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Recent Blog Posts
What Qualifies a Spouse for Alimony in Texas?
Along with child support and custody, the financial aspects of a divorce can be a source of contention. Spousal support, or alimony, is designed to give economic aid to one spouse who may not have the financial means after divorce. In Texas, there are required qualifications to receive alimony in the state. If you want to know what you could receive or have to pay for spousal support, here is the criteria determined by the courts in the Lone Star State.
The Duration of Marriage
The marriage’s length is one of the primary factors for alimony awards. Often, a longer marriage has a higher likelihood of one spouse receiving support. Most of the time, Texas courts will grant alimony if the union has lasted for 10 years or more. However, these are not strict rules, and other factors could influence the court’s decision.
Earning Capacity Disparity
If one spouse earns less than the other, that is a disparity in earning capacity. The courts consider whether the individual has limited educational or career advancement opportunities. Those factors can help the court decide in the requesting spouse’s favor.
Understanding the Different Types of Child Custody in Texas
Child custody cases can be emotionally charged and legally complex, especially in a vast state like Texas, it is crucial to understand the types of child custody arrangements that are available. In Texas, the family court system aims to prioritize the best interests of the child while considering various factors. The different types of child custody, legally known as conservatorship, in Texas, these are sole managing conservatorship, joint managing conservatorship, and possessory conservatorship.
Sole Managing Conservatorship
Sole managing conservatorship is what sole custody is in other states. This arrangement grants one parent the exclusive right to make significant decisions for the child, such as those related to education, medical care, etc. The non-custodial parent, referred to as the possessory conservator, typically retains visitation rights, allowing them to spend time with the child. There are multiple reasons why a judge might name a parent the sole managing conservator, these include absence in the child’s life, alcohol or drug abuse, or family abuse of the other parent.
Dealing with a Narcissist and Child Support
When both parents get along, co-parenting can be easy. However, when you add narcissism into the mix, it becomes challenging. Those with narcissistic personality disorders have a pattern of self-centeredness, a lack of empathy, and a constant need for admiration.
These behaviors can affect child support arrangements. In turn, that can affect the well-being of their children. If you want to learn more about handling a narcissist and child support, here are a few points to keep in mind.
Dealing with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcissists frequently exhibit grandiose ideals because they think they are exceptional and unique. These individuals are insensitive. They often struggle to understand the needs and feelings of others, especially their own children. These people exhibit manipulation skills and poor self-esteem. When you need to get child support from these individuals, it can lead to plenty of challenges.
Tips for Managing Your Texas Divorce
Divorce can be fraught with tension, uncertainty, and complex decisions. However, you can navigate this difficult journey more smoothly with the right strategies and mindset. Here are a few practical tips to help you manage your divorce without the headaches.
Seek Legal Assistance
One of the first steps in managing a divorce is consulting with an experienced family law attorney. A knowledgeable lawyer can:
- Provide legal advice
- Guide you through the process
- Advocate on your behalf
They can help you understand your rights, obligations, and options. With their help, you can make well-informed decisions.
Organize Important Documents
Numerous legal and financial details must be considered in a divorce. For that reason, you will want to gather and organize all your important documents. These records can include the following:
- Bank statements
- Tax returns
- Property deeds
- Marriage and birth certificates
Airline Employee Custody Visitation
NEGOTIATING WORKABLE PARENTING SOLUTIONS
With our firm’s long-standing presence in Fort Worth, obtaining workable child custody and visitation outcomes for airline employees is familiar territory. We have experience creating detailed parenting plans for pilots, flight attendants, and their spouses. You can trust us to help you find solutions and form strategies to:
- negotiate a “variable possession order” and/or departures from standard visitation schedules that maximize your time with your children while meeting the demands of your work schedule;
- establish notice requirements and guidelines for timely communication if one or both parents must bid a new schedule each month;
- overcome objections often presented by pilots’ and flight attendants’ divorcing spouses — such as the argument that accommodating the other parent’s schedule disrupts children’s lives.
THE CHILD’S BEST INTERESTS
Keep in mind that, as with any custody matter, the court will approve or decide upon a parenting plan as proposed above based on the child’s best interests. Such factors will include:
Temporary Restraining Orders
CAN A COURT ORDER DETER DAMAGING BEHAVIOR BY MY PARTNER?
A temporary restraining order (TRO) is an emergency court order that requires a party not to take some particular action until a hearing is held. A TRO can include terms to protect your property, your safety, and the safety of your children for the duration of the order. In emergencies, it can also order a parent to stay away from a child until the hearing. However, such orders may not include custody or child support orders and cannot exclude the spouse from their residence. A TRO typically lasts 14 days or until the hearing, whichever approaches sooner.
COMMON REASONS TO FILE A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER
Common reasons that you may choose to file a temporary restraining order include:
- concerns that you need to keep your spouse from moving with your kids or otherwise preventing you from having contact with them;
- financial worries such as any risk that your divorcing spouse will squander or try to conceal marital property and assets.
Cell Phones Playing Greater Role in Texas Divorce Proceedings
As technology advances at an ever-growing rate, it seems that for many people having a cellphone is not good enough – they need smartphones that allow them to make calls, send text messages, search the Internet, keep calendars, take pictures and track locations with GPS.
People may want to use their phones cautiously, however. Every time a person uses a phone, he or she is unwittingly making a record of his or her actions and movements, and those records are showing up as evidence more frequently in Texas divorce and child custody proceedings. Those considering divorce in Texas should be aware of the kind of evidence that people can obtain from cellphones and how that evidence may affect their cases.
EVIDENCE FROM PHONES
According to a survey conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 92 percent of the lawyers surveyed reported an increase in the number of cases where parties use evidence they obtained from cell phones. The survey showed that text messages were the most common types of evidence people gathered from cell phones, with 62 percent of survey respondents saying that text messages had played a role in their cases. Twenty-three percent of those surveyed said emails sent from phones were evidence in cases. Contact lists and call histories were also significant in 13 percent of respondents’ cases.
The ABCs of Child Relocation in Texas
When Texas parents get divorced, it is not uncommon that one of them will eventually wish to move to another county or state, especially if a new job is at stake. However, issues may arise if this particular parent also wishes to take a child with him or her – specifically, a child subject to an existing child custody order.
GEOGRAPHICAL RESTRICTIONS ON A CHILD’S RESIDENCE
In Texas, a parent’s ability to relocate with a child is often dependent upon the child custody arrangement initially established following his or her divorce. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the basics of child custody in order to fully grasp the intricacies of child relocation.
While Texas law recognizes many different custodial arrangements, joint custody – also referred to as joint managing conservatorship – is one of the most popular. Indeed, it is even presumed under state law that it is in the best interest of the child to appoint both parents as joint managing conservators, although this presumption can be rebutted if there exists a history of family violence.
Geographic Restrictions – Silence Is Not Golden
What are geographic restrictions and how important are they? And what does it mean when your parenting plan is silent as to a geographic restriction?
It is the public policy of Texas to assure that children have frequent and continuing contact with their parents, even after the parents have ended their relationship. In order to make sure that children of divorced parents or parents who are no longer together have continuing and frequent contact with both parents, the Courts almost always restrict the residence of the child to a specific area.
Typically, the Courts will restrict the child’s residence to the county the court is located in and will sometimes include the counties immediately surrounding that county. So for a Tarrant County case, the primary conservator typically must maintain the child’s residence within Tarrant County and surrounding counties that touch Tarrant County. This ensures that the parents live close enough to one another that the child will be able to see both parents easily and frequently.
Divorcing a Narcissist
HOW A NARCISSIST CAN COMPLICATE YOUR DIVORCE
One important step of the divorce process is settling the marital matters of property division, child custody, and any child and spousal support. These divorce disputes can be settled through trial or through negotiation, where both spouses can openly discuss an agreement between themselves. Cooperating and compromising outside of the courtroom can save time, money, and stress during a divorce. However, a narcissistic spouse may make this very difficult – or even impossible.
Some common narcissistic traits that might hinder or complicate divorce include:
- inflated self-importance and belief of superiority;
- excessive entitlement;
- expecting recognition and admiration;
- belittling others;
- expecting others to comply without question;
- not recognizing the feelings or needs of others;
- reacting with anger or vengeance when they do not get what they want;
Results listed are not a guarantee or indication of future case results.
