Considering a divorce can be a stressful experience, and it is natural to feel a little nervous before your first meeting with your divorce attorney. But, you are not alone, as every year, thousands of people in Illinois find themselves in the same situation. And, as with many things in life, preparation can make all the difference.

If you prepare well for your first meeting with a divorce attorney, you can walk confidently into their office and move forward with everything as smoothly and painlessly as possible. Proper preparation involves gathering paperwork together, and these are a few things to bring that may help you with your first meeting: a list of questions and concerns for the attorney, financial documents to help the attorney understand your assets, and a brief story of your marriage.

A List of Questions

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People often look at the New Year as a chance for a fresh start. This viewpoint manifests itself in many ways, from new diets to renewed job hunts, and by even affecting divorce rates. While sources disagree over the exact numbers, January and February see the most divorce filings in the United States, as people start to put their plans in motion. Interestingly, no one is quite sure exactly what causes people to hold off until the start of the year to file for divorce, but, anecdotally, it may be a combination of several factors.

 One factor that people commonly mention is that New Year's often provokes self reflection. At the end of a year, people naturally look back on it to evaluate how it went and what they would improve. The same impetus that drives people to craft New Year's resolutions drives them to evaluate their relationships, and in the process many decide that divorce is the right answer.

The holidays also stand out as one of the greatest reasons for the flood of divorces at the start of the year. Some people say that they make the decision to divorce prior to the holidays, but choose to hold off in order to preserve the sense of normality through that time of year, a thought process that is especially common in families with children still at home. Alternatively, the holidays can also act as the final straw that causes a divorce. Many people experience an increase in stress during that time of year resulting from added financial pressure and other demands of the season. That extra stress can combine with the prolonged proximity to one's family to act as a catalyst for a divorce that may have been building for some time.

 Additionally, several practical factors converge at the start of a year to promote divorces. The period right after the holidays tends to come with a lull in activity that can allow people to focus on what must happen for a divorce. Furthermore, the end of the year acts as a convenient fiscal delineation, so that people can mark their salaries and bonuses for the year, as well as plan for the next year's taxes. If the New Year's start has caused you to start considering divorce, contact an experienced Wheaton divorce attorney today. They can help you work through the divorce process to ensure that it runs as smoothly as possible.

Illinois law allows a person to file for divorce for a variety of reasons. One of the most common reasons is for “irreconcilable differences.” The law refers to divorce for irreconcilable differences as a no-fault divorce, meaning that neither party caused the marriage to fail. Illinois law also recognizes a variety of grounds for fault divorce. Fault divorces assign blame for the marriage's failure to one party, and although that will not greatly affect the outcome of the divorce, it may impact child custody decisions.

 No-Fault Divorce Divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences allows a couple to separate without needing to engage in a public fight over who was at fault for the marriage ending. Instead, the spouses simply acknowledge that their relationship has broken down. In order to file for a no-fault divorce like this, the couple must meet four requirements. First, the couple must live “separate and apart” for two straight years. Second, the couple must have irreconcilable differences, meaning that their relationship is not working. Third, the spouses' attempts to heal the marriage must have failed. And fourth, any further attempts to fix the marriage would likely not succeed, and would not be good for the family. The first requirement, living separate and apart for two years, is more complicated than it seems. Living apart does not necessarily mean living in separate places. Instead, the couple can show that they lived together, but merely as roommates for that period. Additionally, the spouses may not actually need to wait the full two years. If the couple lived apart for six months, and both of them agree in writing, then the judge can waive the remainder of the waiting period and grant the divorce.  Fault Divorce Fault divorces are less common in Illinois, but the law still allows for them. In these cases, certain, specified types of marital misconduct can be grounds for a fault divorce. These grounds include:

• A spouse's having multiple marriages at the same time;
• A spouse's committing adultery;
• A spouse's abandonment of the family for at least one year;
• A spouse's abuse of alcohol or other addictive drugs for at least two years; and
• A spouse's attempting murder or other physical or mental cruelty towards the other spouse.

Those considering filing for divorce should remember that even if they succeed in proving fault, that will not affect the majority of the state. Courts do not look at fault for purposes of property division or alimony. However, the fault may play into the child custody hearing if it would affect the best interests of the child. If you are thinking about filing for divorce, contact a Wheaton divorce attorney today. They can explain your options and help determine the best course of action for you.

Illinois law may require one spouse to pay support to another following a divorce. Of course, the amount that the court requires depends on the parties’ financial circumstances at the time of the divorce. In this uncertain economy, those circumstances are prone to change, meaning that the support obligation may have to change as well. Fortunately, courts allow parties to petition to change their support obligations if they can show some sort of pertinent change in their finances.

How Judges Calculate Support

To understand what changes would qualify as meaningful, it can help to look at how the law determines a person’s support obligations. The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act governs the court’s awarding of spousal support. It instructs judges to examine a variety of factors when making the support determination, including:

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Psychology researchers at UCLA conducted a four year study to determine whether cold feet before a wedding could predict divorce. Their answer: yes and no. It turns out that women’s doubts before a wedding may signal trouble ahead for the marriage, while men’s doubts do not correlate with significantly higher divorce rates.

The study divided marriages into four groups: marriages in which neither spouse had doubts, marriages in which the men had doubts, marriages in which the women had doubts, and marriages in which both the men and the women had doubts. The first group contained 36 percent of marriages, with neither side having doubts. In this group, the divorce rate was only six percent. Among the group of marriages with only male doubts, that number rose to 10 percent, an increase that the study’s authors say is too small to have significance. Conversely, marriages involving women with cold feet ended in divorce three times as often as those where neither side had any doubts; 18 percent reported divorce by the four-year mark. And, in cases where both sides had doubt, the number increases slightly to a 20 percent divorce rate, only a small difference from the women-only pool of marriages. The researchers attribute these differences to the fact that women are often more attuned to the dynamics of the relationship. Consequently, they do not get cold feet as much as men do, but when they do, they tend to be better at noticing real causes for concern.

In addition to looking at divorce rates, the researchers also examined the satisfaction of people with their marriages, and how that satisfaction related to doubts they had beforehand. Their research found that both men’s and women’s doubts impacted this area, leading to a lower level of marital satisfaction for those who experienced doubt.

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