Love and marriage, love and marriageGo together like a horse and carriageThis I tell you brotherYou can’t have one without the otherLove and marriage, love and marriageIt’s an institute you can’t disparageAsk the local gentryAnd they will say it’s elementaryTry, try, try to separate themIt’s an illusionTry, try, try, and you will only comeTo this conclusionLove and marriage, love and marriageGo together like a horse and carriageDad was told by motherYou can’t have one without the other– Frank SinatraOne of our kids recently asked, “Why do people get married?” The obvious answer is love, but people actually marry for different reasons. Often, when people are young, they marry for love, the celebration and the hope dream of happily ever after life. As they get older, people marry for different reasons, including security.Being married does come with some financial benefits. Not only are there often tax advantages, but also pensions, social security, medical insurance and similar benefits. To the contrary, some people do not marry for opposite reasons, such as maintaining a death benefit receiving from a deceased spouse. Many people don’t realize how important these financial implications are until they are separating and they become more of a consideration.There are also legal benefits to being married. While we will always recommend that individuals have their estate plan in place, being married may also allow for any next of kin privileges at hospitals (including decision making and visitation), paternity/ maternity rights, as well as coverage under the Family Medical Leave Act. One of the most interesting parts of helping establish a Prenuptial Agreement is that it causes people to think about these things before they are married; however, more often than not, we find that people don’t really think about them until they are in their golden years or contemplating divorce. As always, please let us know if we can help you in any way. Warm wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2022.John & Faye
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Work Hard for the $$$.
“Nine a.m. on the hour hand
And she’s waiting for the bell
And she’s looking real pretty
Just wait for her clientele
She works hard for the money
So hard for it, honey”
-Donna Summer
We never really loved the song “She Works Hard for the Money” when it was released waaaaay back in 1983. Don’t get us wrong: we love Donna Summer*; she had a set of pipes on her like no other.
When we listened to the song recently, we started thinking about what our clients go through if and when they go back to work post-divorce. While many parties have worked throughout their marriage, quite a few have opted to stay at home to raise children or to keep the home in order.
Several things may determine whether a spouse who has not worked during the marriage will go back into the workplace, including:
1. The age of the person;
2. Whether the person wants to go back to work (ie. social interaction, intellectual stimulation, wanting to use their education, needing something to do, etc); OR
3. Whether the person needs to go back to work to support themselves, get insurance or maintain a home.
Going back to work can turn out to be a very good thing. It can build confidence, self esteem and will usually make for some great stories regardless of job or career. Divorce Magazine has some great thoughts on this topic too:
https://www.divorcemag.com/blog/returning-to-work-after-divorce-doesnt-have-to-be-scary
As always, please let us know if you have any questions regarding this or any other legal matter.
Warm regards,
John & Faye
* Fun fact: While writing this newsletter, we sat trying to decide whether “Hot Stuff” or “Dim all the Lights” was our favorite Donna Summer song of all time. What do YOU think?
A while back, we noticed that an acquaintance was frequently posting on social media about her divorce and her (soon to be) ex husband She was likely just venting or looking for support from her “friends;” however, this over sharing was public for all to see without any sense of boundaries or common sense. After seeing a few posts, it made sense to provide some unsolicited legal advice that her sharing was, in fact, a really bad idea.
You see, everything that you post or share can be used in a court. Even if someone is not your “friend,” they may be able to find the information pretty easily with a quick Google or Duck search. Similarly, it’s possible that someone who was loyal to the husband passed the information along to the husband by taking a simple screen shot of a “public” or “private” post. Either way, if the attorney for the husband got hold of those posts, he or she likely had a field day with them.
We continue to be surprised by what people post on social media. In the past, we’ve uncovered plenty of dirt on our clients and their exes without being “friends” with them. You can’t afford to pay your child support? Perhaps posting photos of you on vacation is not the best idea. You’re trying to sell three (3), never used Louis Vuitton’s or 20 set of shampoo and conditioner on a yard sale site? Probably not a good idea either, especially if you or your new significant other have been alleged to have committed armed robbery. Yes, we have seen all of these happen.
Social media posts also provide an opportunity for someone to use your information fraudulently. We cringe whenever someone posts their Covid vaccination cards, year of graduation or other personal information. You want to share that you are vaccinated? Awesome but show your sticker or at least cover up you birth date and batch number. Want to play a game that involves your year of high school graduation? Fun, but you’ve now just provided the world your age and likely the name of the town in which you were raised. By providing this personal information, you’ve now made it easier for someone to steal your identity. It’s that easy.
Do you want to know more? Check out this article:
https://www.divorcemag.com/blog/social-media-and-divorce-what-you-need-to-know
We can’t tell you how often we’ve been at a party or event and someone is talking about a pending legal matter. At some point during the conversation, someone will often say that the person should work with us; more often than not, we are either already their attorney or we have connected them with their attorney. We cannot confirm or deny whether we work with someone unless they volunteer the information. That said, we will disclose with some reasonable comfort that we are not working with Bill & Melinda Gates on their divorce but we do potentially know something about their situation.
Rumor has it that the Gates’ do not have a Prenuptial Agreement. Knowing nothing about the validity of that statement or the law in the State of Washington, we wonder if they didn’t sign a Prenuptial figuring that it would be deemed unreasonable at the time of divorce anyways. In Massachusetts, Prenuptial Agreements are scrutinized in two steps:
1. Was the Agreement reasonable at the time that it was signed by the parties?
The court will determine if the terms were reasonable at the time that the Agreement was made. If the terms of the Agreement are objectively unfair and without reason, any specific term could be overturned.
2. Are the terms of the Agreement still reasonable and fair at the time of the divorce?
Even if the terms of the Agreement were fair at the time of signing, they may still be objectively unfair at the time of divorce. For instance, if one party had agreed to provide health insurance to the family but the other has been providing it for most of the marriage OR alimony was agreed to by the parties but is no longer needed, it may not be reasonable or fair to uphold a term of the Agreement . To the contrary, one party may have become ill during the marriage and has a greater financial need than expected, making alimony necessary where it was waived prior.
If the State of Washington applies same two step analysis, the Gates’ may have figured that any terms that they signed 20+ years ago may not be reasonable now given the expectation that Microsoft would continue to skyrocket in value.* At the time of the marriage, Bill Gates had approximately ten billion dollars. Imagine that the parties had agreed that Belinda Gates would get four billion dollars at the time of a potential divorce. Was that fair then? Sure. Would that be fair now? Probably not (keeping in mind that four billion dollars is still a LOT of money) because his current estimated net worth is 130 billion dollars. While these numbers are insane to think about for the average person, it is their reality and the same rule would apply to the more typical family also.
As always, please let us know if we can help you in any way.
Warm regards,
John & Faye
* They could have also agreed to terms that accounted for massive growth, whether in dollar value or percentage.
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