Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk For Free? Answer: Cuz It Ain't Free!

Live-in lovers break up... then pay up: Court hearings boom for unmarried couples
By Tamara Cohen




Couples who break up following a live-in relationship are paying tens of thousands of pounds in settlements to their former partners.


A new phenomenon of ‘break-up payments’ is increasingly common because more and more couples are living together for several years without marrying.


When a marriage collapses, a spouse is usually entitled to half the couple’s assets, but for cohabitees the legalities can be a minefield.

Law firm Pannone has reported a 40 per cent rise in these payments in the past five years, claiming people are taking advantage of the uncertain legal status of unmarried couples to issue ‘nuisance’ demands.

Some people were willing to pay up to £100,000 to former partners to avoid lengthy legal action which can last up to 18 months, it said.

Recent actions have involved custody of children, jointly owned property, bank accounts and even pets.

There are 2.3million cohabiting couples and the number is expected to double in the next 25 years. One in four children is born to cohabitees.

Vicki McLynn, a senior associate at Pannone, suggested the problem was partly due to such disputes being dealt with using property rather than family law, as no legislation had yet been passed making clear the rights of unmarried partners when they split up.

She said: ‘It can ultimately be a case of “he said, she said” – one partner’s ability to be more convincing than the other in court can be crucial in determining how cases are settled.

‘Given that element of risk and the assets at stake, many family and litigation lawyers in our firm and elsewhere are seeing clients wanting to pay up to end the matter.’

Unmarried couple Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy split after five years together. They are not thought to have sought settlements from each other

In 2007, the Law Commission published a series of recommendations for the government following a review of the rights of unmarried couples. It concluded that the ‘unclear’ current law made for ‘unfair’ outcomes.

The commission urged a series of reforms including legislation enabling unmarried men or women who had lived together for at least two years to make a claim against their ex-partner. The recommendations have so far not been acted upon.

Miss McLynn suggested that while some disputes involved individuals who had genuinely made contributions to building up joint assets, others featured demands which could best be described as ‘nuisance’.

She said: ‘We have seen instances in which people have issued demands to complicate their exes’ new relationships.’

Earlier this year, family law firms reported a 15 per cent rise in the number of cohabiting clients seeking advice on relationship breakdown as a result of the recession.

Date of Separation and Why It Matters in California

DATE OF SEPARATION: WHY DOES IT MATTER?

So why does it matter? Short answer: California is a community property state. In California, the date of separation determines the end of the community.

The date of separation matters in division of property and in spousal support.

PROPERTY DIVISION

For example, John and Jane Smith marry 1/1/2000. They separate 12/31/2000.

Jane wins the lottery on 12/31/00. John wins the lottery on 1/1/01.

According to Family Code section 771, which states, "a) The earnings and accumulations of a spouse and the minor children living with, or in the custody of, the spouse, while living
separate and apart from the other spouse, are the separate property of the spouse. "

SO...Jane's lotto winnings are community, and John's are NOT.

SPOUSAL SUPPORT

For example, John and Jane Smith marry 1/1/00. John moves out 12/31/07, into his own apartment with his girlfriend and remained living with his girlfriend up through the date of trial.

John filed for divorce 1/1/2010.

Although John did not sleep in the family residence, he maintained continual and frequent contacts with Jane and children, including dinner every night in 2008 and 2009. John also maintained his mailing address at the family residence. John also took Jane on 2 trips in 2008. John also took Jane to social functions, friends’ homes, dinners for professional and academic groups, etc. in 2008 and 2009. John also sent Jane numerous Christmas, birthday and anniversary cards, including at least one card, in which John said he loved Jane. John and Jane continued to file joint tax returns and John paid all the household bills. John even brought his laundry home every week and Jane would wash and iron it. John and Jane did not have sex after 12/31/07. At all times during the period of physical separation prior to filing the Petition, Jane maintained she “desired” a reconciliation.

When was the date of separation?

Those are the exact facts of the case of In Re Marriage of Baragry (1977), 73 Cal.App.3d 444. The Court held that the date of separation was 1/1/10, the date of the filing of divorce.

TWO-PRONG TEST

The critical inquiry is whether the parties' conduct evidences a complete and final break in the marriage relationship.

For this, the Court uses a two-prong test to determine the date of separation: Objective and Subjective.

1. Objective Test
To answer the objective test, the court will determine when you started living apart from each other. That usually happens when one of you moves out of the family home. In today’s tough economic times, however, that is no longer an option for some, because it often is too expensive to maintain two separate residences. Even if spouses are still living in the same home, there are ways to ensure physical separation.

As California Courts put it, “Our conclusion does not necessarily rule out the possibility of some spouses living apart physically while still occupying the same dwelling. In such cases, however, the evidence would need to demonstrate unambiguous, objectively ascertainable conduct amounting to a physical separation under the same roof. (Marriage of Norviel) If this is a concern for you, you should always consult an attorney for more information.


2. Subjective Test
Physical separation is not enough to show that you separated. Some people are living separate from each other for extended periods but do not intend to end their marriage. That intent is the subjective part the court will consider. At what point did one or both of you think that the marriage was over? When did you decide that you no longer wanted to stay married? In essence, the court will look at your conduct toward each other to see when the marriage “ended.”

Please note: Marriage counseling is usually a good indicator that you are NOT intending to separate.

Top 10 Myths of Divorce

Article written by David Popenoe.



1. Because people learn from their bad experiences, second marriages tend to be more successful than first marriages.

Although many people who divorce have successful subsequent marriages, the divorce rate of remarriages is in fact higher than that of first marriages. 1 [Sources]

2. Living together before marriage is a good way to reduce the chances of eventually divorcing.

Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have a considerably higher chance of eventually divorcing. The reasons for this are not well understood. In part, the type of people who are willing to cohabit may also be those who are more willing to divorce. There is some evidence that the act of cohabitation itself generates attitudes in people that are more conducive to divorce, for example the attitude that relationships are temporary and easily can be ended. 2 [Sources]

3. Divorce may cause problems for many of the children who are affected by it, but by and large these problems are not long lasting and the children recover relatively quickly.

Divorce increases the risk of interpersonal problems in children. There is evidence, both from small qualitative studies and from large-scale, long-term empirical studies, that many of these problems are long lasting. In fact, they may even become worse in adulthood. 3 [Sources]

4. Having a child together will help a couple to improve their marital satisfaction and prevent a divorce.

Many studies have shown that the most stressful time in a marriage is after the first child is born. Couples who have a child together have a slightly decreased risk of divorce compared to couples without children, but the decreased risk is far less than it used to be when parents with marital problems were more likely to stay together “for the sake of the children.” 4 [Sources]

5. Following divorce, the woman’s standard of living plummets by seventy three percent while that of the man’s improves by forty two percent.

This dramatic inequity, one of the most widely publicized statistics from the social sciences, was later found to be based on a faulty calculation. A reanalysis of the data determined that the woman’s loss was twenty seven percent while the man’s gain was ten percent. Irrespective of the magnitude of the differences, the gender gap is real and seems not to have narrowed much in recent decades. 5 [Sources]

6. When parents don’t get along, children are better off if their parents divorce than if they stay together.

A recent large-scale, long-term study suggests otherwise. While it found that parents’ marital unhappiness and discord have a broad negative impact on virtually every dimension of their children’s well-being, so does the fact of going through a divorce. In examining the negative impacts on children more closely, the study discovered that it was only the children in very high conflict homes who benefited from the conflict removal that divorce may bring. In lower-conflict marriages that end in divorce—and the study found that perhaps as many as two thirds of the divorces were of this type—the situation of the children was made much worse following a divorce. Based on the findings of this study, therefore, except in the minority of high-conflict marriages it is better for the children if their parents stay together and work out their problems than if they divorce.6 [Sources]

7. Because they are more cautious in entering marital relationships and also have a strong determination to avoid the possibility of divorce, children who grow up in a home broken by divorce tend to have as much success in their own marriages as those from intact homes.

Marriages of the children of divorce actually have a much higher rate of divorce than the marriages of children from intact families. A major reason for this, according to a recent study, is that children learn about marital commitment or permanence by observing their parents. In the children of divorce, the sense of commitment to a lifelong marriage has been undermined.7 [Sources]

8. Following divorce, the children involved are better off in stepfamilies than in single-parent families.

The evidence suggests that stepfamilies are no improvement over single-parent families, even though typically income levels are higher and there is a father figure in the home. Stepfamilies tend to have their own set of problems, including interpersonal conflicts with new parent figures and a very high risk of family breakup.8 [Sources]

9. Being very unhappy at certain points in a marriage is a good sign that the marriage will eventually end in divorce.

All marriages have their ups and downs. Recent research using a large national sample found that eighty six percent of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, and stayed with the marriage, indicated when interviewed five years later that they were happier. Indeed, three fifths of the formerly unhappily married couples rated their marriages as either “very happy” or “quite happy.”9 [Sources]

10. It is usually men who initiate divorce proceedings.

Two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women. One recent study found that many of the reasons for this have to do with the nature of our divorce laws. For example, in most states women have a good chance of receiving custody of their children. Because women more strongly want to keep their children with them, in states where there is a presumption of shared custody with the husband the percentage of women who initiate divorces is much lower.10 [Sources] Also, the higher rate of women initiators is probably due to the fact that men are more likely to be "badly behaved." Husbands, for example, are more likely than wives to have problems with drinking, drug abuse, and infidelity.

Sources

1 Joshua R. Goldstein, “The Leveling of Divorce in the United States” Demography 36 (1999): 409-414; Andrew Cherlin, Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992) [back to text]

2 Alfred DeMaris and K. Vaninadha Rao, “Premartial Cohabitation and Marital Instability in the United States: A Reassessment” Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (1992): 178-190; Pamela J. Smock, “Cohabitation in the United States” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000) [back to text]

3 Judith Wallerstein, Julia M. Lewis and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (New York: Hyperion, 2000); Andrew J. Cherlin, P. Lindsay Chase-Landsdale, and Christine McRae, “Effects of Parental Divorce on Mental Health Throughout the Life Course” American Sociological Review 63 (1998): 239-249; Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997) [back to text]

4 Tim B. Heaton, “Marital Stability Throughout the Child-rearing Years” Demography 27 (1990): 55-63; Linda Waite and Lee A. Lillard, “Children and Marital Disruption” American Journal of Sociology 96 (1991): 930-953; Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip A. Cowan, When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples (New York: Basic Books, 1992) [back to text]

5 Leonore J. Weitzman, “The Economics of Divorce: Social and Economic Consequences of Property, Alimony, and Child Support Awards” UCLA Law Review 28 (August, 1981): 1251; Richard R. Peterson, “A Re-Evaluation of the Economic Consequences of Divorce” American Sociological Review 61 (June, 1996): 528-536; Pamela J. Smock, “The Economic Costs of Marital Disruption for Young Women over the Past Two Decades” Demography 30 (August, 1993): 353-371 [back to text]

6 Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997) [back to text]

7 Paul R. Amato, “What Children Learn From Divorce” Population Today, (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, January 2001); Nicholas H. Wolfinger, “Beyond the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce” Journal of Family Issues 21-8 (2000): 1061-1086 [back to text]

8 Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up With a Single Parent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); Alan Booth and Judy Dunn (eds.), Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994) [back to text]

9 Unpublished research by Linda J. Waite, cited in Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New York: Doubleday, 2000): 148 [back to text]

10 Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas A. Allen, “’These Boots Are Made For Walking”: Why Most Divorce Filers Are Women” American Law and Economics Review 2-1 (2000): 126-169 [back to text]

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage

With the advent of more marriages happening in the near future, I thought I would take some time now to research the divorce statistics. Interestingly enough, the Maldives (touted as paradise on earth) tops the charts as the "Divorce Capital of the World". Allegedly, all you need to accomplish a divorce in this Muslim nation is for the husband to say to the wife, "I divorce you" three times. See Article.

The divorce rate per every 1000 people is a whopping 10.97% in the Maldives! Here are the rest of the Top 10, followed by Belarus (4.65%); USA (4.19%); Panama (3.82%); Russia (3.66%); Estonia (3.65%); Puerto Rico (3.61%); Ukraine (3.59%); Costa Rica (3.58%); and Cuba (3.54%). See Statistics .

Here are some other noteworthy statistics, all derived from the Americans for Divorce Reform website .

* 43% of first marriages end within 15 years.

* Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than blue states.

* 75% of all divorced people re-marry, half of them within three years.

* 65% of new marriages fail.

* Roughly 1 in 5 adults has ever divorced; First marriages that end in divorce last about 8 years, on average.

* Marriages are most susceptible to divorce in the early years of marriage. After 5 years, approximately 10% of marriages are expected to end in divorce - another 10% (or 20 % cumulatively) are divorced by about the 10th year after marriage. However, the 30% level is not reached until about the 18th year after marriage while the 40% level is only approached by the 50th year after marriage.

* Seven-year itch? Try TWO! According to research, they are far more likely to separate after about two years of marriage. One in 12 couples is heading for the divorce courts after 24 months - more than double the figure for seven years.

* Divorced men and women suffer to a much greater degree than married persons early death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, strokes, pneumonia, hypertension, and suicide. According to researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health, "The single most powerful predictor of stress-related physical, as well as emotional, illness is marital disruption."'

* Children of divorce are twice as likely to drop out of school as those from intact homes, three times as apt to have a baby out of wedlock, five-fold more likely to be in poverty and 12 times more apt to be incarcerated. Judith Wallerstein followed 100 children of divorce for 25 years after parental divorce. Only 60 of the 100, now aged 27-43, had ever married vs. 84 percent of those from intact families. And 25 of the 60 had already divorced, leaving only a third who built lasting marriages.

* Living in sin? Suffer the consequences. Unmarried cohabitations overall are extremely unstable. The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20%, but the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49%. After10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33%,compared a whopping 62%! for cohabitations.

* On the same note, there is a higher risk, 40% to 85%, of divorce between couples cohabiting before marriage than couples waiting until after marriage to share a home together.

So I guess it's true ... why buy the milk when you can get the cow for free?