Separation and divorce can be an overwhelming time in people’s lives. Who you should turn to for help depends very much on your personal circumstances.
If your separation is at least somewhat amicable, you have more options to navigate this difficult period. This approach not only makes the process smoother but also increases the likelihood of achieving an optimal outcome for both parties.
The Benefits of an Amicable Financial Separation
At Div-ide, we specialise in helping separated couples who recognise the benefits of maintaining an amicable approach. This mindset opens the door to numerous opportunities, including:
- Educating both parties (quite often one party has been involved in the finances and the other not so much) in relation to their assets and liabilities so they both understand what they have – so they can each make informed decisions in relation to their property settlement;
- Working with mortgage brokers to determine the borrowing capacity of each of the parties for post separation life;
- Partnering with accountants, financial planners and stockbrokers to preserve as much value as possible in the agreed property settlement split;
- Accounting for any inherited capital gains tax associated with transferred assets.
- Exploring superannuation splitting options tailored to each party’s income, borrowing capacity, and future needs.
- Outlining strategies for managing children’s expenses and child support.
All of these steps are part of a pragmatic, supported action plan designed to help each party progress and finalise their property settlement. Additionally, taking an amicable approach to financial separation is often more cost-effective, with the possibility of shared costs.
For more information, visit Div-ide and discover how they can assist you in your journey to financial independence.
How to be amicable in your Financial Separation
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What an amicable Financial Separation looks like
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What a non-amicable Financial Separation
looks like
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Professional Help
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- Jointly agree to seek professional help where required: jointly engage Div-ide to manage your financial separation, if required, engage a psychologist / mediator to work with you both on parenting matters and engage a counsellor / psychologist to help you process your emotions and other practical issues as you move from being a couple to on your own / a single parent
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- Engage lawyers and use them in a way to cause harm to the other party as a negotiating tactic.
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Communication
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- Communicate key issues via email, with both parties writing emails and then sleeping on any issues and removing any emotional barbs before sending;
- Respond to emails from your ex on a timely basis, and if you need more time to consider issues reply and advise the time frame you will need to provide a comprehensive reply.
- Be respectful in all communications.
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- Send late night narky texts
- Fail to respond to communication from your ex if you know this will annoy and hurt them as they have hurt you
- Use your child as a messenger.
- Use third parties – eg lawyers to send deliberately upsetting communication
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Support
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- Build a support system with family, friends and if required, a counsellor, so you each have a much-needed outlet for processing your feelings post separation
- Acknowledge that Australia has a “no fault divorce system” and understand that why your relationship ended has no impact on the financial settlement process or outcome
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- Use your property settlement process to make your ex suffer and pay for ending your relationship and the pain this has caused you
- Blame your ex for the breakdown of your relationship
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Prioritise your Children
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- Each party agrees to prioritise your children and focuses on problem solving any co-parenting issues and avoiding conflict inducing behaviours like having placing blame or having heated debates in front of the children
- Understand that where both parents are willing and able to share the care of their children, such shared care is in the children’s best interest
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- Use your children as pawns when considering care arrangements
- Put your ex down in front of the children and discuss all the issues with them and recruit them to your team
- Block any attempts at trialling shared care of the children and point out the other parent’s limitations as to why shared care would not work
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Flexible and Adaptable
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- Be open to considering options your ex puts to you in relation to your assets / liabilities, finances and parenting arrangements – be willing to negotiate – give where you can to get what you want.
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- Shut down any options your ex puts to you without exploring and considering such options with the relevant professionals
- Digging in on points which ultimately don’t really matter to you
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Disclosure
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- Provide full disclosure on your bank accounts, superannuation balances and other assets and liabilities in your sole name
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- Ignore disclosure requests from your ex as you know this will frustrate them
- Think that by not providing disclosure you will be able to hide the value of assets and liabilities form you ex (if you do not provide requested information your ex will most likely commence action against you and documents will be subpoenaed by the court – so all required information will eventually come out but the cost of this exercise is up to both of you)
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Family Expenses
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- Keep everything joint until a plan has been made and agreed upon by both of you as to when incomes and expenses are to go from joint to each individual
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- Decide to take control to cause pain to the other person and have your salary paid into an account in your name (when each of your salaries have previously been paid into a joint account), so your ex cannot access these funds for joint family expenses
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Attitude
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- Be focused on getting through this process to then face the next chapter of your life
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- Going over old ground
- Making the other person upset
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There may be times when either you or your ex behaves in a non-amicable manner. The best way to get things back on track is to acknowledge to your ex that that you may not have acted in the most amicable manner over a particular issue, apologise and reaffirm your commitment to resolving your financial settlement in an amicable manner.
If it becomes clear that one or both of you are not capable of working through this process in an amicable manner, then we will produce a final invoice for our time and collate the information collected to date and forward it to each of your chosen family lawyers.
