I recently had a couple come to me where the husband said, “My wife and I aren’t getting along and there’s a lot of strife in the house so I’d really like to leave. But I’m afraid to go because someone at work told me I could be charged with abandonment if I left.” In my last blog, I cautioned about getting legal advice from the internet.
Today I’d like to discuss another questionable source of legal advice: well-meaning friends and relatives.
The concerns that the husband above had were related to abandonment as if it were some kind of criminal offense. But the real concern with his leaving had to do with finances and perhaps custody of his children. “Abandonment”, as a legal term, had little to do with anything even though it was once grounds for divorce. Under the New York No-Fault law that went into effect in October of 2010, it no longer mattered since his wife could get a divorce whether or not he “abandoned” the house by leaving.
The real concerns he faced, finances and custody, were issues we could discuss and resolve early in the mediation process. They required creating an understanding between them as to how they would pay their bills in the future and how they would raise their children. And while this is not always easy to do, I have had many couples work out an Interim Agreement that resolved those issues so they could physically separate to create some “breathing space” and reduce the tension between them while we were working out the terms of a more permanent agreement.
So, what we said in Part 1 also applies to advice from friends and family. It is always best to check with your attorney or divorce mediator, before you make any decisions based on their advice.
Remember that often your well-meaning friend is only hearing your side of the story and doesn’t understand the full implications of your situation. A divorce mediator can hear from both of you and help craft an agreement that takes into consideration all the factors that need to be considered when you are reaching an agreement.
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Add co-workers and neighbors to the “Greek Chorus” of family and friends, each of whom knows exactly what the couple should do, and whose advice and grasp of matrimonial law differs. The “knowledge” imparted by one of these helpers is usually just a snippet of what is real. The statement I get most often is “I know that I have to give him/her half of my retirement”. The issue of “abandonment” is a close second.