their summer schedules can be even more difficult.

Fortunately, stress and difficulty do not have to hold you and your kids back from having a great summer. When you work with your attorney and your children’s other parent and their attorney to create a possession and access schedule that is doable for everyone, you’ll have all the information that you need to make summer plans that you and your children will enjoy. If you’re starting your divorce, or if you and your children’s parent are having trouble coming together to decide on a possession and access schedule, now is the time to make creating that schedule a priority. Schedule some time to work with your attorney, your children’s’ other parent, and their attorney to attend to it as soon as possible.

The Texas family court has a standard possession order which it awards in cases where parents cannot agree on a possession and access schedule. Most pairs of divorcing parents do not want a schedule where the kids are with one parent most of the time and with the other parent on Thursday evenings and the first, third, and fifth weekend of each month. Parents are encouraged to set aside their differences, put their heads together, and work with their attorneys to create their own possession and access schedule. Parents who work together to create a possession and access schedule are almost always much more satisfied with the plan in the long run than parents who are awarded the standard possession order by the court.

As you work with your attorney, aim to create a possession and access schedule that clearly states who will spend time with the children when both during the school year and summer vacation. Include specifics for holidays and birthdays. Take care to include rules for how and when last-minute changes can be made to the schedule. Also, plan for communication between the children and each parent when they are in the care of the other parent as well as rules for notifying the other parent about plans to attend camps or other activities far from home and vacations. While you’re working on making a possession and access schedule, you may wonder whether all of the hard work, negotiation, and, yes, compromise is worth it, but as I stated before, parents who do work together to create a schedule instead of allowing the court to award the standard plan are much more satisfied with the outcome. It is almost always worth it to hang in there and do the work until you reach an agreement.

If you would like to talk with an attorney about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.

Divorce is the legal means by which a marriage ends. It is a critical step to take if you need to separate your life from the life of the person that you married. The divorce process and the divorce decree that is the result of that process answer some questions about what your life and the life of your former spouse will look like as each of you moves forward. You and your spouse will make decisions during your divorce about how your assets and debts will be divided, how time with your children will be divided, and whether any money will flow from one of you to the other on an ongoing basis, there are many things that your divorce case and your divorce decree won’t resolve. These issues must be addressed in different ways so that you can truly move forward with your life.

The feelings that you have towards your former spouse and the way that you interact with them during and after your divorce play a significant role in shaping your life both during and after your divorce. A divorce is always the beginning of a changed life, but you are primarily responsible for the direction that that changed life takes. Some divorced and divorcing individuals choose to seek healing of the hurts that they experienced during their marriage and the breakdown of their marriage. Some forgive their former spouse for all of the things that they feel were wrong in their marriage and resolve to let the past remain in the past as they develop a new way of interacting with their former spouse that is not bitter or angry. Others choose to hold tightly onto the pain that they feel their former spouse caused them, and to interact with their former spouse in an angry, bitter, and often confrontational manner. As they move forward into their life without their former spouse by their side, they continue to focus on how they were wronged, sometimes even long after the marriage has ended.

If you are divorcing or are divorced, I would like to encourage you to let your marriage stay in the past where it belongs. You do not have to carry the pain and anger forward into today, tomorrow, or next week. You can move forward with your divorce proceedings and your post-divorce life with the wisdom you gained along the way and the inspiration that comes from having a clean slate. The problems that you had during your marriage do not have to follow you through the rest of your life and steal your joy. It’s not always easy to heal the hurts of a marriage that ended in divorce, and anger and bitterness can be slow to leave the scene. However, you do not have to heal or forgive on your own. Many people can help you with the work of healing and forgiveness. Counselors, clergy, friends, and family are all potentially helpful resources who can help you set down your suitcases and unpack the emotional baggage of your marriage and divorce so that you can walk forward into the future with nothing holding you back from living in your full potential.

If you would like to talk with an attorney about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.

Did you know that not every divorce case filed in Texas proceeds directly from start to finish? Some Texas couples choose to pause their divorce cases to assess whether reconciliation is possible. As a result of that assessment, some of those couples decide to end their divorce proceedings and remain married.

This may sound like somewhat of a fairy tale, complete with a happy ending. For some couples, it is indeed for the best, eventually resulting in a restored marriage and happily ever after. Of course, reconciliation does not always work, and some couples who attempt to reconcile during their divorce eventually decide to continue the divorce process all of the way to a final divorce decree.

It is crucial for any couple who may want to explore reconciliation to recognize that it’s not an easy path, and it does make your divorce case more complicated regardless of which direction you and your spouse eventually go. If you have filed for divorce, your divorce case is, at any given time, somewhere along a timeline that moves from the date the divorce complaint is filed to the date a judge issues a final divorce decree. There are a variety of stages a divorce case moves through from beginning to end, and depending on the timing of your decision to try to reconcile, you may have some extra work to do. For example, if there have been any protective orders issued in your case, your attorneys may have to have those lifted before you can legally have the amount and type of contact you want with your spouse. If you and your spouse are considering giving reconciliation a try, be sure to discuss that with your attorney and ask your spouse to do the same. Your attorney will help you understand what your options are during and after your reconciliation attempt, whether or not it is successful

Another critical point to consider is how your reconciliation attempt will affect your children. Before you discuss what you plan to do with them, talk with their therapists if they are in counseling and also seek information and advice about how to proceed with wisdom in this area. Children’s hearts are tender at any age, and it is always best to use caution and think things through before bringing them into your children’s world.

Additionally, seek counseling for yourselves. The couples who successfully reconcile are the couples who put a wholehearted effort into understanding how their marriage got to the point of breaking and learn how to restore the love, trust, and health to their marriage. These are serious matters which deserve serious commitment, time, and effort from both spouses. It is not wise to attempt reconciliation unless you are confident that your spouse is just as committed and serious about it as you are.

If you have questions about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.

Going through a divorce is complicated enough without the mistakes and setbacks that can happen along the way. Fortunately, many of the mistakes that people make while navigating their Texas divorce cases are avoidable. Today, I share four common errors that people make during the divorce process and how you can avoid them.

Navigating your Texas divorce with the aid of an attorney is an excellent way to avoid many of the mistakes that can happen in divorce cases. However, choosing the wrong attorney to accompany you on your divorce journey can be more harmful than helpful. It is well worth it to spend time talking with friends and family about local attorneys that they might know, researching local attorneys online, and meeting with several attorneys before deciding whom you will entrust with this important legal matter. Look for someone who has considerable experience with family law, and divorce in particular. Perhaps most importantly, search out an attorney with whom you feel comfortable. The divorce process involves sharing many intimate details of your life and your marriage, so it is essential that you select someone whom you can trust.

While we’re talking about disclosing the intimate details of your life, we must also talk about another way that some people go wrong in their divorce cases. The more truthful, accurate, and complete you are in providing information to your attorney about every area of your life and your marriage, the better equipped your attorney is to help you come through your divorce to an outcome that works well for you.

In being complete, truthful, and timely in sharing information with your attorney, you help your attorney know how they can best help you. Just as importantly, you will avoid a third pitfall, the mistake of experiencing the penalties that will come your way if you omit facts, minimize painful truths, hide assets, or otherwise faibe completely honest and upfront with your attorney regarding the details of your life.

A fourth divorce faux pas that you would do well to avoid is forming expectations or making decisions about your divorce without the input of your attorney. Your attorney is the best source of knowledge about what you can reasonably expect to accomplish with your divorce. Divorce involves making many decisions, and your attorney can help you understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of each choice that you are asked to make during your divorce case based upon what they know about divorce law and the unique facts of your situation. Unfortunately, some clients insist on making decisions in their divorce cases based upon what they feel they are entitled to receive in their divorce or what their friend or family member was able to get in their divorce case. These decisions often serve to drag a divorce case on for longer than is necessary, cause additional conflict between the divorcing parties, and increase the time, money, and emotional energy that is expended on resolving the divorce case. In contrast, divorcing clients who make decisions based upon the advice of their attorneys are more likely to not only resolve their divorce case faster and with less conflict, they are more likely to be content with the outcome of the divorce, whatever that outcome looks like.

If you have questions about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.

Divorce is costly at any age, and statistics show that more and more older adults are divorcing. The divorce rate for people age fifty and over has doubled between 1990 and today. The average Texas divorce costs nearly sixteen thousand dollars and takes a little over a year from start to finish. While the high cost of divorce may tempt some divorcing seniors to search for a lower-cost alternative to hiring a Texas family law attorney, that is not an advisable path to take because it could cost you much more in the long run.

Older adults who are divorcing are often in a financially vulnerable position. More and more adults are nearing retirement without knowing how they will survive on the retirement accounts, social security, and other financial resources that they will have available to them once they stop working. If you are divorcing or you are thinking about divorcing, it is essential that you educate yourself about the costs associated with divorce and plan accordingly. With careful planning, you may be able to avoid some or all of the financial struggles that many who are divorcing encounter during and after their divorce.

One area where many divorcing people of all ages often encounter difficulty is in estimating what it will cost them to live separately. Before you divorce, it is critical that you have a realistic idea of what it will cost you and your spouse to maintain separate households. Researching what it will cost you to live on your own is not an easy or pleasant task, but having an accurate grasp of those numbers will help you move forward successfully as you pursue your divorce. You may have to reevaluate what it is that you need and what things you and your spouse pay for now that you could go without to enjoy greater financial stability during and after your divorce.

During your divorce, you will face decisions that affect your finances, especially when it comes to dividing assets. Some of the assets that you have, like IRAs, do not split as easily as other assets without incurring tax or other consequences. Your family law attorney may suggest that you consult with a tax professional or financial advisor during your divorce because those professionals can help you make well-informed choices about how to divide your assets between yourself and your spouse.

Both assessing what it will cost for you to live by yourself and making decisions about how to split your debts and your assets involve looking through your financial records. You’ll need to provide those records to your attorney and to other professionals like tax or financial advisors who help you with your divorce. Taking time to locate and organize all of your financial records will help you with both of the tasks mentioned above, and it will give you a good understanding of where you are at financially so that you can make plans to get to where you are going.

If you have questions about divorce in Texas, call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra with your Texas divorce questions today, at (903) 753-7499.

Family law attorneys don’t usually get to see couples before they marry. Most often, couples work with family law attorneys as they prepare for and navigate divorce. However, family law attorneys have a unique perspective on the things that can destroy marriages. In sharing this perspective with couples who are not yet married, it’s possible that family law attorneys could help prevent some divorces.

One essential piece of advice for couples who are contemplating marriage is to talk about money. Disagreements about money rank high on lists of issues that lead to divorce, and if one or both of you are hesitant to discuss finances, it’s worth taking time to think about why. It’s also worth taking time to work through your thoughts and feelings on money to develop a unified financial strategy. It’s a good idea to explore this area of your relationship, as well as many others, with the help of a premarital counselor. A premarital counselor can help you, and your potential future spouse come to know each other in ways that will benefit you immensely once you are married, by helping you explore potentially tricky topics together in a safe environment.

The second piece of advice that I have for couples who are considering marriage is to assess whether a prenuptial agreement would be useful for them. When you explore the question of whether the two of you might benefit from a prenuptial agreement, consider that Texas is a community property state. In a Texas divorce, each spouse gets to keep what they had before the marriage, and whatever they acquired during the marriage becomes part of the “community property,” which gets divided evenly between the spouses. If you’re approaching marriage with something, such as a business, that could grow in value during the marriage, it may be wise to make a prenuptial agreement if you would not want it split in half in the event of a divorce.

If you and your spouse have reached a point at which divorce seems inevitable, my first bit of advice to you would be to divorce sooner, rather than later, if you expect to be paying alimony. This is the last year that the federal income tax deduction for alimony is available, following the enactment of 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. All divorces that involve the payment of alimony that settle before the end of 2018 are grandfathered, giving the paying spouse the ability to claim a tax deduction on the alimony they pay to a former spouse. Paying spouses whose divorces settle after that date will not have access to that deduction.

The second piece of financial advice that I have for divorcing couples is to be thorough in making changes to your personal documents after your divorce is final. Make a checklist of all of the changes that you need to make, and take care of them one by one. Beneficiary designations, social security information, estate planning documents like your will and health care power of attorney, all of these and more may need attention before your affairs are entirely in order as a divorced person.

Whether you are contemplating marriage or considering divorce, a Texas family law attorney can answer your family law questions. Call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499 to schedule an initial consultation. You can also plan your consultation online by using our online contact form.

Divorce is not a one-size-fits-all type of legal proceeding where the divorcing spouses can fill out a few simple forms, attend a hearing, and be done with it. That’s why we urge anyone considering a divorce to avoid products and services that promise an easy, inexpensive, and fast divorce. Too many people have discovered that attempting to resolve a divorce that way can become a nightmarish experience that is complicated, costly, and lengthy. We suggest that you seek counsel from a family law attorney. Your attorney will guide you through the paperwork required for your divorce, and they will help you navigate the process of weighing your options regarding the various aspects of your divorce as you work towards a resolution of your case. The following three questions and answers are things that divorce attorneys are asked about often. Because so many divorcing Texans want to know about these topics, it’s likely that this information will be of use to you, too.

Texas divorce attorneys are often asked whether Texas courts grant no-fault divorces. The answer is yes, but there’s a catch. A couple can obtain a no-fault Texas divorce on the basis of insupportability only if both spouses agree to do so. Insupportability is the word that the Texas courts use to describe a marriage in which disputes and disagreements that cannot be resolved by the spouses have so damaged the relationship between the spouses that the animosity between them is forcing an end to their marriage. If the spouses do not agree to a divorce on the grounds of insupportability, they must choose a fault-based grounds for divorce upon which to base their complaint for divorce. The options for fault-based grounds for divorce in Texas include adultery, conviction of a felony, confinement in a mental hospital, living apart for three or more years, cruelty, and abandonment.

Prospective divorce clients sometimes ask whether they have to be a Texas resident to get a Texas divorce. The answer is yes. However, the time required to establish residency that meets the requirement for divorce is not long. One or both spouses must live in Texas for at least six months before filing for divorce. Also, one of the spouses must live in the county where they are filing for for at least ninety days before filing.

A third question that is often on the minds of Texans who are contemplating divorce is how the distribution of marital property is handled in Texas. Texas is a community property state. Most property acquired by either or both spouses during the marriage is considered part of the couple’s community property that will be divided during the divorce. If a spouse wants to exclude a specific item or asset from the couple’s community property, they must be able to prove to the court by clear and convincing evidence that they either acquired it before the marriage and kept is separate from their community property during the property or that it was given to only one of the spouses during the marriage.

If you are considering divorce, a Texas Family Law Attorney can answer any questions you may have. Call Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499 to schedule an initial consultation. You can also schedule your consultation online by using our online contact form.