Any divorce As a divorcing parent, one of the most challenging concerns you may currently be facing is the prospect of seeing your child less often than you are used to. For a parent who is heavily involved in his or her child’s daily life, transitioning to a shared parenting schedule after divorce can be very difficult. This is one reason that disagreements about parental responsibilities and parenting time can become heavily contested during a divorce. The “right of first refusal” is an important element in an Illinois parenting plan that any parent in a child custody dispute should be aware of.  

What Does “Right of First Refusal” Mean?

When you file your divorce petition, you will be asked to create a parenting plan and submit it to the court. This plan outlines how you will share parenting time, make important decisions about your child, and handle other co-parenting issues. The parenting plan also includes a provision explaining the right of first refusal. This is the right that parents have to be informed when the other parent cannot fulfill his or her allotted parenting time. The other parent must be given a chance to “refuse” the additional parenting time before the original parent can hire a babysitter or make other childcare arrangements.

Deciding How and When the Right of First Refusal Applies

You and your former spouse can decide how and when the right of first refusal applies. For example, you may decide that if a parent is absent for more than three hours of his or her allotted parenting time, the parent must inform the other parent of the absence. The other parent then has the opportunity to care for the child during the absence. You may also want to include provisions about how much advance notice you must give the other parent if you cannot fulfill your parenting time obligation. It is also a good idea to address how the child will be transported between the homes in this circumstance.

One of the many uncomfortable tasks that you have following your decision to divorce is when and how to tell others about it. You need to break the news personally to your children and close family members. Some friends may also deserve to hear the news directly from you. What about the other people you interact with on a regular basis? It could be emotionally tiresome to repeat your divorce conversation with all of your friends and other social acquaintances. Some couples will instead announce their divorce on social media. Before you decide whether a social media announcement would be right for you, you should consider the potential benefits and pitfalls.

Advantages of a Social Media Announcement

The most appealing part of announcing your divorce through social media is that it removes the pressure of having numerous in-person conversations about your divorce. Beyond that, a well-executed social media announcement can help you control your public message about your divorce:

• You and your spouse should use the same announcement so that your message is consistent.
• You can set the tone for the message, whether it is somber or more hopeful.
• You can use filters to determine who is able to see your announcement.
• You can set clear boundaries for talking about your divorce any further.

Setting the right tone in your announcement can be helpful if you are worried about how people will respond to it. Your friends should follow your lead if you express that you hold no resentment or want to focus more on your roles as parents.

Knowing when to call it quits can be one of the most complicated decisions when it comes to marriage. Facing divorce may seem not such a big deal, given its common occurrence in today's society, but when actually confronted with the decision to split from your spouse, it is not always as easy as it looks. Understanding your own personal reasons for divorce can help to soften the blow—that is, knowing that your relationship is not as healthy as it should or could be can help you to move on with confidence in your decision. So just what makes a relationship or a marriage an unhealthy one, and not just one plagued with the normal ups and downs (mostly downs) of everyday life?

There are several signs that indicate that the marriage is unhealthy and unsalvageable, neither by therapy nor perseverance. One of these is if your spouse is an addict. If your spouse is an addict, he or she may be able to move past the addiction with proper care and therapy, but if he or she has already gone through this and it has not proven effective, then divorce may be the way out. Another is if he or she is abusive. This does not necessarily have to be physical (emotional and financial abuse are real issues that are almost as equally unhealthy), but if there is physical abuse, divorce is most probably the best solution.

There are smaller issues that indicate that divorce is a good option for you as well. If you feel as if you cannot take your spouse with you anywhere, for example—if he or she embarrasses you or engages in public behavior with which you do not identify—it will be difficult to find common ground. Having the ability to engage publically with your spouse is key to a successful marriage. There is also, of course, the issue of communication. If your spouse cannot communicate in healthy ways, and resorts to screaming or lying, the marriage will not ultimately work.

To forgive one’s ex-spouse during and after divorce may seem like an impossible task, but it is an essential one if a person is ever expected to move on and begin a new life. Letting go of resentment and regret is one of the single most important things you can do during divorce to not only lay the groundwork for an easier time in court and during legal proceedings, but also for settling into your new normal once the divorce has been finalized.

Regret is caused when we feel that we have made a choice that was not healthy for us, or wishing that we could reverse a choice—and its consequences—that we have made. The younger a person is, the easier it is to learn from those emotions and make changes that avoid that outcome in the future. When a person is older, of course, he or she has less time to undo or reverse those actions—and so will likely experience stronger and more lasting pangs of regret.

Psychological research has shown that women tend to experience regret more often when it comes to romantic or physically intimate relationships. Of women surveyed, 44 percent reported having some form of romantic regret, while less than 20 percent of men reported having such feelings. Men are more likely to replace partners quickly after the end of a romantic relationship, however, which could be one reason for the disparity in response. Respondents of both genders who were currently in a romantic relationship had less regret about the end of a previous one.

When you are getting divorced, there are a myriad of things to think about. Finances, of course, are one of them. When you are preparing for divorce, making sure that all your financial affairs are in order will not only to help the process itself go more smoothly, but can also help foster the beginning of your newly-single life. Securing your financial future while you are still married can help to build your confidence as you negotiate other (sometimes more emotionally-draining) aspects of divorce, such as the family home or childcare. You can also rest assured if your finances are under control that, even if you were not the primary breadwinner in the family, you will still be financially stable after dissolution.

There are several things that you can do to help ease the financial transition of divorce. The first is to make a budget. This may seem elementary, but no matter what, the first step toward financial independence is to make sure that your expenses are balanced with your income. Knowing where your money is going is essential—it may be easier to think of it as a spending plan instead of a budget. Having an emergency fund will likely be a good idea as you just get on your feet toward financial independence as well. Ideally, this emergency fund should be enough to cover three to six months of your expenses.

Another important step is to review (and most likely change) the beneficiary on your life insurance or retirement accounts. If you shared these with your ex-spouse, forgetting to change the name on the actual account can result in serious complications later. Be sure, however, that your divorce agreement will allow you to make such changes, as life insurance and retirement accounts may be used to balance the division of marital assets.