The Five Things You Need To Do From The Start of Your Separation or Divorce in Ontario!
Don’t even think about starting the separation or divorce process in Ontario without first taking some important steps to protect yourself and your children.
Hi, my name is Thomas O’Malley. I’m an experienced family lawyer in Durham Region and the GTA.
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Here’s 5 things you definitely need to do before you start actually getting separated or divorced:
1. Make Sure You Know You Want to Get Separated or Divorced
Making the decision to get separated or divorced is one of the most serious decisions you’ll ever face in your life.
You have to make sure that you are making the right decision.
Before you actually decide to get separated or divorced, you should seriously consider marriage or relationship counselling to see if you can put your relationship back on track.
A good relationship counsellor can often help you and your spouse smooth out the problems in your situation so that you can start moving toward a meaningful and loving relationship again.
2. Get Advice From An Experienced Family Lawyer
If you have decided to get separated or divorced, you need to make some important decisions before you start the separation and divorce process.
You need to understand your parenting time and decision-making responsibility options for your children. You need to get key advice about the financial issues in your case.
In other words, you need to get to the advice of an experienced family lawyer to help you understand your legal options and what you can start doing right now to protect your family law rights.
3. Do Not Move Out of Your Home
You need to get the advice of your lawyer about staying in your home. In most cases, you want to stay in your home so that you can maintain an excellent relationship with your children.
Even more importantly, this will keep down your living expenses until you have finalized the financial issues in your case with your former spouse.
Now, don’t misunderstand me.: you definitely must take any necessary actions to protect yourself and your children if your spouse is violent. In that case, you might have to move out of the home for your own safety and the safety of your children. However, you can work with your lawyer to get an order that your abusive spouse is removed from the home.
Please just be really careful when you are dealing with a violent spouse.
4. Protect Your Financial Situation
You need to protect your financial situation so that you spouse does not drain important money from your joint bank accounts and run up your credit cards and lines of credit.
You should freeze or close your joint credit cards. You should definitely take out your one-half of any funds in your joint bank accounts. Remember that you might have to arrange to have some of your regular monthly expenses that are paid from your joint bank accounts to be paid from your own bank accounts now.
Make sure you have your bank account in your name alone to handle your payments now.
5. Set Up a Solid Parenting Plan
You need to set up a solid parenting plan as soon as you decide to get separated or divorced.
You need to make sure that both you and the other parent have a reasonable amount of parenting time with your children.
Do not be at the mercy of your spouse in terms of letting them decide when you see your children.
You need to set up specific parenting times for both you and the other parent so that both parents can maintain meaningful relationships with the children and provide stability to your children.
If you have any questions about your separation, divorce or family law case and you would like our help, feel free to contact me on my Facebook law office page, that’s O’Malley Family Law, or call me at 905-434-8837 and I’ll point in you in the right direction.
Click here to join my free Facebook GTA and Durham Region separation and divorce support group: GTA and Durham Region Separation and Divorce Support Group
Please make sure to share this important information with your friends, family members and co-workers.
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