The emotional toll of getting divorced on the couple and their families may be hefty, but there are practical issues that need to be addressed as well. Here we lay out what you need to know in this quick guide to getting divorced.
If you’ve recently divorced, or are in the process of getting divorced, you’ve probably experienced the emotional toll it can take.
It can become quite difficult to sort out all the practical parts of divorce whilst dealing with the emotional side. However, things like division of financial assets, child maintenance, tax credits and more all need to be addressed.
In this post, we’re going to help you with these issues by listing all the practical elements of divorce you need to take care of. But, before we do that, we’re going to quickly detail the emotional stages of divorce so you can map where you are.
What Are the Emotional Elements of Divorce?
Everyone reacts differently to break up. Some people deal with it really well, and others go through stages of grief. The following is a list of the emotional stages you can go through when getting divorced:
1. Denial
Denial is a powerful coping mechanism that some people use to deal with their emotions when getting divorced. Some common signs of this include:
- You refuse to believe that the divorce is even happening and struggle to find ways to fix the relationship.
- You start to believe that there’s one pivotal thing you can say that will reunite you and your spouse.
- You believe that divorce is not the solution anymore and want to reverse your decision.
2. Shock
These emotions stem from the fear of living your life alone, and you wondering how you could even survive once the divorce is over. Although it’s important to remember these feelings are temporary and will pass, you might experience:
- Rage, panic, and numbness.
- Feeling like you’re going crazy.
- Swinging back and forth between despair that your marriage has ended and hope that it will be repaired.
3. Bargaining
At this point you’re still holding onto the idea that your marriage can be restored. You look at things about yourself and think how you can change them to make the other person come back. The important thing to remember, at this stage, is that you can’t control what your spouse does by changing a few things about yourself.
4. Letting Go
This is the stage where you finally realise the marriage is over, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. You stop blaming the faults of your ex-spouse for the breakdown of the marriage, and begin to recognise your own part in it. You might feel somewhat liberated and optimistic about the future too.
5. Acceptance
During this final stage, all your obsessive thoughts have stopped, and you don’t feel like you need to heal the marriage anymore. You start to make plans and follow through with them, and you are emotionally prepared for the future. You will then become open to finding new interests, see your strengths and talents, and can move past the fear of being alone
What Are the Practical Elements of Divorce?
Considering the emotional rollercoaster laid out in the above section, it’s difficult to imagine getting any practical divorce stuff done before you reach the acceptance stage.
Unfortunately, these issues don’t wait for you to be ready, and you have to address them as early as possible. If you can actually get them out of the way in the early emotional stages, you won’t have them hanging over you and making you feel worse. Here are the major practical issues you need to deal with during your divorce:
Your Home
The first issue all divorcing couples have to consider is where each of you are going to live, and how you’re going to afford to pay for your home.
Renting
If you’re in rented accommodation, speak to your landlord, explain the circumstances, and transfer the tenancy agreement to whichever partner is staying there.
Obviously, before you do this, you need to make sure the person who continues to live there has enough money to pay the rent. Otherwise, you’ll both need to find a new place to stay.
Mortgage
Those of you with a mortgage will have to come to an agreement on how the monthly payments will be made. If one of you is staying in the home, the other might not want to contribute to the mortgage, so working this out is important.
If your spouse is unwilling to pay for the mortgage before you finalise your divorce, there are ways around this. You can ask the court to make an interim maintenance order to make your partner pay their part of the mortgage until a settlement is reached.
Every mortgage lender is different in the way they deal with missed or reduced mortgage payments. So, it’s a good idea to speak to them early in the divorce to make a payment arrangement with them.
Council Tax
Every local council in the UK offers a sole occupancy council tax reduction of 25 percent. Speaking to your local council as soon as you are living alone will ensure you save as much money as possible and don’t overpay on your tax.
Bank Accounts
Lots of married couples use joint accounts. If you have a joint account with your divorced partner, it’s important to split your finances into separate accounts. This can be a bit tricky as you have to come to an agreement on who gets what.
This is probably something best left up to a solicitor. In the meantime, you could speak to your bank and make it so that you both have to jointly sign for any withdrawals. If you don’t do this, either one of you could take as much money out as you want, and it would be considered completely legal.
Children
If you get a divorce and you have children, you need to decide who they’re going to stay with and how visitation will work. You can do this amicably, in which case the court won’t get involved, but if you can’t agree it will end up in the courts.
Child maintenance also needs to be considered because you are both legally responsible for the cost of looking after your children. Usually, the parent who moves out will pay maintenance to the parent the child is staying with.
Solicitors
Some of these issues can be solved without the help of a solicitor, but only in a situation where you’re both 100 percent amicable on everything. If you want to keep your solicitor bills down, being agreeable on as many things as possible is the easiest way.
You can also make use of resources, like this post, to learn as much as you can about divorce and keep the solicitors out of it as much as possible.
If you do have to use a solicitor, ask them if they work for a fixed fee so you know how much you’re going to have to spend. You can also apply for legal aid to pay for mediation, but it’s rare that it will cover fees for a divorce.
Is That All I Need to Know?
In this post, we’ve managed to cover the emotional and practical sides of getting divorced, so you know how you’re going to feel and what you’ll need to do whilst you feel that way.
There are other practical issues to consider when getting divorced, but the division of assets is the main issue you need to address. Other things can wait until you’ve made it through, and you’ve found acceptance.
Thank you for reading this post, and good luck with the practical side of your divorce.
