Texas is the only state without a realistic maintenance (alimony) divorce law. It depends, instead, on the division of community property, and child support (also severely restricted in court scenarios) to adequately support the children of the marriage while in the custody, or living with, the “lower earning capacity” parent.  The possibility of an unequal division of the community property is also relied on by “empty nest”, stay-at-home spouses who have greatly decreased their earning capacity to raise their children and then find themselves divorced in mid-life without child support or alimony to support them.

Both situations require great financial expertise and, sometimes, a lot of imagination, to divide the assets and liabilities to provide the most financial help at the times it will be most needed.

The ability to earn is so important and so well understood that it is the primary focus of most insurance companies – replacing salary in disability and earning capacity after death.  In every other state, the “insurance” against divorce is alimony.   There is no insurance available in Texas against the financial impact of divorce – to either party – but a well crafted division will help.

All that would sound as though the higher wage earner is always the “bad person”.  Our experience has been quite the opposite.  We have found the higher wage earner rarely wants to leave the other spouse, and particularly the children, in dramatically reduced financial circumstances.  The question is always “How much is enough?”  The higher income spouse wrestles with how much support can realistically be given.  There is the ever present fear of job loss or earnings reductions.  Additionally, financial issues may have been a factor in the divorce.  There are no “easy” solutions but there are informed, caring solutions – those are the harder ones to find.

During the traditional divorce process both parents future standard of living, and the resulting emotional impact on the children, is left to attorneys, mediators, and judges who, though most are conscientious and caring professionals, are not financial professionals, and have not known, and usually could not know, until now, the impact of any given division of community property on either party.

With the financial planning knowledge and the graphic displays available through Equitable Solutions, the client, attorney, mediator, judge, and opposing spouse can all know the financial impact on both parties, and make intelligent, informed decisions--equitable to both parties.  And, perhaps most important, the two people divorcing can make the decisions - based on their lives and their sense of responsibility - not what is normal or ordinary or what the state of Texas has decided is enough or too much.