Divorce Advice for Men | Fathers Rights Divorce | Child Custody

By Daniel Exner

Cordell & Cordell

Milwaukee Divorce Lawyer

Waiting to finalize a divorce can be an agonizing experience. If you're like many divorcing dads, it's been a long time coming with months and even years of filings, motions, hearings, evaluations, meetings, etc.

So when the finish line is near and there is yet another delay, continuance, or minor point of contention your wife brings up, your frustration level can be stratospheric.

What options are available to you in order to finalize your divorce?

Question:

In drafting our divorce settlement agreement, neither my wife nor I have discussed retirement assets.

If our divorce agreement remains silent on the issue of division of retirement, do we each just keep our own retirement accounts or do we each automatically have rights to half of the other person's retirement assets unless we agreed differently?

By Sara Pitcher

Noblesville, Indiana Divorce Lawyer

My previous article "Guardian Ad Litem, Divorce and Child Custody" discussed a Guardian Ad Litem's role in divorce and child custody cases, which is primarily to advocate for the child’s best interests and file a report with the court.

While the Guardian Ad Litem’s child custody report and findings are very persuasive to a judge, the judge is not bound to follow the Guardian Ad Litem’s recommendations.

Although the judge is not bound to follow the GAL’s recommendation, they often do as it would have been a waste of the parties’ resources to pay for a GAL only to have the judge issue a ruling inconsistent with the recommendations of the GAL without sufficient cause.

For this reason, it is best to have a favorable GAL report and to work cooperatively with the Guardian Ad Litem.

But if the child custody report is unfavorable to you, you do have options.

Question:

My wife and I are in agreement that neither one of us will pay alimony in our divorce.

Can we put these "no alimony" terms in our divorce settlement agreement?

Will a judge allow a divorce without any alimony payments?

By Daniel Exner

Milwaukee Divorce Lawyer

Court-entered marriage settlement agreements are difficult to change because they are both court orders and contracts. 

Some parties enter into these divorce settlements and down the road realize they got a raw deal or were not properly advised of future consequences and suddenly want to relinquish a decision they already approved.

What is a legal recourse available if you later want to retract a divorce agreement you signed off on?