Author Archives: Jay Butchko
What Happens When Your Spouse Doesn’t Give You a Chance to Speak, Even at Your Trial?
Being married to someone who never lets you get a word in edgewise is exhausting. If you make it past your tenth wedding anniversary with a relentless chatterbox, you either have copious patience, selective hearing, or both. Your spouse tells pointless anecdotes when she is happy and launches into prolonged diatribes when she is… Read More »
What Happens to the Support You Receive From Your Ex-Spouse If Your Fortunes Improve After Marriage?
Your friends and family will tell you that the first year after divorce is the hardest, and they are right. You feel the financial struggles most acutely, when you are managing the finances of more than half of your former family on less than half of your former family budget. This is especially the… Read More »
If You Want a Painless Co-Parenting Relationship, Start by Being KIND
Even if you have seen other divorced people succeed at co-parenting, it is even harder than it looks, especially in the beginning and especially during the holidays. Whether your co-parenting relationship eventually settles into a tolerable new normal or whether you and your ex-spouse continue to antagonize each other until your children reach adulthood,… Read More »
Dealing With a Disrespectful Co-Parent
Sometimes the most laid-back people become short-tempered after they become parents, even after the days of nighttime feedings and difficult to install baby car seats have passed. You might ordinarily be the kind of person who never takes offense to anything, but when you ask your child to do something and your child ignores… Read More »
Your Divorce Anniversary Is What You Make of It
Somewhere there is a couple who celebrates their divorce anniversary every year. Now that they no longer have to worry about managing their finances together, sharing household chores, or living up to the expectations of each other’s parents, it is easy for them to be close friends. Somewhere else, a divorced couple gets together… Read More »
The Stages of Adjusting to a New Reality After a Divorce
Divorce is exhausting. From the legal battles to hastily finding a new residence and moving into it, you are in crisis mode for such a long time that you barely have time to feel any emotions about the larger picture. The present looms so large in your mind that you can’t imagine how it… Read More »
Is There Ever a Valid Reason Not to Let Your Ex-Spouse Exercise Parenting Time?
It is never easy to let your children venture out into the world when you know about all of the unpleasantness and the dangers out there, but it is part of letting children grow up. You smile and wave goodbye as your children take their seats on the school bus, knowing that they have… Read More »
The Best Divorce Settlement Agreement Is One That Includes Clear Deadlines
You are not the only person who has been tempted to agree to less-than-ideal property division terms, just so you can finalize your divorce instead of continuing to go in circles during mediation. Your friends and your divorce lawyer might encourage you to stay and fight instead of giving up. You understand their point… Read More »
Does Florida Have Common Law Marriage?
When is a married couple not married? Is it possible to not know for sure whether you are truly married to your spouse? These are the kind of thoughts that never pass through your mind until you are watching Netflix alone late at night, and an offhand comment made by a character in a… Read More »
Text Messages and Your Divorce Case
Before the dawn on smartphones, the talking heads on the news used to knit their brows about the danger of kids texting. They made it sound as if those incomprehensible abbreviations that the young generation used was a harbinger of the downfall of civilization, when the simpler explanation was that, on those tiny flip… Read More »
