The A-Z of Divorce, Z is for….

ZEST for life.  Although it may not feel like it when you are going
through a divorce people often find that actually it is the best
thing that has ever happened to them.  A divorce allows you to take
stock and decide what you really want to do with the rest of your
life.  It also gives you the chance to analyse what went wrong in
your marriage so that you don’t make the same mistakes again.
 
ZOO.  What does that have to do with divorce I hear you ask?  Well,
when your divorce is over and you start dating again take
prospective partners to the zoo.  Not only is it a great way of
introducing your new partner to your kids, but you can also have
fun comparing them with the animals (e.g. Cuddly like a bear or
strong as a lion could be good but slippery like a snake is not so
good!)
 

 

Pensions and Divorce

Just eight per cent of divorce settlements fully consider the assets of a spouse’s pension fund.

Here Karen Agnew-Griffith, of family law specialists Woolley & Co, Solicitors explains how to make pensions count.

There are no hard and fast rules regarding your financial rights in the breakdown of a relationship.

There will often be a range of possible solutions to dividing the assets, and it could be that a couple comes to an amicable agreement, with lawyers simply drafted in to formalise the agreement. Unfortunately though, in many cases, courts will be involved in deciding the division of assets.

The financial split can be affected by many factors, including the age of those involved, the length of the relationship, and the needs of each party and any children, and will routinely address income, property and savings.

A pension is often the second most significant capital asset in a marriage and so should be taken into account by a couple and their representatives when arranging a divorce or dissolving a civil partnership.

But pensions can be complex and confusing at the best of times, and are all-too-often glossed over, leaving many people unknowingly with a lot less than they are entitled to. The details must be thoroughly scrutinised by an experienced family law expert and, in some cases, an expert or a pension actuary brought in to help.

Frequently, one person has a substantial pension while the other might have none or a very limited pension provision because, for example, they have given up their job to look after the children.

If we’re honest, it is normally the wife who has the lowest - if any - pension provision, as it is assumed during the marriage that she will share in the benefit of the husband’s pension income when he retires. The pension is for both of them in effect - until things go wrong.

If the marriage fails, there is no automatic entitlement to a spouse’s private or occupational pension. In addition, there are rules which allow one divorced spouse to take National Insurance contributions from the other to make up deficiencies in their basic state pension.

After a divorce, it is often the case that the wife has little chance of being able to sufficiently build up a pension of her own during any working life that may be left to her.

There are a number of different roads couples can go down to tackle pension assets depending on their circumstances. These are offsetting, earmarking and pension-sharing.

In this day and age, pension sharing is the preferred route of most divorce courts but offsetting and, to a lesser extent earmarking, are also still valid in some cases. This is why it is vital you discuss your case and unique set of circumstances with an experienced family lawyer. This will give you the best chance of a fair, expedient outcome.

Offsetting involves balancing the pension fund against other matrimonial assets, such as the house. For instance, the wife might cede the pension fund to her husband in return for a larger share or all of the profits from any property.

Anyone considering this route though should think about it very carefully because of the different nature of capital assets and pensions. Pensions are not liquid assets, and, as such, can only be turned into cash on retirement. Their value on retirement could be much higher than at the time of assessment.

With earmarking, the court awards a percentage of the income the other party gets from the pension to the former spouse. This seems fairly straightforward and fair. However, it has numerous disadvantages which is why it has fallen out of favour. For instance, the income stops on the death of the pension holder or if the wife remarries.

The third option, and the one which is the preferred choice in the majority of cases these days, is pension sharing.

Thanks to the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 (WRPA), this allows one party the opportunity to secure a percentage of their spouse’s pension rights and to put that percentage into their own name.

This is preferable in many cases because a person can feel more in control of their own future rather than being dependent on an ex-husband, they can decide when they retire and it can be paid to children or a new spouse if the person dies before they retire.

It is important to note that when a pension is divided or shared, this does not mean that the recipient will receive a cash lump-sum. A pension or part of a pension that is ordered from one party to another still remains a pension and has to be invested in a pension plan.

There are also rules about when a pension can start being paid. For example, in a recent case the husband had two pensions. One was a private pension scheme paying out on the husband’s 50th birthday or at any time thereafter, and the other was an occupational scheme which paid out when the husband reached 60. The husband was five years older than the wife. The rules provide that the occupational pension scheme can only be paid out to the wife on her 60th birthday, five years after the husband could begin receiving his pension income.

The negotiations in that case concentrated around the wife taking the entire private pension scheme, which she could start to benefit from at any time after her 50th birthday, and less of the occupational scheme which would only pay out from the wife’s 60th birthday.

A pension sharing order cannot take effect during a divorce procedure but is dependent on the Decree Absolute being granted, the final stage of the divorce process. The provider of the pension arrangement will then have four months to put the pension credit into place.

The pension provider must provide the former spouse with information about charges associated with the transfer within 21 days of receiving the pension sharing order to ensure everyone is clear on what fees are associated with making the changes.

Once the provider has completed the necessary calculations and completed the pension credit, a notice of discharge of liability will be issued to both parties. This will show the value of the pension debit and pension credit, the remaining fund value to the pension holder and how the parties have paid the charges.

Anyone not happy with the decision of the court and final settlement for a pension decided during a divorce does have the right to take up the case either at appeal or through the Pension Ombudsman.

One of the most difficult tasks when resolving pensions and how they should be shared is the actual value of a pension fund. This is particularly important when valuing occupational pension schemes, such as those in the armed forces, police service and NHS. There are at least 100 different methods of calculating the value of a pension and to make a comparison fair, it can be necessary to get an expert to value the pension. There are recent cases where a pension fund has been increased by almost a third by getting a proper valuation. When you are talking of pension funds which can be as much as £600,000, like with a GP or senior officer in the armed forces, that is the difference of some £200,000.

Anyone who is involved in a divorce and needs to investigate a claim on a pension fund should not assume that all will be well, they will get treated equally and so pay the process little heed.

Expert advice and guidance from experienced professionals is the only way to ensure you are not left rueing the financial split while getting over the emotional break-up.

Woolley & Co advises that the process on considering pensions in a financial settlement should be as follows:

Find out what pension provision there is.

Decide with your lawyer if the amount of the pension and the facts of your case make further investigation justifiable (ie, cost versus benefit).

If you wish to push ahead, investigate fully, ideally helped by a specialist IFA or pension actuary.

Decide how to adjust the settlement in the light of this knowledge.

Lots more free info and downloadable Factsheets here.

Andrew Woolley
Woolley & Co, Solicitors
Specialist family lawyers. My firm specialises in helping people with relationship breakdown problems get their legal issues sorted out as painlessly as possible, quickly and in plain English

Improving Self-Esteem

Confidence and self-esteem are not the same thing. Self-confidence is a belief in one’s abilities where as self-esteem is a sense of ones own dignity or worth.

Considered an important component of emotional health, self-esteem encompasses both self-confidence and self-acceptance. It is the way individuals perceive themselves and their self-value.

If you have low self-esteem you are not alone. Many people suffer from it including outwardly confident people. One of the most famous examples of this was Diana, the late Princess of Wales.

Self-esteem comes from our beliefs about ourselves, many of which are formed in childhood. If we are brought up to believe we are loved unconditionally we are more likely to have high self-esteem. Unfortunately only too often our parents, teachers and friends cause us to question whether we are ‘good enough’ which leads to lack of self-esteem.  Our beliefs are usually deep-seated and often we are not even aware of them.

Even people who once had high self-esteem can lose it. The main causes of this are failed relationships and redundancies. It is amazing how much influence we allow people to have over us.

To identify limiting beliefs you need to become self-aware. Notice what you say to yourself, i.e. what the voice in your head says. No, its not just you who talks to yourself, we all do it and you need to become aware of when the voice(s) is being negative. If you are telling yourself you can’t do something then question why you think you can’t do it. Examine where your beliefs came from and whether they are still true for you now or whether they are outdated and irrelevant. So, if your voice is saying ‘I can’t do that!’ identify why you can’t do it. Is it really impossible or do you just need to learn some new skills?

The good news is that beliefs can be changed. There are simple exercises that a Coach or NLP Practitioner can do with you to help you to do this.

Ten small steps to improving self-esteem

1. Start to improve your self-esteem by allowing yourself some ‘me’ time. As a minimum allow ten minutes a day just to sit quietly and clear your mind of clutter. If you can give yourself long than ten minutes then arrange to do something you enjoy. Read a book or magazine, meet a friend for coffee or a drink, have a manicure or a massage – whatever you do make sure it is self-indulgent.

2. It is also important to cut negative people out of your life. If your friends drain your energy then don’t see them. You need upbeat, positive people in your life.

3. Accept compliments gracefully with a simple ‘thank you’ and believe the good things people say.

4. Make a list of all your good qualities. List everything that is good about you, the way you look, your personality, things you have achieved, things you are good at. Keep the list for a few days and add to it as you think of new things. Then ask your friends and family to add to the list. You’ll be surprised at how other people see you.Keep this list somewhere you can easily see it.

5. Learn to say ‘No’. If you don’t want to do something or go somewhere then say so, don’t feel guilty. Do what is best for you.

6. Check your feelings regularly and pull yourself up if thinking negatively. Where focus goes, energy flows. Focus on what you do want, not what you don’t want.

7. There is no failure, only feedback. People who adopt this attitude are usually successful. If what they have done hasn’t worked then they learn from it and try something else. They don’t fail – they experiment to see what works.

8. Count your blessings. Be grateful for what you have. List at least 6 positive things that have happened during the day before you go to sleep at night. (a piece of work well done, a beautiful flower, a bird singing, a lovely sunset, something someone said, a new piece of knowledge, a delicious meal, a good deed, good health)

9. Read self-help books and articles on positive thinking. Do the exercises which many of them contain.

10. Take responsibility for your own life. Don’t expect other people to make you happy – make yourself happy.

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A Huge Challenge

I have just entered the Adidas 5K Women’s Challenge, a 5K run round Hyde Park on 7 September 2008.  I am doing this to raise money for REFUGE a national charity for women and children experiencing domestic violence.  This is a charity that is close to my heart and I am hoping to raise £1000.

This is a huge personal challenge for me.  I am unfit and overweight and just started training yesterday.  My first training session was a run (well a bit of running and a lot of walking) round the park yesterday.  My breathing was so bad that I frightened a lady out walking her dog!  Today was slightly better with almost as much running as walking.  I have just three and a half months to become fit enough to run 5K.  

I would really appreciate your support - you can sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/annieoneill or by pressing the button.

2 June.  A quick update.    I’m obviously not such a worry to the dog walkers after 2 weeks of training - they now greet me with ‘morning’ instead of ‘are you alright?’!  While still unable to run the whole way round the park I am now managing to run much more than I walk so I can see progress and as an added bonus I have lost 4 pounds in weight.

 

Life after Divorce: Will I Ever Love Again?

The short answer to this question is probably yes.

 

However you have to adjust to your situation and work your way through the emotions of splitting up before you will be able to move on.

 

The end of a relationship is always tough whether or not it was your decision to end it.  You may need to work through some of the following emotions:

 

Rejection

The person who has been left often experiences feelings of rejection.  This can lead to being over critical about yourself – ‘what did I do wrong?’ ‘What do I need to change?’  However, the fact that your relationship ended does not necessarily mean that you did anything wrong or need to change anything.  Relationships end for all sorts of reasons.  Whilst some introspection can be healthy, don’t go over criticise.  Take any lessons on board and then put it behind you.  Remember you are a wonderful person capable of loving and being loved. 

 

Guilt

If you chose to end the relationship the chances are you are feeling guilty about hurting the person you love or used to love.  However, it is sometimes appropriate to end a relationship because it is destructive to one or both partners.  If you feel guilty about not making the marriage work then think about why it didn’t work and learn any lessons you need to learn.  Then put it behind you.  Accept your guilt as being appropriate for the situation and do some personal development work.

 

Fear

It is natural to have some fear about venturing out on your own after being part of a couple.  The first step is to face those fears – make a list of them and tackle them one at a time.  Fears such as being lonely, finances, where you will live, what the future will hold, coping with decision making, being a single parent, losing your children, losing your friends, not being in control, being hurt again, change.  Does one or more of these sound familiar?  Tackle them one at a time – when necessary consult and expert (i.e. financial advisor, lawyer, life coach).  Fear is natural, everyone is afraid sometimes even if they don’t show it.  Fear stops us from taking unnecessary risks but it can also motivate us.  There are exercises you can do to help you to take control of your fears.

 

Anger

It is also natural to have some anger towards your ex and/or about your situation.  However, whether this is good or bad depends on how you express that anger.  Venting your anger directly at your ex is not helpful.  Equally, holding your anger in is unhelpful and can lead to depression.  Most importantly using the children to ‘get back’ at your ex is completely unacceptable.  You need to take responsibility for your anger and learn to express it in ways that will benefit you and help you grow stronger.  Some of the things you can do are:  phone a good friend (but not too often), do some physical exercise, scream and shout (preferably somewhere you can’t be heard!), have a good cry, write a long letter to your ex expressing all your feelings (but don’t send it).  There are also some NLP exercises that your Coach can work through with you. 

 

Grief

The end of a long-term relationship can be cause for grief but this is often not understood by people who have not been through it.  Common symptoms of grief are feeling emotionally drained, not sleeping, pushing friends away if they get too close, lack of appetite, rapid mood changes and frequently sighing.  It is important to work through your grief.  One way of doing this is to keep a journal of how you are feeling and noting down what triggers your symptoms and what enables you to forget them.

 

Once you have come to terms with these negative emotions you can start to do some personal development work.  Because the truth is that you can only really love someone else once you have learned to love yourself.

 

Accept that your relationship failed without proportioning blame.  It doesn’t matter now – its over and you can’t change that.  You must learn to love yourself, be ‘self sufficient’ then and only then will you be able to sustain a meaningful relationship with someone else. 

 

There are several steps towards personal development you could take: 

 

1. There are literally hundreds of ‘self-help’ books out there but you have to make a commitment to actually carry out the exercises, which can be difficult to sustain without support.
2. You can learn to meditate, which will help to reduce your stress levels and give you some inner peace.
3. You can use affirmations.  An Affirmation is simply a statement that is repeated often enough that you believe it with every fibre of your being.  Susan Jeffers has a great Affirmation for newly single people – “I choose to live with a sense of excitement and possibility about all the uncertainty in my life”.  What a great way to live – meeting new situations with a sense of curiosity rather than fear.  For more information see my Affirmations  blog.  
4. You can use Visualisation.  This is where you picture how you would like your life to be in great detail, making it feel like it is possible to have what you want.  As Walt Disney said – “If you can dream it, you can do it”.  For more information see my Visualisation blog.
5. You can hire a Divorce Coach to help you to increase your confidence and self-esteem, identify negative emotions and beliefs that are holding you back, help you to clarify what you want and support you in achieving the goals you set yourself.   

 The steps you take can be big or small, only you know the pace you are comfortable with.  The important thing is recognising that you are a wonderful person who deserves to live a happy and fulfilled life.    Once you know this and you start liking who you and being comfortable with yourself your confidence will grow and you will be able to love again.

 

Divorce:  Don’t just GO through it, GROW through it.

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Life after Divorce: Your First Holiday Alone

One of the most challenging things about getting divorced is what to do about holidays.  If you are very lucky you will have a single friend who you could go away with but often all your friends are in relationships. 

There are tailor made ‘singles’ holidays, which you can find by surfing the Internet.  However, ensure that the company you choose is offering the sort of holiday you are looking for and that you are happy with their ethos. Alternatively, I recently met a lady who has set up a website Buddies4Travel, which is an introduction agency for single women who are looking for someone to travel with. A great idea - I wish it had been around when I got divorced.

Why not learn a new skill or improve an existing one.   I found holidays providing courses on cooking, painting, photography, dancing and yoga.  This is a good way of meeting like-minded people.  There are also activity holidays such as walking, trekking and cycling.   Most of these holidays cater for single people.  

Organisations such as The National Trust offer volunteer holidays where you can help with tasks such as gardening, clearing footpaths, woodland management, dry-stone walling, or constructing new coastal paths.  

Alternatively you could volunteer for a working holiday abroad.  There are several companies offering these, just type ‘volunteer holidays’ into your search engine.  Opportunities include working with children in Peru, turtle conservation in Costa Rica, building projects in Ecuador, marine conservation in Mexico and wildlife conservation in the Amazon.  There are some fabulous opportunities to see the world and do some good.  

If you have children it is worth looking at the Gingerbread website where they have lots of tips about holidays for single parents.   

If money is tight why not look at the area in which you live through the eyes of a tourist.  Go to the nearest Tourist Information office and see what is on offer.  Most places have museums, good walks, gardens, National Trust properties and parks within easy reach and the Tourist Office will be able to advise you on public transport routes if you don’t have your own transport.  Also local events will be publicized in your local newspapers and library.   

Before you book any holiday check that the company is registered with the appropriate bodies, what the price includes, you have valid and appropriate insurance and that the company has a good reputation or can provide testimonials from previous customers. 

 

For more divorce support and information look at the New Horizons Divorce Coaching website.

What you can learn from a Divorce Coach

In a collaborative divorce, each spouse usually hires their own divorce coach to help them learn to communicate and negotiate more effectively. These coaches are an integral part of the collaborative divorce team. They teach life skills that will form the basis for your post-divorce relationship with your spouse. If you have children, the skills learned from your divorce coach can make co-parenting go more smoothly after the divorce.

Your divorce coach will provide you will skilled help in:

• Managing your emotions appropriately.
• Separating your thoughts from your feelings.
• Thinking through emotionally charged issues.
• Learning to talk about difficult problems in a businesslike manner.
• Setting short and long-term goals for yourself, your children and your co-parenting relationship.

Conflict management, creative problem-solving, negotiation and productive communication are among the valuable life skills you can learn with the help of your divorce coach. Your coach can help you identify bad habits and problem areas in your relationship with your spouse and learn to communicate more productively. Divorce coaches help you and your spouse focus more clearly on your individual goals and the positive changes that can come about as a result of your divorce.

Posted By Mike Mastracci - Divorce without Dishonor

Interview on Radio Berkshire - 4 March 08

Mobile post sent by annieo using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

Allow your children to love you both

In an ideal divorce situation, both parents would deserve and have equal custody along with decision-making capabilities regarding their children. They would treat each other fairly and with respect for their own chosen parenting style.

Unfortunately this is too often not the case and at least one parent if not both set out to defame the other parent in their children’s eyes. Turning your children against the other parent will create a life long psychological difficulty for them and gain you nothing. A friend of mine shared with me the anger she still feels at times towards her mother for turning her against her father while she was a child. When she was old enough to begin questioning all she had been told, she discovered that her mother had lied to her and greatly exaggerated her father’s failings. She has now forged a relationship with her father and become closer to him than to her mother, and feels cheated of the years she lost to her mother’s bitterness.

Saying derogatory things about the other parent, withholding money, being disrespectful toward the other parent in front of your children only hurt your children and your long-term relationship with them. Your anger at your ex can destroy you all when you choose to involve your children in exacting revenge on your ex.

Allow your children to love both of you. Allow them to love the step parents that may be part of their lives. Love is infinite and will only result in more love for you, not less. When you act out of love, by being kind towards others, including your ex, and teach your children to always act out of love, the happiness in your lives will be multiplied over and over again. Hate and anger destroys lives. Don’t let it destroy your children. Spend some time this week writing about your children and whether or not you are being fair to their other parent. Are you acting out of love and kindness? Are you acting in the best interest of your children and not yourself. If not, decide to do so and write about how you can accomplish this. Have a great week.

With thanks to Choosing Happiness after Divorce  

 

Life after Divorce – What now?

Being on your own after living as part of a couple takes some getting used to, especially if the split is not of your choosing.  You may think that you have enough to cope with but soul-searching is an important step in helping you to move on. 

You need to examine your past relationship/s and think about what went wrong.  Be completely honest with yourself.   The breakdown of a relationship is rarely down to one person.  This exercise will probably be extremely uncomfortable but you need to know if there is anything you could have done differently so that you don’t make the same mistakes again.

Think about the following:

How often did you really sit down and talk about your feelings?

Can you name five things your ex is passionate about?

How often did you go out together on a ‘date’?

When did you last have fun with your partner? 

What is your idea of fun? 

Is it possible you stopped trying to look nice for your partner?

Were there things that changed when you had children?

What could you have done differently in your relationship?

What interests did you have in common?

Did you adapt your personality to suit your partner? (Not necessarily a good thing!)

Were you compatible in the first place?

What frustrated you most about your partner?

What do you think frustrated them most about you?

Do you have any new ideas about why your relationship broke down?

What would you do differently next time?

Now that you are on your own you have time to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life.  Firstly you need to make a life that you enjoy as a single person.  Until you like yourself you will not be happy.  You cannot rely on anyone else for your happiness. This is something you have to achieve for yourself.  So, decide how you would like your life to be and take steps to make it happen. You can do, be or have anything you want. 

 

 

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