Legal separation (called “separate maintenance” in Michigan), is a divorce alternative that few people use. When you get a legal separation, you are still legally married. Neither of you is free to marry someone else. In some situations, however, a legal separation can meet at least some of the needs of a couple that wants to end their relationship but not get a divorce.

If you are going through a divorce in Michigan, you might be wondering about your options. You have seen friends or relatives go through toxic divorces that permanently destroyed relationships and hurt people deeply.

If you have children and you anticipate a divorce, you might be worried about how much time you will have with the children. Parenting time is one of the greatest challenges for family court judges. As King Solomon asked, “How can you split up a child?” There is no simple way to divide a child between two people, which begs the question --- How do judges determine child visitation orders?

How to Obtain a Michigan Personal Protection Orders

Michigan courts offer you protection if someone is threatening, harassing, or harming you. You can go to court and ask the judge to order the person to stop hurting or frightening you. These orders have different names in different states. In Michigan, they are called Personal Protection Orders (PPOs).

When you are going through a divorce, you need to know what to expect and how you will pay your bills moving forward after the divorce. With child support, there is some predictability, as Michigan uses a formula to calculate the amount of child support, based on the income and needs of the parties and the parenting time schedule, among other factors. There is no such formula to calculate spousal support, also called maintenance or alimony, in Michigan.

If you are going through a divorce in Michigan, you may be worried about how the divorce will impact you financially. Divorce can be devastating to a person’s finances in both the short-term and the long-term. You will get to keep the property the court decides is your separate property, but the court will distribute the marital property between you and your spouse.

You negotiate parenting time in Michigan during a divorce, a paternity action or a family support case. If you are going through one of these legal proceedings, you need to know what to consider when negotiating for parenting time. An experienced Read more . . .

When you get married it is natural and advisable to think about what you want your marriage to look like. Even in the happiest of marriages, a spouse might want to set some things down in writing. The most important question to ask when your spouse asks you to sign a post-nuptial agreement is: WHY? There are many reasons to enter into a prenuptial agreement, but once you are married, you should question why your spouse wants to change the rules.

Make sure you understand why your spouse wants you to sign a post-nuptial agreement, and get good legal advice before you agree to anything. Under Michigan law, many post-nuptial agreements are invalid as a matter of law, for the reason that they are against public policy.
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Michigan does not have “legal separation” in the usual sense of the term. In Michigan, once you marry, you are either a married couple that lives together or a married couple that lives apart. A married couple that wants to live apart from each other can have a formal, written separation agreement, but they do not have to. Most separation agreements in Michigan are actually settlement agreements for divorces. A settlement agreement contains the terms the couple wants to live by when the judge grants the divorce.
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When going through a divorce, people are usually concerned about the future. Will they be financially ruined by the divorce? Will they have enough means to live on and pay their bills? Will they receive or have to pay alimony? How is spousal support determined in Michigan?

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When we think about divorce, the image of two angry, bickering spouses often comes to mind. The fact of the matter is, many divorcing couples are able to behave in a civil manner and are more interested in moving on than in making each others’ lives a living hell. In those cases, talking with a Read more . . .