Understand what happens when you divorce

The end of your marriage is a sad time. When you realize that it is over between you and your spouse, it is time to decide how you are going to handle the situation. You might consider divorce or separation. Both of these have specific points that you need to think carefully about.

When you get a divorce, the marriage is legally dissolved. While it is still on the books as something that happened in the past, it doesn’t exist in the current time.

The divorce means that you give up certain privileges of being married. One of these is that you wouldn’t be able to use your ex’s health insurance. Any other spousal benefits would be voided as well.

When you divorce, you will divide everything that you own. In most cases, your clothing is the only thing that you would be guaranteed to get. If you have a prenuptial agreement, this would come into the picture here, so you would be able to count on anything you are due thanks to that contract.

It is possible that divorce can come with alimony payments, but this isn’t something that is required. In fact, once you divorce, your ex doesn’t have to ensure that you can keep with your current standard of living. If you have children, you might get child support, but this is to help the children continue to live as they are accustomed to living.

You should think carefully about what it means to divorce. In some cases, people opt to use legal separations to end the relationship while still being able to enjoy some of the benefits of marriage, such as having health insurance coverage.

Source: FindLaw, “What Is Divorce Good For?,” accessed July 14, 2017