If you and your spouse are considering ending your marriage and you have children together, you probably have many concerns. Coming to terms with the marriage ending is already difficult, but adding the stress of how the divorce will affect your children can make things seem impossible. Fortunately, there is a wealth of information from child development experts and mental health specialists about how best to break the news of divorce to children.

Keep the Children’s Ages in Mind

The information you will give a five-year-old child about your divorce and what you will tell a fifteen-year-old should be different. Young children are not going to understand terms like “custody” or “separation.” Instead of getting into the details, experts suggest parents tell young children how the divorce will affect them and focus on reassuring the child. For example, parents can say something like, “Mommy and daddy are not going to live together anymore but you will still see both of us all the time.” Make sure to reassure the child that the divorce is not their fault and that you as parents still love the child and will continue to be their parents.

Just like there are a near-infinite variety of marriages, there are numerous different types of divorces. Some divorces are a result of one spouse having an affair while others end because the couple simply grows apart. The end of their marriage comes as a total shock to some spouses while others have known it was coming for years. If you are in a situation where you and your spouse are not on the same page about how you want to end your marriage and move on with your life, you may be facing a contested divorce. Contested divorces are much more complicated and time consuming than uncontested divorces and individuals undergoing this type of divorce are strongly encouraged to hire an attorney.

Contested Divorce vs. Uncontested Divorce

Couples who agree on issues such as property and debt division, the allocation of parental responsibilities, parenting time, child support, and spousal maintenance generally do not have to go through numerous court hearings or extensive legal negotiations in order to end their marriage. The Court’s main purpose when it comes to divorce is to make rulings about issues on which couples disagree. There is usually no need for far-reaching court involvement when couples are willing to cooperate and compromise.

Whether or not to hire an attorney to help you end your marriage is always a complicated question. While many young couples without children or significant debt or assets can successfully file for divorce on their own, the majority of divorcing couples would be taking a major risk not hiring an attorney. Although many people are concerned that hiring an attorney will be too expensive, employing the help of an attorney actually increases the chances you will save money on child support, spousal maintenance, and other costs. Hiring an attorney to represent you during your divorce can benefit you in many ways.

Save Time and Frustration

The American legal system is one of the best in the world, but it can be tedious to navigate. Divorces, especially complicated or high net worth cases, can require seemingly endless amounts of paperwork, signatures, meetings, and legwork. Because divorce is often a deeply emotional process, some people find that they are simply unable to handle the added stress of managing the legal aspects of their divorce alone. An experienced family law attorney can help streamline the divorce process, saving you valuable time and resources.

Prenuptial agreements are legal documents which couples can create and sign before getting married. Provisions in the document include directives regarding how property and assets will be divided in the event that the marriage ends in divorce as well as plans for how finances will be handled during the marriage. Prenuptial agreements are often misunderstood and there is quite a bit of misinformation circulating the internet regarding these helpful legal tools.

Myth 1: Getting a Prenup is Planning for Divorce

The most commonly held false belief when it comes to any premarital agreement is that only couples who plan to divorce create these arrangements. This is simply not true. Although short-lived celebrity weddings have given prenuptial agreements a bad reputation, many couples benefit from prenups and never end up divorced.

If you are considering divorcing your spouse and you are a parent, you are probably worried how you will raise your child after the divorce. If you and your spouse plan to share parental responsibilities, as is recommended by courts when it is in the best interest of the child, you will have to find a way to effective co-parent with your soon-to-be-ex-spouse. This can be much more difficult than it looks. While it is up to you to find the specific co-parenting arrangement that works for your unique circumstances, there are some guidelines which can help you overcome some of the struggles of parenting your child with an ex-spouse.

Make a Specific Parenting Agreement

If you have a cooperative spouse, it is much better to make parenting decisions together rather than forcing the court to allocate parental responsibilities, previously called child custody. In the parenting agreement, or parenting plan, make sure to include joint decisions regarding: