The Birds and Bees of Marriage and Divorce

    You know Bees only attend one Queen. They are from birth set out to serve their Queen and only when a new queen is birthed in the hive does the hive divorce into "old Queen," in the current hive, and "New Queen" hives destined to seek out a hive with her new workers and drones. There is no "hive intermingling" so to speak.

   Likewise, birds can be fairly monogamous, although some are quite prone to wanderlust. Certain birds are quite adept at philandering between as many partners as possible. Take Hummingbirds for instance, "Speedy hummingbirds, eating on the run and flitting from mate to mate, are prone to heart attacks," says Noah Strycker in his new book The Thing With Feathers, reviewed in a New York Times Article yesterday. Also in the review is Bernd Heinrich's The Homing Instinct. What do these books tell us about Marriage and Divorce? http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/books/review/the-thing-with-feathers-and-the-homing-instinct.html?_r=0

     Homing instincts are critical to birds navigation around the globe. Most interesting is the description of the Albatross which spends most of its life soaring over the vast open oceans, but is fairly monogamous throughout life. The Albatross uses a dance ritual, learned from years of "courting" that is "as unique as human fingerprints" to each Albatross couple.

     Sunday's magazine of the NYT included a wonderful article detailing Human interaction in relationship and the correlations of education to stability. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/the-new-instability.html
Comparison over many years would lead most to believe that since the Equal Rights Revolution in the 60's and 70's divorce has actually become less common among more highly educated men and women. Obviously, changing societal norms have a great impact, as do attitudes. Just watch an episode of Mad Men to see how far we have come.

     If partners to a marriage spent comparative times apart as Albatross couples, and focused their times together on dancing in sync, perhaps divorce would not be common. But human relationships are much trickier than Albatross' interactions.

    Couples undergoing Collaborative Divorce, or Conscious Uncoupling as it is beginning to be known, report significantly improved communications. Probably communications improvements result from the use of a Neutral Facilitator who is trained in interpersonal communication. Perhaps just seeing a clear path to the finalization of the divorce helps. In any case, using a logical, step by step approach to divorce creates numerous benefits over Litigation.

    Collaboration also produces much more fair results than are sometimes obtained through Mediation alone. In Mediation, the parties may not be represented by attorneys and therefore may not have legal advice as to the fairness of anticipated settlements.

    In Collaborative Divorce, each side has an attorney to advice, coach and assist toward a fair result. Each side participates in setting the goals for the Collaborative Team. The Collaborative Team eliminates much of the fighting. When questions arise over who makes how much, what value to place on businesses, and how to divide Real Property, what personal property will be included and who will get what, the Collaborative Team works to balance all considerations to achieve the Team Goals set by the Parties themselves.

(here is an interesting article about some of the potential problems with dividing real estate: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/realestate/divorcing-co-op-owners-rooftop-barbecues-and-costly-assessments.html )
  
   As assets increase, so does the news value of divorce. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/kenneth-griffin-files-for-divorce-from-anne-dias-griffin/
Especially when the divorce involves significantly high assets such as the Griffin matter. When privacy is a concern, Collaborative Divorce is key. Agreements to keep the matter private are much more effective when all parties are sitting around a table and commit to common goals by signing their agreements not to resort to litigation. Agreeing to agree is possible.

    

Forbes Wants You to Have a Dog

An electronic article in Forbes Magazine Online raised my concern: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jefflanders/2014/04/17/how-are-pets-handled-in-divorce/

Thankfully, Forbes is encouraging its readers to think long-term and consider the business of divorce rather than the emotional fighting that sometimes occurs. Of course, the article details the numerous courts and litigants who want the Judge to decide who gets fluffy and who gets visitation with Fido.

Too many decisions are left to the Judge when there are ways for people to make their own decisions, with help of counsel of course! Collaborative Divorce or Conscious Uncoupling is a Great Place to Start. Visit http://www.collaborativepractice.com/ to learn how this might be right for your family.

There are even websites tailored to Men and Women considering divorce such as: www.Divorceformen.us and www.dadsdivorce.com or http://www.womansdivorce.com/ and http://divorcesupport.about.com/od/divorceadvicepolls/a/adviceforwomen.htm

My favorite magazine, The WEEK ran an article for Men getting a divorce titled: 8 financial tips for men getting a divorce.  http://theweek.com/article/index/250324/8-financial-tips-for-men-getting-a-divorce

Suggestions include: Don't be afraid to pay Alimony. Don't be Afraid to Ask for Alimony! If you haven't read The WEEK, this article is a great example of why you should be reading The WEEK every week.

Some websites target women by featuring books that imply divorce should be a hard fought battle. One book, Divorce: Think Financially, Not Emotionally® – What Women Need to Know About Securing Their Financial Future Before, During and After Divorce, by Jeff Landers, even promises you will learn how to:

Avoid the top mistakes divorcing women make

Shore up your financial position so you enter the divorce process prepared

Choose between regular alimony or an up-front, lump-sum alimony payment

Decide whether to keep your marital house – and how to do so if it makes sense, financially

Protect your business, intellectual property and personal assets

Divide your assets in a way most favorable to you, from a tax and financial point of view

Disinherit your husband

Determine whether your husband is hiding assets

Build a qualified divorce team

You can even download and preview a chapter at http://thinkfinancially.com/book/!

By using language like "Devastating Mistakes" and "Where Husbands typically hide assets" this guy just wants to scare you into buying his book.

There is a better way!!!

Men and Women benefit from Collaborative Divorce. More importantly Children and Families benefit from "Conscious Uncoupling" as Collaborative Divorce is now being described.

Excerpts from My Book

 Inside the Minds: Strategies for Family Law in Florida

Published by Aspatore Books, a Thomson Reuters business

 

Managing Family Law/Elder Care Law Nexus Cases Using Collaborative Law Strategies

. . . Guardianship in Florida is filed in the probate court. My first guardianship case involved a fifty-year-old deaf mute who had received a large settlement from a lawsuit, but because of his disabilities, the court did not want him to have access to that settlement. Therefore, a guardianship of the person was required and a trustee was appointed to manage his assets. (Funny how the Courts will sometimes set up problems for the people they are really trying to assist.)

 

I have also worked on cases involving long-term marriages—marriages of more than fifty years—where the parents were beginning to decline in health and their children were starting to apply for guardianships or having difficult conversations with their parents regarding what would happen to them in the future; i.e., where they would live, and/or if they would have to go into a nursing home. Many such “end of life” questions come up in the practice of elder law—i.e., how and where I am going to live out my life, and who is going to make decisions for me when I an incapacitated? In some cases, one or both of the parties are becoming incompetent due to dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other frailties of age affecting the decision making process and one spouse’s ability to care for the other spouse.

For example, I once had a case involving a couple who had been married for about sixty-two years. The wife wanted a divorce because she was concerned that her husband was trying to kill her. In all of her interactions with me she appeared to be perfectly competent, but during the divorce proceedings it became clear that she had some defects of the memory. The parties had been separated for two years and were living apart; they had homes in different areas of the state and in different states. They had three children; two were aligned with their mother and wanted her to receive all of the couple’s assets, and one child was aligned with the father. In my opinion, instead of talking to their parents about filing for divorce, the children should have been talking to me about filing a guardianship for both parents, because both parents had serious memory defects. Ultimately, the parents got divorced; and the children became engaged in what I refer to it as a pre-death probate process, because the children were basically dividing up their parents’ assets and aligning themselves with the parent who they were expecting to receive an asset from in future years.

As it turned out, some of the assets that the parents claimed to own were, in fact, non-existent, even though we had done due diligence in that area. For example, both spouses had certificates of deposit and bank statements that showed that they had a certain amount of money in the bank; we later learned that the parents had subsequently taken that money out of the bank and used it for their daily living expenses. Consequently, instead of having $200,000 in the bank, the couple only had $20,000. Indeed, between the time of the signing of a marital settlement agreement that had been negotiated with everyone’s full disclosure and knowledge and the time we appeared in court for a final judgment, it became apparent that both spouses had delusional notions regarding the extent of their assets. Therefore, the couple was probably not competent with respect to making decisions concerning a divorce; and we should have been pursuing guardianship issues instead.

In a similar case, I dealt with a couple who had been married for fifty-six years, and the wife had full-blown Alzheimer’s dementia. She did not know on a day-to-day basis where she was or who she was with; she did recognize her husband and her children, but only to a minimal extent. It was clear that she was fully incompetent. Her husband had been taking care of her for several years; and unfortunately, he had made some statements to his adult children, who were in their fifties, complaining about the care that his wife required. The children had interpreted the husband’s concerns and complaints as a reluctance to care for his wife; and one day, they simply took their mother out of her home, claiming that they were taking her to the beautician to get her hair done, and she was never returned to the home. Although the children were seemingly trying to protect their mother from neglect by her husband, they wound up destroying both parents’ lives. The husband died just nine months later, having never seen his wife again because of the actions of his children.

I believe that we are likely to see more guardianship cases in the elder law area in the future, largely because as our life expectancy increases we will see more couples who have been married for fifty, sixty, or even seventy years. Many of those couples have adult children who have been married for twenty to forty years; and those children are becoming the caregivers of their parents in much greater numbers than in previous years. Ultimately, as adult children become caregivers conflicts will arise over the definition of appropriate care. Indeed, we are seeing a growing number of conflicts over where elderly parents should live and who should be providing their care. Unfortunately, I am also seeing more cases involving parents who are outliving their retirement savings. When they retired twenty or thirty years ago they had significant assets, but now that they have become dependent on nursing home care their assets are gone and their children are applying for them to be enrolled in Medicaid.

All too often, the children of elderly parents receive bad advice that leads to very confusing family law issues, especially when you have one party to a marriage who may be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s and may be incompetent, and their children want to control the care of their parent but they do not really know how to go about doing that. For instance, in the case I referred to where the adult children took their mother away from the home where she had been living with her husband of fifty-six years, those adult children started cleaning out bank accounts so that they would have sufficient assets to take care of their mother. The husband then went to an attorney who advised him to file for divorce so that the court would freeze the couple’s assets, thereby ensuring that that husband would be able to protect his half of the assets. However, that was not an effective strategy—in fact, the children used the divorce filing as evidence that their father no longer wanted to have anything to do with his wife. In this case, the husband’s original attorney wound up making his client’s problem far worse than it was to begin with. When the husband consulted me we immediately withdrew the divorce petition and filed a guardianship petition instead. Unfortunately, the children had already used the divorce petition which was filed in Florida as evidence in their case for a conservatorship in California, where they had taken their mother by plane, even though she did not know where she was going; and she never returned to Florida until after her husband’s death.

My Name: Aubrey Harry Ducker Jr.            

My Firm Name: The Law Offices of Aubrey Ducker, PLC
My Title: Managing Member
My Phone #: 407-645-3297
My Email: Aubreylaw@gmail.com

My Website: www.aubreylaw.com

Business Address:  2020 Mizell Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32792

Aubrey Harry Ducker, Jr., is a member of the Orange County Bar Association and the Florida Bar  and the American Bar Association. He has received a AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell.  Mr. Ducker serves by court appointment as a Guardian Ad Litem, advocating for children in contested custody and abuse or neglect cases. After serving six years in the U.S. Navy onboard the USS George Bancroft, SSBN-643, Mr. Ducker attended the Valencia Community College, the University of Central Florida and the University of Florida Levin College of Law in Gainesville.  

Mr. Ducker’s practice focuses on Collaborative Divorce, Elder Law, Family Law and Guardianships. He also shares Mortgage Mediation Education Inc. as a co-owner and lecturer on Ethics. Mr. Ducker is previously published under the Aspatore Label with Inside the Minds, Strategies for Family Law in Florida. He also serves on the board of Director of several non-profits and Chairs the Board of Christian Ethics Today.

Mr. Ducker previously served as Attorney for the City of Eagle Lake, Florida

 

A Divorce Lawyer's Advice on Marriage

How long have you been married? 25 years. I used to answer that question, "13 years, but it feels like forever." I was not meaning an insult, simply stating that I felt like I had always been with my wife. Strange then that I ended up ending marriages for profit. I don't actually end the marriage, I just do the paperwork, and get the court's approval.

The New York Times (www.nytimes.com) had two articles leading up to Valentines' Month that really hit on the issues of marriage, especially Long Term Marriage.

The first, Does Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex, compares the division of chores and the division of income to find a prosperous balance of work while maintaining sexual stereotypes of work division. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/does-a-more-equal-marriage-mean-less-sex.html
Both funny and illustrative, the article comes up with the following proper division for pure marital bliss:   The risk of divorce is lowest when the husband does 40 percent of the housework and the wife earns 40 percent of the income.
Wish I had known that before I got engaged! My wife was an attorney when we met, and I was a Sailor. Not the romantic type on a yacht or sailing ship, the enlisted type, E-3. The difference in our incomes was quite staggering. Thankfully, after putting me through college and law school, my wife continues to practice, and our incomes greatly changed. I don't know how to divide housework, but I like doing most of the cooking. I prefer to do the 'man jobs' as well, but she routinely takes out the trash or takes the rolling carts to the street.

Daniel Jones, editor of Modern Love writes another article, Good Enough? That's Great! listing several types of people and problems with long term marriages, some of which might lead to awards of alimony, unequal equitable distribution and many other problems during a litigated divorce. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/fashion/good-enough-thats-great.html
"Those Who Sneak," as Jones calls them, are the primary pool of potential clients of most attorneys. We all know someone who is just one phone call, text or picture away from a nasty divorce fight. Of course they are the 'quiet victim' in their own mind. The philanderers, cheaters, letches and creeps follow stereotypes that prove the rule. When I hear women say, "all men are dogs" or "he just can't keep it in his pants" I am seldom sympathetic.
Then there are the people Jones refers to as the Quashers.
Quashers suppress their feelings of slights in order to keep their little world safe. Don't upset him. Don't make her angry. Just get over the feelings of anger, hurt, humiliation and fear. It won't happen again, until it does, and once again, they will quash their own feelings, desires, emotions to keep the family safe.

Finally there are the Restorers. Jones writes, "When a restorer couple’s marriage starts to feel subpar, they sit down and have a sensible discussion about where their marriage is and where they would like it to be. Then they set goals and seek the means to achieve those goals. Typically affluent, educated and highly motivated, restorer couples almost single-handedly support the vast and profitable marriage-improvement industry." These are the people who choose Collaborative Marriage and Collaborative Divorce when necessary.

In a Collaborative Divorce, the husband and wife communicate their goals to a team of professionals who assist in keeping the mutual goals as paramount as the marriage comes to an end. The Wife and Husband make all decisions, Not the Judge. Not the Attorneys. The Parties to the Marriage maintain control of their marriage and control of their divorce. Adults know sometimes bad things happen to good people. Adults know bad incidence do not define life. Adults know that hard choices require full disclosure of risks and benefits. Collaborative Attorneys know Moms and Dads make decisions in their children and families' best interests when given the opportunity and assistance.

Call me at 407-645-3297 or visit my website at www.aubreylaw.com
I look forward to helping your family in its time of crisis.

What is Domestic Violence? Definitions Change!

Wow, that is a Loaded Question!
Years ago movies routinely included scenes of a woman becoming distraught and "needing" a slap on the face to "snap out of it."

Thankfully, we live in a different society! Physical violence to enforce your will is NEVER acceptable. Even Vladimir Putin said in a recent New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/) op-ed, "We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Darrel Owens' article in today's Orlando Sentinel's detailed the 50 year marriage of Randy and Sharon Berridge. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-darrylowens,0,3266830.columnist
The title, "Couple so Happy Together after 50 years" is sweet enough, but a disturbing first three paragraphs detail the time Randy pulled the distributer cap out of the car to prevent his wife fleeing the marital home. While the very next line indicates the couple laughed about it, such action today might be considered Domestic Violence!
What a change in 50 years.

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) defines "Domestic Violence" as "a pattern of behavior" involving intimate or family relations taking many forms, "including physical aggression or assault (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects, battery), or threats thereof; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation. . . Domestic violence and abuse is not limited to obvious physical violence. Domestic violence can also mean endangerment, criminal coercion, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, trespassing, harassment, and stalking.^[5]"

The "Happy Couple" of yesterday fits the electronic world definition of Domestic Violence. Thankfully they were able to talk about their disagreements without resort to legal intervention.

Also thankfully, the limited story in the Sentinel might not meet the Florida Definition of Domestic Violence. The Florida Statutes define domestic Violence according to Section 741.28: Domestic Violence "means any assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death of one family or household member by another family or household member, and includes, in Section 741.402, a threat of these, regardless of whether they have been reported to law enforcement.  http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0741/Sections/0741.28.html
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0741/Sections/0741.402.html

The Civilized Diplomatic and Political Settlement in areas of Family Law comes through Mediation and Collaboration. Collaborative Divorce removes threats by promoting reasoned analysis and solution.

If Domestic Violence is a part of your life and you want it to stop, call me at 407-645-3297. I may be able to help in ways you have yet to consider.

Please visit my website at www.aubreylaw.com for more information and links regarding Divorce, Child Support, Alimony, Equitable Distribution, and many other topics. I am an Attorney, licensed in Florida, practicing in the areas of Collaborative Divorce, Elder Law, Family Law, and Guardianships. I have helped numerous husbands, wives and families seek a fresh start.