Men Face Financial Hardships After Divorce

With men facing the prospect of divorce, there can be a certain amount of fear attached with the experience. Not only does this mean you are no longer with the person you promised to love and cherish forever, but with the division of assets and the responsibilities of alimony and child support that are often ascribed to men, you may be facing a dire financial future.

Many men are forced to come to grips with a potentially difficult future. The idea that not only will they be forced to pay their ex-spouse for an extended period of time, but they also will not have the same amount of time with their children that they used to, is a tough reality to face.

Contact your attorney

Before the process begins, men need to realize that picking the right person to represent their interest is not an exact science. Men need to consider family law attorneys that understand the unique situation that they face and are ready to protect them and their future.

They need to put their trust in domestic litigation firms, like Cordell & Cordell, who have spent over 25 years representing the needs of men and fathers. They can put men and fathers on a better path moving forward.

Having that type of partner by your side is just the first step in understanding the challenges that life after divorce can financially mean. The idea of taking a financial loss is in itself a tough concept to accept.

Financial loss

Unfortunately, there is no way around it. Both parties will take a loss in a divorce. Researchers estimate that divorced spouses would, on average, need more than a 30 percent increase in their income to maintain the same standard of living they had prior to their divorce, according to financial advisors at The Balance.

For men, the burden of financial loss can affect so many aspects of their lives. The losses sustained to a man’s standard of living is generally between 10 and 40 percent, according to research from Utah State University.

Statistically speaking, this range of loss is greater than the loss that the wife suffers from, given that alimony and child support are statistically more likely to come from the husband.

In addition, if the ex-wife contributed a substantial amount to the marriage, the husband is more likely to struggle to make that up after the marriage ends. Men who provide less than 80 percent of a family’s income before divorce suffer more financially. Men who provide more than 80 percent of a family’s income before a divorce do not suffer as much financial losses and have a better chance of recovering from the devastation, according to research.

Modifying your decree

Many look to improve their situation through modification of their divorce decrees. The thought is that if the alimony or child support payments can be removed or reduced, the paying spouse can have a better chance of recovering financially from the divorce experience.

However, there is a stigma associated with modifying child support agreements. There are some who believe that modifying child support is a clear sign that the parent paying the child support no longer wishes to financially provide for their child to the same extent that they previously did. This assessment is untrue.

The paying parent does not modify their child support agreement because of anything related to how they feel about their child. They love their child very much and want to be a major part of his or her life. The parent who receives the child support payments is supposed to be doing so in the child’s best interests, and they cannot act in the child’s best interests, if they are dragging their co-parent into poverty.

For many individuals with child support payments, their low income is their reality. They should never have to choose between supporting their children and paying their rent. Sending an ex-spouse into poverty should never be an intention.

Changing the way you save

One of the best ways of financially recovering from the divorce experience is changing the way you think about saving money. The optimism that the passage of time can affect spending behaviors, according to an experiment published by the Association for Psychological Science.

The experiment showed that if you change the way you think about time from linear to cyclical, seeing life as many large and small cycles with events that can repeat themselves similar to the four seasons of the year, you become more likely to act a similar way as each cycle passes.

The results showed that participants in the study who thought of life in cycles reported 82 percent more in their savings than those who thought of time linearly.

While these types of changes may seem small, they may be able to add up over time and allow you to recovery from the financial hardships that the divorce experience can create.

Men's Rights Editor