Hey folks, Mark Scroggins with Scroggins Law Group, you know, we get a lot of questions aside from the reclamation transformation podcast. And so these are a number of questions that I’m going to go ahead and answer that I think are timely and need to be answered now. Now, that being said, one thing that’s really important to know is that the answers to these questions does not create an attorney client relationship between me individually or Scroggins law group collectively, and anybody that is listening to this, this is not specific legal advice. These are just things that you need to go and talk to a lawyer about, if you’re facing these questions. So having said that, does the length of marriage affect your divorce settlement? It can. But there are a lot of different issues that come along with that. So one area that it really could affect your divorce settlement, or a final trial on divorce is on the issue of spousal maintenance, okay, depending on the length of your marriage, that is going to determine the length of spousal maintenance that you may qualify for. So it’s important to remember that if the presumption is that you shouldn’t get spousal maintenance, okay, so spousal maintenance is not like some of the alimony stories that you hear coming out of California or New York or other places where, you know, you were married for a year, but because of that, you have to pay alimony to the other party for X amount of time. Well, that’s not what the law is in Texas. Okay. So you need to consult a divorce lawyer and find out how the length of your marriage impacts the spousal maintenance issue. Now, how else does the length of marriage impact your divorce settlement? Or what happens at final trial? It’s going to be dependent on a number of different things. Have you worked throughout the course of the marriage? Have you been the high wage earner? How much money have y’all put away in retirement? What other assets? Do you all have in making a determination of what the marital estate looks like? And are these assets all retirement assets? Or are they just other assets that you own like a house are there? Let’s say restricted stock units, let’s say are there oil and gas royalties. So all of these have a significant impact on the manner in which you want these divided. And all of these are going to have different values that depending on how they are held, are going to be important in considering how you want those divided. So what is important to you? Well, if you haven’t worked throughout the course of the marriage, one of the things that a court will also be concerned with is the disparity in earning capacity. Okay, so if you have been the stay at home parents, all right, and you haven’t worked in 30 years? Well, let’s say that you’ve got an MBA. All right, but you haven’t used that MBA for 30 years, do you think you can just walk out with let’s say, you’ve got a Harvard MBA and walk right back into the workforce and get paid like somebody who had just recently come out with a wealth of other experience? Well, obviously, the answer is no. So does that have an impact? Of course it does. You know, what else has an impact is how much is the marital estate worth? Because regardless of all of this, the more money that is subject to division, the closer to a 5050 division, it’s actually going to be so what’s the most important thing that I always talk about? Reach out and talk to a well qualified board certified family law specialist who can walk you through the process.
