If you’re facing a divorce, the name of the game is successfully negotiating mutually acceptable terms that support your parental and financial rights – as well as your future. While this sounds easy enough, it tends to be incredibly complicated, and when you add the high emotions that accompany divorce, it can leave you feeling as if your goals are completely out of reach.
The good news is that you can become a more effective negotiator, and an experienced Round Rock divorce attorney can help.
To Begin, You Need to Know What You Are Working With
Over the course of your marriage, you likely amassed a considerable amount of assets, including your family home, retirement accounts, vehicles, and more, which are all offset by your marital debts.
You are facing a divorce, and you know that protecting your financial rights is key, but too many people in your position simply come out swinging – in the hopes of grabbing up whatever assets they can. This is not a strategy, and it’s not going to help you establish the effective negotiation skills that will serve you well through the divorce process.
Establish a Working List of Your Assets
To begin, you will need to build a solid foundation by establishing a working list of what you own, keeping assets and debts like the following in mind:
Your mortgage
Your household goods and furnishings
You and your spouse’s incomes
You and your spouse’s retirement accounts
Your shared and separate bank accounts
Your investment portfolio and any additional investments that may not be accounted for by stocks, bonds, and investment accounts
Life insurance policies
You and your spouse’s health insurance policies – or your shared policy
Your vehicle titles
Titles for any recreational vehicles, including RVs, 4-wheelers, boats, and beyond
Any valuable collections
Artworks
Credit card and other outstanding debt
Factors like having high assets, owning a business, owning real estate, and having joint holdings can all make property division more complicated, but having a master list to work from provides you with a checklist that can help guide you through the process.
If your spouse is more involved in your family’s day-to-day finances than you are, it is a good idea to gather and compile copies of all the financial documentation you can access early on – keeping all the above in mind.
Valuations May Be Required
While some assets are fairly easy to put a value on, such as stocks and bonds, others are far more challenging. The sooner you assign values to assets, the better prepared you will be to negotiate the just and right division of your marital assets.
The most straightforward approach generally involves choosing a valuation expert who is mutually acceptable to you and your divorcing spouse. If this is not in the cards, however, you may need to each obtain your own valuations and work backward from there.
Knowing the Ins and Outs of Your Marital Finances Will Make You a Better Negotiator
The more you know about your marital finances, the better prepared you’ll be to engage in effective negotiations. In Texas, marital assets refer to everything that you and your spouse acquired while you were married – regardless of who bought what and whose name is attached to what.
The only exceptions include gifts or inheritances that either of you received in your own name alone or the compensation for pain and suffering that either of you received from a personal injury claim.
Factors that Affect Property Division
While Texas is a community property state, marital property isn’t necessarily divided evenly between divorcing spouses. Instead, the state seeks a fair division based on factors like the following:
The length of the marriage
Each spouse’s age, overall health, and earning power
Each spouse’s income
The size of the marital estate
Each spouse’s separate estate
The contributions each spouse made to the marriage, which factors in homemaking and caring for the children
Any wrongdoing on the part of either spouse – which can be relevant even in a no-fault divorce
Any dissipation of marital assets, which refers to artificially diminishing the marital estate for one’s own financial benefit
Separate Assets
Those assets that either of you owned prior to marriage and that you kept separate from your marital assets during your marriage remain the property of the original owner, but it’s not quite that simple. The State of Texas begins with the presumption that all assets are marital, which means the spouse who claims a separate asset is required to prove its separate nature.
Further, when a separate asset isn’t kept strictly separate, it can be far more difficult to identify it as belonging to you alone. When a separate asset increases in value during your marriage, that increase is considered marital and will need to be included in your property division.
Once you understand what you have and how property division works in Texas, you’ll be far better prepared to hone your negotiation skills. For personalized guidance on protecting your assets and securing a fair outcome, reach out to an experienced Round Rock divorce attorney.
Keep Your Children’s Best Interests Front and Center
The two primary concerns in any divorce involving children tend to be property division and child custody. When the State of Texas makes child custody determinations, its primary focus is the children’s best interest, and it begins with the presumption that both parents should continue playing an active role in their lives in terms of parenting time and legal custody.
Legal custody refers to the responsibility of making primary parenting decisions regarding the children’s upbringing, including those related to the following:
Their schooling
Their medical care
Their religious education
Their participation in extracurricular activities
Joint legal custody can mean making these decisions together – while one of you may have the capacity to break a tie if you can’t find middle ground – or dividing these decisions between you according to category.
Recognizing that it is in your children’s best interests to continue spending ample time with each of you – barring extraordinary circumstances – puts you in a negotiation sweet spot. A hallmark of excellent negotiators is that they begin with realistic expectations, are motivated by the greater good, and don’t lose sight of their priorities.
The bottom line is that – unless there is a serious reason for ruling otherwise – you and your ex will each receive generous parenting time schedules. This said, however, one of you may become the primary custodial parent, which means receiving more parenting time, and best-interest factors like the following can work in your favor if this is your goal:
If you’re well equipped and motivated to effectively address all your children’s needs, including any special needs they may have
If you’ve been more involved in raising your shared children than your spouse has been to date, such as if you put your career on hold to stay home with the kids or if you rearranged your own work hours to spend more time with them
If the kids are living with you while your divorce is pending, and this arrangement is working well for them in terms of their schooling, home life, and community
If you demonstrate your commitment to being an effective co-parent and your desire to facilitate the children’s close and ongoing relationship with their other parent
Know Your Rights
We’ve touched on your child custody and property division rights in divorce, but you should also consider your rights regarding child support and alimony.
Child Support
Child support is the state’s tool for ensuring that both parents continue supporting their children financially. While there are a wide range of considerations that can play a role in this calculation, the parent who earns more typically makes child support payments to the other at the following rate:
20 percent of their net income for 1 child
25 percent of their net income for 2 children
30 percent of their net income for 3 children
35 percent of their net income for 4 children
40 percent of their net income for 5 children
At least 40 percent of their net income for 6 or more children
Alimony
Alimony, which is called spousal maintenance in Texas, is not a right, but when the circumstances support it, it can be ordered. If, for example, your divorce leaves you without the financial resources to address your own reasonable needs – while your soon-to-be ex has the means to help – you could be entitled to alimony.
Have a Plan
Good negotiators are flexible – rather than rigid – in their approach, but they don’t go into negotiations without a plan. When it comes to divorce, your plan refers to your priorities – whatever they may be.
A good place to start is by pinpointing what you’re most concerned about regarding your divorce terms and then discussing how realistic your goals are with your attorney. You can make tweaks from here, which helps lay the foundation for a well-considered strategy that will guide your efforts as you move forward.
Simply going after everything that you possibly can isn’t a strategy. The clearer you are about what matters most to you in your divorce, the more leverage you’ll have at the negotiation table. With a solid plan and skilled legal guidance in place, you’ll have the boost you need to negotiate with confidence.
Focus on Solutions
Being a world-class negotiator isn’t about demanding your own way but about finding solutions that address each side’s concerns. While your financial and parental rights guide your decisions, focusing on finding mutually acceptable solutions during the negotiation process can help you get there faster, saving you time, money, and emotional upheaval.
Focusing on solutions means putting your personal grievances aside during negotiations. This doesn’t mean that your feelings aren’t valid, but it does mean that there are better venues for dealing with them. You likely know where your divorcing spouse stands on the relevant issues, and the solution is finding a means of bridging the gap between their position and yours.
Often, this means striking a bargain in which you each give up something in order to gain something or reaching a compromise in which each of you dials back your expectations to meet in the middle.
Keep Your Emotions in Check
You’re going through a divorce, and the last thing anyone would tell you to do is stuff your emotions, which can only lead to negative consequences. Seeking the emotional support you need from trusted family members, friends, and loved ones is an excellent plan throughout the divorce process, but it’s a different matter when it comes to negotiations.
The steps forward toward becoming a better negotiator build upon themselves, which means that, when the time comes to roll up your sleeves, you’ll have already laid the groundwork necessary to engage in effective and efficient negotiations. This includes all the following:
Knowing your rights
Knowing what’s at stake
Formulating divorce priorities
Strategizing a clear path forward
Remaining open-minded and flexible
Having trusted legal representation in your corner
Checking each of these boxes affords the peace of mind that comes from knowing you’re well-prepared to tackle your divorce negotiations both effectively and efficiently.
An Experienced Round Rock Divorce Lawyer Is Standing By to Help You
Brett Pritchard at The Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard is a trusted Round Rock divorce attorney who is skilled at guiding productive negotiations that protect his clients’ parental and financial rights, and he is here for you, too.
Successful negotiations are key to obtaining favorable divorce terms, so please don’t wait to contact or call us at 254-781-4222 to schedule a free consultation and learn more about what we can do to help you today.