Infidelity is a heartbreaking reality for many marriages. The spouse who discovers the infidelity often goes through a spectrum of emotions, but at the bottom of all of them feels betrayed by their partner. This break of trust makes many spouses angry or skeptical of believing anything from the other spouse and causes there to be walls to communication that are difficult to overcome.
In Florida, we are a “no fault” state, when courts consider dissolutions of marriage. Each spouse will come before the court with their requests for how life should look post-dissolution, but the court rarely gets into why the parties are divorcing. This is difficult for many “cheated on” spouses to understand who have felt a true sense of loss in dealing with divorce.
In Florida, there are some instances, however, when the court does look at the impact of infidelity, though they are few and very limited. If the spouse has used marital funds in furtherance of the extra-marital affair, the court will consider this “waste of marital funds” as a component in determining whether alimony is appropriate and how much to award. In order to prove that marital funds have been used, it is imperative that actual evidence shows transactions that indicate the spending. An experienced Florida family law attorney can help you obtain access to your spouse’s accounts, credit cards, and other means by which these transactions can be shown. Looking for florist purchases, jewelry stores, hotel charges, or high meal expenses, over periods of time, may show patterns of infidelity. Further, in many instances, dating apps and other social media, may be ways to discover whether your spouse is involved in an extra-marital affair. In many instances, hiring a private investigator to take photographs, track your spouse, or search for financial holdings that you may not know about is helpful and can be used as clear evidence for the court’s consideration. While this can be another expense, if it has the likelihood of awarding more alimony or timesharing, it may be well worth it. Discussing this with an attorney, before you file for divorce, is key, as once the filing for divorce occurs, typically spouses are more careful in their actions, and proving relationships after the date that you file do not indicate infidelity, but rather that your spouse is commencing to moving on.
Many people stay in marriages that they would otherwise leave, because they are afraid of the financial strain that divorce presents. For many, the question of whether an alimony award is required by Florida law is an obstacle that seems insurmountable when considering going it alone after many years of marriage.
The concept of permanent alimony is a frightening proposition for many breadwinning spouses who are getting divorced from a long time spouse. In fact, it can be a reason or deterrent for people filing for divorce, who have been the higher earning spouse in a marriage. Permanent alimony in Florida is a rebuttable presumption in divorces for marriages when the spouses have been married more than 17 years, which means that the court is more likely than not, assume that in cases where two spouses have been married for at least 17 years, that the spouse that has earned less or stayed home may be entitled to support for the remainder of his or her life, if the spouse can show that they have a need for alimony. What it does NOT mean is that if you are married for 17 years that a spouse is entitled to alimony, regardless of the facts and circumstances.
As experienced family law attorneys, we get many questions from prospective and current clients about moving out of their shared home and their concerns about “abandoning” the home. As with any relationship, the answer is usually “it depends” but in reality, it’s important to realize that certain circumstances make the answer very simple, and courts quickly step in to help parties to deal with the temporary “split up” in the face of divorce.
In the State of Florida and other states, domestic violence injunctions can negatively impact your life in several different ways, including the inability to carry or have firearms, exclusion from consideration for jobs (or fired from jobs you may already have), and negatively impacting your timesharing with your children.
Divorce makes married people do amazing things to one another. In many cases, spouses both realize that a relationship is broken and need to move forward. Some cases, however, present where one spouse is blissfully unaware that the other spouse is having an affair or hiding assets. That is, of course, until reality strikes and the truth comes out.
The age of the “smart home” is undoubtedly upon us, and devices control our room temperature, change our television channels, and even tell our children stories. We have come to not only rely on their safety measures, but also embraced how they make our lives easier. At the same time, the smart home devices are keeping tabs on what we do, say, and where we are. Could Amazon’s Alexa help or hurt you in a family case?
Dissolving your marriage in the State of Florida , in many cases, is a lengthy process. Issues of property division and child timesharing cause couples to have conflicts without a great deal of guidance when they are attempting to finalize their plans moving forward. If you are divorcing in Florida, and specifically in the Jacksonville area, courts enter a standing family law order, once a divorce is filed with the clerk of court. This order provides some guidance on how couples should conduct themselves during the pendency of a divorce.
A question that commonly comes up in Florida Divorce consultations and cases is whether a client should move out of the marital home once one of the parties has filed for divorce. While many times spouses recognize that if there has been a divorce filing, eventually the time will come where they will no longer live together, this is a decision that should be made with planning and careful consideration.