Recent Blog Posts
Pension and Retirement Assets Are Usually Marital Property
In contested divorces, many spouses begin the case thinking about the marital property they would like to keep. Often the parties will dispute who gets the house. Sometimes one spouse would really like a certain piece of furniture or possibly a vehicle that the couple bought together. Marital property is more than just physical objects, however, and there is even more to it than just considering the current cash and investments that you and your spouse have. Under Illinois law, pension and retirement accounts are also considered marital property, and though you and your spouse may not retire for many years, this money will need to be considered in your divorce agreement.
Dividing Pension and Retirement Accounts in an Illinois Divorce
In Illinois, marital property is generally anything that the spouses acquired together during the course of a marriage. The state of Illinois considers pensions, whether they are vested or unvested, to be marital property subject to division in divorce proceedings. According to the law, marital assets are to be split equitably. This does not mean that each spouse will get half of all marital assets, but rather that a court will divide these assets as fairly as possible.
Non-Parent Visitation Guidelines Following Divorce
Once your divorce is finalized, you and your family embark on new journeys and a brand new way of life. When you and your ex-spouse share children, arrangements for visitation (parenting time) and the allocation of parental responsibilities (child custody) are made, resulting in new routines and a lifestyle that you and your children were not previously accustomed to before the divorce. While these new arrangements can take some getting used to, they often result in happier, healthier homes and habits for the whole family.
Non-Parent Involvement
During the divorce process, and often through mediation, you are expected create a parenting plan for how you will continue to raise your children and make decisions for your children based on their best interest. Outside influences must also be taken into consideration, such as grandparents, mentors, and close family friends.
Who will have visitation rights, and what will those rights look like? How will you determine which non-parents will spend time with your children, and how will you negotiate those parameters? Here are some basic visitation guidelines for non-parents according to Illinois law:
Consider Your Reasons for Relocation
Following a divorce, you may want nothing more than to move to new city or state and start fresh. Doing so may require starting a different job or pursuing an education in your new town, as you look to move forward with your post-divorce life. For a parent with shared parenting responsibilities, however, the decision to relocate is much tougher, even if the desire to move is the same. If you want to move and seek new beginnings with your child, there are a number of things that you will need to consider.
The Other Parent’s Consent
When you have been allocated half or more of the parental responsibilities for your child, one of your duties, according to the law, is to help your child foster a relationship with his or her other parent. This presumes, of course, that a relationship between the child and the other parent is healthy and in your child’s best interest. With that in mind, before relocating to a new city or state with your child, you will need to seek the other parent’s consent, and have your parenting time agreement updated to reflect the new reality.
Cooperating With a Guardian ad Litem
While many divorcing parents are able to reach a reasonable agreement regarding parental responsibilities and parenting time, many others simply are not. In some cases, the parents are unable to put aside their personal differences and focus on the needs of the child. In others, each parent may have the absolute best intentions but are having difficulty compromising with one another. When proceedings for the allocation of parental responsibilities or other child-related concerns encounter such obstacles, the court may appoint a specially-trained lawyer to serve as guardian ad litem (GAL) for the duration of the case.
The GAL’s Role
A guardian ad litem acts essentially as an extension of the court. He or she is granted investigative powers to study the circumstances of the family and the child in question. The GAL may interview the child, each parent, siblings, and other relevant parties, as well as review court transcripts, financial documents, and any other evidence that may be helpful. Upon completing the investigation, the GAL prepares a recommendation for the court, based on what he or she believes would be the ideal situation for the child.
Including the Right of First Refusal in Your Parenting Plan
If you hope to share parental responsibilities for your child following a divorce or break-up, you and the other parent will need to develop an agreement for doing so. Known in Illinois as a parenting plan, this agreement is intended to allocate responsibilities to each of you, so that you both fully understand your rights and attendant obligations. The law provides a number of elements that must be covered in a parenting plan, but one, in particular, can be a major sticking point for many couples. You and your spouse will need to determine how the right of first refusal will apply to your unique situation.
Understanding First Refusal
The right of first refusal is a concept that stems from the understanding that, during your assigned parenting time, you may occasionally be required to find an alternative source of care for your child. Put simply, sometimes you need a babysitter. Whether you want a social night out with friends or you need to travel out of town for a week on business, the occasional need for a sitter is understandable.
No-Fault Divorce in Illinois Has Never Been Faster
A new report suggests that public opinion regarding divorce is beginning to shift a bit. According to an analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth, an offshoot of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Americans today are less approving of divorce than they were even just five years ago.
At the same time, it can hardly be argued that such opinions are the result of a trend toward more traditional, conservative values, as Americans expressed more favorable attitudes toward young couples living together before marriage and same-sex marriages. Some have suggested that the changing view of divorce is reflective of Americans acknowledging the seriousness of a marital commitment. More people, it seems, believe that a couple should explore every possibility of resolving their problems before heading to court to dissolve their marriage.
The No-Fault Divorce Process
Divorce Is Not a Competition
A quick Google search of the phrase "winning your divorce" brings up about 21 million results (your result may vary slightly), each offering advice or a step-by-step guide on how to gain an advantage over your spouse as your marriage comes to an end. In the last 50 years or so, we have somehow gone from a society that frowns on divorce to one that welcomes and all but celebrates the battle. Of course, it is certainly understandable that you will experience certain emotions related to the end of your marriage, and that anger and a desire for retribution are often among them. You need to remember, however, that no matter how justified you may feel in the moment, there are no real winners in divorce, and an unnecessarily contentious battle can leave both you and your spouse on the losing end.
Remember the Person You Married
The very fact that you are faced with divorce means that you, at some point, loved your spouse enough to marry him or her. There may be situations in which this is not true, but that is a topic for another day. Now, you may claim that your spouse has changed and that he or she is not the same person you married. Fair enough, but are you the same person he or she married?
How Do Divorcing Parents Benefit From Parent Education?
Anyone entering the post-divorce world is faced with challenges they might have never guessed they would have to face during their lifetime. Divorce takes its toll on everyone, and parents who share children are dealt an entirely different set of challenges, such as learning how to create and maintain a new, healthy lifestyle for the whole family amidst a life-altering separation.
Due to the fact that divorce has such a big effect on children and families, some counties and states provide parent education classes to help prepare them for the transition. Illinois, for example, is a state that requires divorcing parents take such courses. The idea is to help equip the parents with the tools they need to raise their children in a healthy, positive, stress-free environment during and following the split.
The Benefits
As a newly single parent, you might wonder why you are required to take a class on how to be a parent. Do you really need a course on how to raise your child? Try to keep in mind that the state has your child’s best interest at heart. The purpose of parent education programs is to help you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse learn how to relate to and communicate with one another in a way that reduces tension and produces the least amount of conflict possible. The programs aim to inform and empower you so you can be a dependable, stable source of comfort for your child as they experience the loss.
Calculating Your Spousal Support Obligations
When a couple with children gets divorced, there is a presumption that one parent—usually the one with few parental responsibilities—will be expected to pay child support. There is no such presumption in Illinois regarding spousal support, sometimes known as spousal maintenance or alimony. Instead, spousal support is awarded on a case-by-case basis, upon establishment by the court of a spouse’s need. Once the need has been determined and spousal maintenance has been deemed appropriate, the court is then tasked with determining how much the supporting spouse is required to pay and for how long.
Statutory Standards
Prior to 2015, the court was granted full discretion to set the amount and duration of spousal support orders. As one might expect, this led to vast disparities between orders issued by different judges, who were guided by their principles of what seemed fair and constituted meeting a spouse’s needs. Beginning in 2015, however, a new law was enacted that provided a standard calculation formula to be used in the majority of divorce cases in Illinois. The statutory formula will apply in your case if you and your spouse together do not make more than $250,000 per year, and you, as the payor, are not currently supporting children or a spouse from a previous relationship.
Child Support Orders and the 20 Percent Modification Rule
Whether you make or receive court-ordered payments of child support, you probably realize how much your children depend upon compliance with the order. As time goes by, however, an order may become out of sync with your child’s needs or your own financial situation. Fortunately, Illinois law provides several scenarios in which a modification of a child support order may be appropriate.
Substantial Change in Circumstances
Assuming that you pay child support, dramatic changes in your life or the life of your child can, obviously, affect your ability to make payments or the amount of support needed to truly help your child. For example, if you are injured in car accident, you may not be able to work for a time, making compliance with your support nearly impossible. Similarly, if your child is diagnosed with a serious medical condition, he or she may require additional support to help subsidize medical treatment. According to the law, a child support order can be reviewed for modification "upon a showing of a substantial change in circumstances."
© 2025 A. Traub & Associates 200 W. 22nd Street, Suite 210, Lombard, IL 60148630-426-0196
Disclaimer | Resources Privacy Policy | Sitemap Arlington Heights Divorce Lawyer Mediation
