Call 817-348-6723 or 817-DIVORCE
Recent Blog Posts
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
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;
What to Do When Divorcing a Narcissist
Divorce is a painful process. But if you’re divorcing a narcissist, it gets trickier. Narcissists frequently engage in manipulative and dominating behaviors, complicating and lengthening the process.
If you are in this situation, you need to know about all the difficulties of divorcing a narcissist. By being prepared, you can create plans for surviving and prospering through this trying period.
Understanding Narcissism
It can be challenging to agree with your spouse when you are going through a divorce. If that person is a narcissist, it could lead to more issues. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) has certain characteristics. These individuals may have:
- A consistent pattern of grandiosity
- An insatiable need for admiration
- A lack of empathy towards others
Along with that, they believe they are entitled to special privileges. Unfortunately, people with this disorder will not seek mental health treatment. As a result, they may live their lives with an undiagnosed condition.
Divorce for Business Owners
More Than 30 Years Of Experience, Prompt Access to Highly Qualified Valuation Experts
At The Law Office of J. Kevin Clark P.C. in Tarrant County, we have experience protecting the interests of business and commercial property owners, licensed professionals and their spouses in Texas divorce cases. Divorce for business owners and other aspects of complex property division are familiar territory for our legal team.
In essence, you may be confronting two divorces: one that ends your marriage and another that ends a business partnership. Especially after a long-term marriage with a family business involved, it is often necessary to determine which spouse will keep the business and whether a buyout of the other spouse is necessary. Attorney Kevin Clark works extensively with qualified business valuators and other experts in relevant fields to ensure that:
- You obtain your own solid, accurate business valuation using the right method and timing, which will depend on the type of business, its viability and profitability, and many other factors
Who Can File For An Uncontested Divorce in Texas?
While uncontested divorce is a simplified divorce process, it does not necessarily mean a “do-it-yourself” divorce. Do-it-yourself divorces often result in serious oversights and setbacks, including judges’ refusals to sign the required documents and approve the divorce. So, it is best to approach your uncontested divorce with the guidance of an experienced, diligent divorce lawyer in Fort Worth who can make sure all your spousal rights are being appropriately addressed.
Be aware that Texas divorce law restricts the uncontested divorce process to couples who meet the following criteria:
- both spouses agree on the “grounds” for the divorce;
- both spouses agree to end the marriage;
- neither spouse has an ongoing bankruptcy case;
- the couple doesn’t have minor children;
- neither spouse owns property together and do not have retirement benefits to divide; and
- neither spouse is seeking alimony.
Results listed are not a guarantee or indication of future case results.
