Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Retroactive Child Support In Alabama
It is certainly disturbing to receive a letter from the court, asking you to pay child support for a child you have not seen in years, or worse, to take a DNA paternity test, and to pay child support if it turns out that you are the child’s genetic father. Perhaps you fathered the… Read More »
How Much Do Children’s Opinions Count In Parenting Time Decisions?
Based on the principle of selfless love, you should want your children to be as happy during their time with your ex-spouse as they are during their time with you. The family courts do not expect you to be a perfect parent or to possess superhuman altruism, but they do expect you not to… Read More »
Can Your Friends And Family Make Your Divorce Worse?
Stressful situations like divorce are very effective at showing you who your real friends are. Some of your friends will give you all of the emotional support you need without adding to the drama, while others will find a way to make things all about them. Perhaps, when you were young, you found your… Read More »
Legal Separations And Alabama Law
According to Alabama law, marriages can end when one spouse dies or when the court issues an order of dissolution of marriage (also known as divorce) or annulment. Each of these is much more final than any of the things we refer to as spouses being separated. In practice, married couples do not always… Read More »
What Happens To Your Debts When You Divorce?
Arguing about who gets to keep which assets in a divorce is bad enough. Arguing about which spouse should be responsible for which debts is even more stressful. All debts incurred during the marriage and owed at the time of the divorce count as marital debts, regardless of which spouse’s name is on the… Read More »
If You Want To Keep The Family Pet, Is The Law On Your Side?
Even though pets are part of the family, and people can get as emotionally attached to them as they can to human family members, from a legal standpoint, domestic animals are property. Case in point, some couples even stipulate in their prenuptial agreements which of them will keep which of the family pets in… Read More »
Is Cryptocurrency A Marital Asset?
Are people who own vast sums of cryptocurrency rich, or is it all an illusion? What do you do with an NFT after you buy it? Digital assets are as misunderstood as they are mysterious, and unfortunately, no one understands them less well than the family law courts. These days, you see people, often… Read More »
How To Make Co-Parenting Changeovers Easier For Children
Parents and kids alike worry about how difficult the adjustment will be for children to divide their time between their parents’ separate houses. The worst-case scenario, where neither house feels like home, rarely happens, but children feel the stress of co-parenting as acutely as their parents do. They might spend certain days of the… Read More »
How Does A Restraining Order Affect Your Divorce Case?
Despite what your parents and school guidance counselors tried to tell you, pettiness and bullying do not automatically disappear when you graduate from high school. People saying terrible things about each other and trying to sabotage each other’s new relationships still happen, and thanks to the Internet, they can now happen in full view… Read More »
The Penny Pincher’s Guide To Divorce
Financial stress and incompatible financial values have driven plenty of couples to divorce. With today’s economic woes, such as inflation and lingering uncertainty related to the pandemic, almost every family is feeling the pinch; even households with an income above $100,000 are living paycheck to paycheck. People in all tax brackets report that divorce… Read More »