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Selling a home is stressful. Getting divorced is stressful. Combining the two events can seem extremely daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are five staging tips to ensure quicker, higher offers on your home.
  1. Curb Appeal. The outside of your home is the first impression a buyer will have. Keep the lawn mowed, and shrubs and flower beds cared for. A well maintained lawn and some fresh flowers can go a long way. If the outside maintenance was previously your ex’s responsibility, consider whether this is something you are able to take care of yourself or if you will need to hire out. With winter in the Midwest on the approach take snow removal into consideration as well.
  2. De-clutter. A divorce is a good time to de-clutter all areas of your home. Since you will be splitting up belongings anyhow, now is a great time to de-clutter, sell, donate and start fresh with only the clothing, furniture and decor that you truly utilize. Online garage sales are all the rave right now for selling belongings. A good rule of thumb is if you don’t want to move it, get rid of it now. Going through drawers and storage spaces to get rid of junk is one part of de-cluttering, but also removing items like small appliances and magazines from the countertops creates a cleaner looking spaces.
  3. Remove personal items. You have probably already began to do this as those old family photos might not be as appealing to have on your walls after your spouse has moved out. There are different schools of thought on this and your realtor will likely have their own opinion, but your tasteful, professional photos of the kids don’t necessarily have to go. Removing personal items can also help you begin to detach yourself from the house. Don’t forget to tuck away personal care items in your bathroom, which will simplify your countertops.
  4. Create neutral spaces. Pick up a paintbrush and tone down any bold color choices in favor of a more natural palette. The mustard yellow accent wall in your kitchen or those bubble gum pink walls in your daughter’s room may appeal to you, but toning them down will make your house more palatable for potential buyers and they will be able to envision their decor and taste in the house. Consider rearranging and/or removing some furniture to create more visually open and appealing spaces. If your ex is going to benefit from the sale of your home, be sure to discuss their involvement in the painting and handiwork as well.
  5. Lastly, consider the appeal your home has on the senses. What does it smell like? Avoid spray scents and instead bake bread or cookies. Open the blinds and curtains to let light in. Turn on the lights. Consider the temperature inside of your home. Whether it is summer or winter choose a temperature that is comfortable and invites people to stay and look at your home.
In addition to these staging tips you may want to consider having your home professionally staged. A survey from the National Association of Realtors found that the average staging investment is 1-3 percent of the home’s asking price, which generates a home staging return on investment of 8-10 percent. Discuss with your realtor if professional home staging is something you should consider, but don’t skip out on these five tips which are crucial to home selling!
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Getting married is about love. Well the tide turns when a couple decides to get unmarried or divorced. Divorce is then about money and kids and hopefully not in that order. Being prepared to have financial discussions with your spouse, financial neutral specialist, or your attorney takes time, effort, and I think introspection, to create the greatest likelihood for a successful outcome. One of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks of getting unmarried is compiling all of the financial information necessary. One way or another you and your spouse need to provide copies of statements for all assets, liabilities, paycheck records, tax returns, deeds to your home, pension and 401k accounts, credit card accounts, bank accounts and more.  More than likely you will build a more complete documented financial record than most ever did during their marriage. I think the most important thing you can do to prepare beyond being fully transparent in disclosing and providing all financial documentation is to develop a healthy mindset.  While this is challenging it is certainly doable and worthwhile. The hard work it takes to develop a healthy mindset can save you time, money, and headaches. Just what do I mean by a healthy mindset? It helps to put all your focus on the future instead of dwelling on the past. Focus on your interests instead of positions. Interests are the underlying reasons why something may be so important to a person. Let us look at a simple example. Let us say we have one orange and two people who both want the orange.  They both draw lines in the sand saying no to the other in terms of giving up the orange.  This is a position, something both people decided. It is not until we ask why the orange is so important to them that we determine the underlying interests. What is it that caused each of these people in our example to decide they both want the orange? It turns out one wants the orange to eat and one wants the orange peelings for baking. By getting to the underlying interests, we solve the problem position of one orange wanted by two people.  Learn to think, talk, and express yourself in terms of your interests when negotiating with others. You will be amazed at what can happen and how seemingly unsolvable problems can be resolved. Helping you and your spouse speak in interests is something we as professionals do in the collaborative divorce process. Here are four other basic skills you can learn and practice to help you through the divorce process.
  1. Manage your emotions:  As I said earlier focus on solutions rather than reacting emotionally. Regardless of what someone else might say do not take it personally.
  2. Flexible thinking:  Flexible thinking will help you come up with new ideas and creative solutions. It is important for you and your spouse to maintain flexible thinking during the divorce process.
  3. Moderate behavior:  Moderating your behavior will help your spouse be a little more open minded, respectful, and less defensive.
  4. Checking in with yourself:  As you are going through divorce process checking in often with self on how you are doing on the above three items especially when under stress can help things go more smoothly.
While I cannot promise you, everything will be smooth sailing in your divorce by following these simple suggestions the seas of divorce can be less intimidating and help you reach your final port destination with a little less wear and tear.
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People who are facing divorce after many years of marriage, or just later in life, face unique challenges. They are less connected by the need to provide daily care and financial support for their children. They also may be facing other life changes such as upcoming retirement or increasing health concerns (and costs!) as they age. Sometimes this has been called The Graying of Divorce. According to Mayoclinic.org, “Empty nest syndrome isn’t a clinical diagnosis. Instead, empty nest syndrome is a phenomenon in which parents experience feelings of sadness and loss when the last child leaves home.” It is a life transition where spouses can take a step back and look at how their lives are progressing. As part of this process of reflection, they may say to themselves: “I’ve put up with this long enough!” Alternatively, it might be a time when couples take advantage of having more time to explore new interests and activities to share together. A process that can be helpful to those considering divorce or separation is called Discernment Counseling. Discernment Counseling is different than regular couples counseling because–instead of just focusing on helping the marriage relationship–it focuses on deciding whether the marriage should be worked on or whether divorce or separation should be pursued. The University of Minnesota has a Discernment Counseling project has a helpful website that you may want to visit if you want to learn more about Discernment Counseling. If divorce is the path chosen, Collaborative Divorce is often a perfect option as it can help increase communication and mutual respect to the benefit of both spouses (and grown children!). A neutral financial professional can analyze retirement cash flow and budgets, including tax implications of withdrawing retirement funds. Empty Nest divorces have their own unique challenges. They also are an opportune time to be able to enter a process that the older divorcing couple can be proud of in creating a respectful transition to separate living and ending of their marriage.
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184849475The beginning of a new school year is all about the juxtaposition of continuity and change.  We all remember the mix of excitement, anxiety, hope and worry that accompany this time of transition for children.  Parents want their kids to settle in safely and achieve success, while kids count on their parents’ support. For many children, the changes marking the new school year are not only teacher, grade, classroom and classmates, but changes in their families because of divorce.  Here are seven tips for co-parents to support their children in this situation:
  1. Let your child know that you have contacted trusted adults at school (teacher, social worker, principal) to let them know about the family change, and have done so in a calm and respectful way.  Tell your child it is important that trusted adults at school know because they care about your child and will be available to offer empathy and support as needed.  Reassure your child that family information will be kept confidential by these trusted adults, and it is your child’s choice about whether and when to share information with classmates.
  2. Explore possible school-based resources for children whose parents are divorced.  Many schools offer specialized support groups as well as individual counseling resources for kids.
  3. Participate in beginning of school activities with your child as fully as possible.  Express interest, encouragement and enthusiasm for this important part of your child’s life.
  4. Establish routines that will support your child in homework completion, having family meals and getting to bed on time. Be sure to share information with your co-parent regarding school projects and homework assignments that will need to be worked on in both homes so your child experiences continuity of support.
  5. If your child participates in sports or other extracurricular activities and depends on parent involvement, be sure to arrange transportation and other logistics in advance so your child doesn’t worry.  If there are multiple children in a family, this often requires co-parent cooperation.
  6. Establish a joint online family calendar for scheduling child-centered events.  This is an effective way for co-parents to remain in the loop regarding activities for their children.
  7. If your children are experiencing transitions between homes as part of your parenting plan, be aware that they will benefit from your patience and empathy in this process.  Help them get organized, and be supportive rather than critical if they forget something at the other parent’s home.  It’s a big learning curve for kids.
A positive and responsive school experience can be an anchor for your child, especially in the midst of family change.  I hope this can be the case for every child this year.
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497335421If you have created an estimated monthly budget for your new household after a divorce, know that it will likely change down the road. You may discover after a few months that your spending estimates were unrealistic in some areas while other areas of spending were surprising or unexpected. Here are some tips for projecting your expenses realistically into the future. Plan for car purchases. Even if you don’t have a car payment now, you’ll need to replace your car at some point. Consider including a figure in your projected expenses for “car savings.” If you usually keep a car for eight to 10 years and think you’ll spend about $25,000 on a new vehicle, save $260 a month to buy a newer car for cash when the time comes. This means no new car payment, but you’ll have a new vehicle! If you purchase cars more often, factor in the sale or trade-in of your existing car when determining how much to save. Keep up with car maintenance. The older the car you have, the more money you should set aside for unexpected repairs as well as maintenance. Maintenance could include oil changes, replacing tires, fixing brakes, tune-ups and other recommended inspections. Regular maintenance will help your car last longer too. Escrow for home repairs. A good rule of thumb for home maintenance costs is to escrow 1 to 2 percent of the value of your home each year. A home valued at $300,000, for example, could have annual maintenance costs of $3,000 to $6,000. Costs will be on the higher end for older homes or maintenance you will hire out. Maintenance could include:
  • Replacing the roof, siding or windows
  • Caring for lawn and garden, landscaping, drainage
  • Fixing and replacing appliances
  • Repairs to plumbing or electrical
  • Cleaning and replacing carpets
  • Painting
  • Pool maintenance
  • Small maintenance for light bulbs, furnace filters, etc.
You might not need the full annual budget for maintenance every year, but you may need more than the budget in other years. Start a holiday savings account. December gift giving, let alone birthday and anniversary gifting, are often missed when budgeting. Consider the gifts you give, the decorating costs and entertaining you host as part of a holiday savings account. This is one area that, once budgeted, people often decide to scale down in future years. However, if it’s a priority for you, you’ll have cash to enjoy it instead of worries about the bills later! Vacations should be planned with cash. If you routinely take one family vacation a year or take trips to visit friends and family, add these expenses to your monthly budget and put away cash to cover costs that include airfare, car rentals, lodging, meals, touring and shopping. Don’t forget to budget for “big box” spending. People often create a projected budget for groceries or school shopping expenses, but an easier way to budget is to create a “big box” category to cover shopping at stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Costco or other department/membership stores. If you find yourself shopping at these stores at least twice a month, budget for the trips and bring cash. These are just a few of the ways you can project your future expenses and plan ahead. Other categories to consider include: health care, debt payments, charitable giving, and entertainment. Adjust your amounts as you start to see a pattern month to month, and you’ll have a clearer picture of your cash flow forecast!
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82830939In Part I we learned that “rights-based” advocacy in the Court Model is hard on the problem but also hard on the people. Advocacy in the “interest-based” Collaborative Model is also hard on the problem, but SOFT on the people. How is this possible? In the Collaborative Model, the parties voluntarily agree to reach a settlement outside of court. Thus the 3rd party decision-maker, e.g., the judge, is removed from the collaborative process. Instead, the decision-maker is the parties themselves!

Circle Diagram for Collab Model 082814

In order to reach a settlement, the parties must consider and honor the other party’s perspective. In the Collaborative Model, advocacy is not about the position a client takes on a particular issue, but about meeting the future needs, interests, and goals that are defined by the couple themselves. By framing the problem in terms of needs, interests and goals, parties are likely to see their dispute as a mutual problem that they must work together to solve. They now answer the question: how do we both get our needs and interests met? How does our family get its needs and interests met? Advocacy in the Collaborative Model encourages parties to look behind their opposed positions to determine the motivating interests. In doing so, the parties often find alternative solutions that meet the needs of both sides. Collaborative advocacy pays attention to balance, listening and being creative. Collaborative advocacy creates an incentive to work together, acknowledge the other, to be authentic and realistic. This kind of collaboration can occur only in an atmosphere that is respectful, transparent, and mutual; and one that incentivizes caring about the other party’s point of view with the removal of the 3rd party decision-maker. While being hard on the problem and soft on the people seems to be a contradiction, it is this contradiction that promotes better settlements and preserves needed relationships. Who knew that removing the 3rd party decision-maker could make such a difference! In Part III, I will explore how the power of neutrality is the secret sauce to a successful collaborative divorce.
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10079764Why are less and less couples getting married? Is it because their parent’s marriages failed? Is it because they don’t see any benefit to marriage? Is it because every wedding appears to be a $20,000 extravagant country club affair? Maybe, as was written in a recent New York Times article, “…marriage has gone from being a way that people pulled their lives together to something they agree to once they have already done that independently.” There are several problems with this way of thinking. One is that children don’t wait for marriage. More and more children are born outside of marriage. This is a problem if the parents separate without ever marrying, because then (at least in Minnesota) the father has no enforceable legal rights to parenting time until he spends a significant amount of time and money to get a judge to order that he can have parenting time with the child. This is true regardless of whether the father has raised the child jointly with the mother since the child’s birth. This is a bad deal for both the father and the child as it typically significantly interrupts their relationship and causes unwarranted stress on the child. Another reason is that marriage is a financial life jacket in terms of protections for the lower earning spouse and a fair division of the assets accumulated during the marriage.  This is one reason same-sex couples had been yearning for the protection of marriage until it became the law in Minnesota in 2013. Same-sex couples were not entitled to a fair division of the house or their partner’s retirement account, without access to the institution of marriage. Because it is risky financially to accumulate assets together before marriage and because marriage helps protect the father-child relationship for the benefit of child, it is risky business to delay marriage if you are having a child together or are otherwise in a committed relationship.
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174496060It is not uncommon for parents to disagree on school choice. Sometimes parents have differing opinions on the curriculum of a school or certain teachers or even location or class schedule. When children are at natural school moves (such as entering junior high or high school), additional changes need to be made. When parents are divorced, these decisions can often be even more difficult. In addition to deciding what’s best for the children, emotions and challenging communication can make the decisions even harder. Sometimes it is good to look at the practical and logical considerations to help make these joint decisions. Here are some specific considerations in a school decision:
  • If it is not a natural school change point, how well do the children deal with change? Do they make friends easily? Do they know anyone at the potential new school? Are there specific elements of the new school that would be particularly enjoyable for the child (such as an orchestra or specific extra curricular activity)?
  • How well does the new school deal with change? Do they have programs in place to integrate transfer students into school? Is there anyone who has transferred into the school recently that you or the children could talk to in order to prepare? Could the school assign your children mentors or buddies to help them feel more comfortable if they transfer?
  • How would a school change impact parenting time? Will both parents still have meaningful time with the children?
  • Should the children have some say in this decision? Junior high and high school students may want to visit potential schools and provide some input on the change.
Ideally, divorced parents with joint custody can work together and make a school choice together. If it becomes difficult or starts to cause any stress or strain on the children, consider seeking third party support. A neutral child specialist or collaborative process could help you work together on a decision.
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155039126The psychologist Anthony Wolf wrote a book about divorce and kids entitled Why Do You Have to Get a Divorce?  And Can I Still Get a Hamster?   I love the title of this book, because it identifies both the big picture concerns and the day to day questions children will have about how their lives will change when parents get unmarried. At this time of year, most elementary school aged children, and some older kids too,  become excited about Halloween.  Though it has deep roots in ancient cultural traditions, in today’s American culture Halloween is truly the children’s holiday.  Kids love to dress up and pretend, and most are thrilled to go trick or treating or attend special events and come back with a stash of treats.  Some kids plan their Halloween costumes for months in advance, and it’s not uncommon for homes to be extensively decorated with more than just jack-o-lanterns. Holidays are usually difficult times for families experiencing divorce, about which I have written earlier.  I am focusing on Halloween in this October blog post because this uniquely children’s holiday is right around the corner.  Here are four tips for creating a positive experience for your children:
  1. Manage your expectations so your kids can manage theirs.  This may not be the year that Mom will be able to spend hours at the sewing machine making elaborate homemade costumes.  But it may be the year that your kids have a friendly competition for who can make the most creative costume out of things already in the closets, drawers and attics at home.  If your child has his or her heart set on getting a particular costume, and you want to honor this dream, be sure to budget for the purchase of the costume.
  2. Ask your kids what is most important to them about Halloween and focus your energy accordingly.  This often requires co-parent cooperation, for which your kids will be grateful  If their favorite part is carving pumpkins, make this activity as festive as possible, and be sure to take lots of pictures to send to your co-parent if s/he is not participating.  If the high point is trick or treating, decide in advance whether one or both parents will be responsible for taking them out and whether one parent will stay behind to hand out treats.  If you are separated, decide in advance which neighborhood is likely to be the most fun for trick or treating this year, and go from there.
  3. Rely on your support system. Trick or treating or going to a Halloween event with neighbors, friends or cousins can help create a fun experience for your kids if your own energy is depleted.
  4. Determine co-parenting ground rules for how to handle the stash of treats, e.g. how much can be right away and how the remainder will be saved and distributed.  Work this out in advance so your children will not be in the middle of a parental argument on Halloween .
I wish you and your children a peaceful and happy Halloween!
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When you find out your son or daughter is getting a divorce, your first thought will often be about their children; your grandchildren.  How will the children be affected by all of this?  And how can you help; or avoid hurting the situation? During the 31 years I have been working with divorcing families, I have seen situations where the grandparents have really helped their children and grandchildren though a difficult time.  Sadly however, I have witnessed far more situations where they grandparents have, without realizing it, actually make the divorce more difficult for their grandchildren. You may be wondering; how can this be?  What type of person would actually make the divorce more difficult for their grandchildren?  Believe it or not, it can happen to the very best grandparents without them even realizing it.  Here are the two common mistakes that grandparents make:
  1. Facilitating a War by Creating a War Chest. Divorce is expensive, and your children may turn to you to help with the legal fees. If you have the capacity to help, it would seem, at least on the surface, to be the right thing to do to provide them with funding, at least in the form of a loan. While the financial assistance is sometimes helpful, sometimes it can actually add to the conflict. The thing that damages children the most is generally the conflict that so often happens when one or both parents are angry, sad or scared. If your children have enough funding, they can sometimes carry out the conflict through attorneys. If their funds are limited, the may be forced to look past the emotions and find solutions.  When I litigated divorces (something I can no longer stomach), some of the nastiest custody fights were funded by grandparents. All of the grandparents thought they were helping out their grandchildren. Usually they only perpetuated a fight.
  2. “Supporting” your child by reaffirming the evilness of their spouse. The emotions of divorce create distortions. The wonderful son-in-law that you heard about for the past 15 years, is now portrayed by your daughter as a monster. As you hear the stories of how badly he is behaving, you are aghast and quickly run to her support by suddenly remembering things that you never really liked about him. It may be that your son-in-law was not as great as you thought; and it may be that the divorce is bringing out his worst behavior. However, it is possible, (maybe even likely) that you are getting a distorted picture of this person and, adding to the distortion, (which can happen instinctively) may cause damage to the only father your grandchildren will ever know.
So, how do you avoid making these mistakes?  One way is to encourage your children to fully explore their divorce processes, so that they can be supported by attorneys and other professionals who will help them resist the distortions and the war mentality.  To learn more about these options, go to www.collaborativelaw.org  or www.divorchoice.com.