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Six Tips to Help You Get Through Your Illinois Divorce
Even when you know that getting divorced is the right choice, the process can still be very difficult. Most people feel a range of complex emotions, including guilt, sorrow, anger, and even regret. Long before the divorce is final, you are likely to be ready to move to the next stage of your life, and you may feel frustrated by how long the process is taking. If any of this sounds familiar to you, here are six tips to help you get through your DuPage County divorce.
Strategies For Getting Through Divorce
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Surround yourself with friends and family - Divorce often means losing the person with whom you used to share important details about your day. Although you may not be able to replace the role your spouse filled, having people to turn to for friendship, support, and a listening ear can make a big difference in your happiness during divorce.
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Practice forgiveness - Divorce usually leaves people feeling at least a little angry - angry about infidelity, emotional neglect, abuse, or even just the way things turned out. Holding on to the bitterness of past actions only ends up hurting you in the long turn. Forgiveness is a skill that we can get better at, and practicing forgiveness after divorce will help you move on.
What is Testamentary Capacity and Why Does it Matter?
It is rather common for people to think of estate planning as an end-of-life task. Estate planning attorneys are often called to visit clients in skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and hospice centers. However, waiting until this point to make a will can have negative ramifications. One of the major requirements for a will to be considered legal and enforceable is that the testator (the person creating their will) must have the mental capacity to do so. This standard is known as “testamentary capacity.” It is designed to prevent those who are incapacitated from executing a will that they would not have agreed to if they were not incapacitated. It also protects elders and their families against those who would exercise undue influence over a disoriented adult during the estate planning process.
Testamentary capacity is a relatively low bar - even those with early forms of Alzheimer’s or dementia may be able to make a will under the right circumstances. An attorney will be able to apply this standard to help determine whether someone still has the capacity to make a will.
Can an Illinois Divorce Lawyer Represent Both Me and My Spouse?
Even for spouses who get along fairly well, divorce in Illinois can be a complex and expensive affair. Spouses may wonder whether sharing a divorce attorney could save them time and money, especially if they want to cooperatively reach a resolution on issues like asset division and child custody.
However, no matter how well-intentioned spouses are towards each other, the fact is that divorce attorneys may only represent one partner in a divorcing couple. Attorneys are required to abide by ethical obligations that protect their clients, such as maintaining the attorney-client privilege and never allowing conflicts of interest to mar their representation of a client. Because even the most cooperative divorcing spouses necessarily have different and often opposing interests, an attorney representing both spouses would run into obvious conflicts of interest.
What Do We Do if Our Divorce Mediation Fails?
Most Illinois couples who are going through a divorce can avoid the difficulty and expense of courtroom divorce litigation by using the help of a trained divorce mediator. Because mediation is so successful and it saves both Illinois courts and divorcing spouses time and money, judges usually require spouses to undergo mediation before their divorce can advance to a trial.
However, the mediation process is not always feasible and, even for those who try it in good faith, it is not always successful. If mediation efforts have not yielded a mutually satisfying divorce decree, you may be wondering what comes next.
Why Does Mediation Fail?
Mediation can fail for many reasons. One or both spouses may be unwilling to cooperate or believe they will get a better “deal” if they present their case to a judge. Some spouses may be too hostile to reasonably work together. Other couples may try hard to negotiate but will still have unbridgeable differences in how they see certain facts or priorities.
4 Ways to Revoke a Will in Illinois
There is very little risk in making a will, as you can revoke it at any time so long as you are competent to do so. A lot of people revoke and replace their wills for a number of reasons. If you got divorced and remarried, you might want to revoke the will that left everything to your former spouse. If you had a child, or even a new grandchild, you might want to cancel your old will and create a new one that includes them. Some people simply change their minds about giving part of their estate to a particular beneficiary as their lives and priorities change. Fortunately, revoking a will is not usually overly complicated. It is still best to consult a lawyer to make sure that your revocation is effective.
How Can I Revoke My Will?
If you decide that you no longer want your existing will to control your estate, there are a few simple ways to revoke it. Once it is revoked, it will have no legal effect. It is a good idea to make sure that you have a replacement plan of some kind. In Illinois, you can revoke your will by:
Understanding Estate Planning Terminology in DuPage County
The terminology used in estate planning can be challenging to understand. If you feel a little confused when you read about estate planning topics because of all the “legalese,” you are far from alone. Many of the legal terms used in the estate planning field have very specific meanings. Some terms are used when discussing trusts, but not wills, or vice versa. Other terms you may know are outdated and no longer in use. It can be difficult to keep track of all the legal terms you might hear or read when it comes to wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and guardianships. This is one of many reasons that it is very important to let an attorney help you build your estate plan.
What Are Some Legal Terms I Might Need to Know?
Some important terms you might want to be familiar with when you start working on your estate plan include:
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Testator - The person who is making their will.
Can Legally Smoking Weed Affect My Rights to See My Child in Illinois?
Marijuana is now readily available to residents of Illinois. Coming in the form of vape pens, hard candies, chocolates, and traditional herb, marijuana products are easy to use with very little thought as to whether there may be negative consequences to this change in policy. While marijuana is often marketed as a sort of panacea for illness, pain, and other ailments, like all intoxicating substances, marijuana use can have negative side effects for its users. Additionally, just because marijuana is legal does not mean that parents in Illinois have free reign to use it in ways that could interfere with their parenting. If you are wondering whether your marijuana use could be used against you in a divorce or child custody dispute, read on.
Marijuana Use And Parenting Time
The Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act prohibits marijuana use, in and of itself, to be used against a parent in a dispute about parenting time or parental responsibilities. Like alcohol, responsible marijuana use is legal and does not present a threat to a parent’s ability to parent well or make responsible decisions on behalf of their child.
Estate Planning Tips in High-Conflict Family Situations
As much as we would all like to be part of a loving, old-sitcom-style family where everyone gets along and loves each other, this is simply not the reality for many people. Some people who are trying to create an estate plan have adult children who have not spoken to each other in decades. Others have seen their relatives extensively litigate over another family member’s estate. Some have witnessed utter chaos erupt when a now-deceased relative was nearing the end of their life, as no two family members could agree on how their medical care should be handled.
If this sounds like your family, there are a few steps you and your attorney can take to both protect yourself during your later years and avoid any further conflict over your own estate or end-of-life care.
Tips for Testamentary Planning When Your Family Does Not Get Along
Angry, disinherited, or jealous family members have been known to raise challenges simply to spite each other. You probably already know if this is a risk. Some tips for making sure your estate plan goes unchallenged include:
4 Reasons Young Adults Should Have an Estate Plan
It often does not even occur to young adults that they should have an estate plan at all. You may see creating an estate plan that is likely to change before you need it as a pointless endeavor. However, there are a number of strong reasons that younger adults should consider creating at least a simple estate plan. It can be very difficult for young people to consider their own mortality in this way, but it is important that you do. No one is impervious to things like accidents or illnesses. Having a legally sound estate plan in place is a good idea for everyone. An estate planning attorney can help determine what type of estate plan makes sense for your personal situation.
Why Should Young People Make an Estate Plan?
Life and death can be incredibly unpredictable. For this reason alone, it is a smart move for all adults to establish an estate plan, whether or not they think it will become relevant anytime soon. Reasons young adults should consider creating an estate plan include:
Is My Spouse’s Inheritance Marital Property in an Illinois Divorce?
The issue of inheritance is often a cause of great contention in Illinois divorces. For spouses who have been married for decades, money given from a deceased family member to one spouse may feel like something of a betrayal to the other spouse, especially if the spouse who receives the inheritance decides not to spend it in ways that would benefit the marriage or children.
In other situations, couples may be very generous with each other’s inheritance, and even count on it as part of their long-term financial planning. No matter how an inheritance has been handled, the issue can get thorny when a couple starts discussing divorce. Deciding how to handle an inheritance in the asset division process can be challenging, especially when inheritance funds have been mixed with marital funds. If you are considering divorce and anticipate dealing with inheritance, consider getting the help of a DuPage County attorney with experience in both family law and estate planning.
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