Colorado Divorce Law Blog

We've talked before about the economy's effects on both marriage and divorce, and how a couple's finances can lead them to put off divorce. But delaying divorce isn't the only option for cash-strapped couples. In Colorado, divorce mediation is on the rise, allowing divorcing spouses to handle the division of assets and other decisions themselves.

In mediation, couples meet with a third party to work out the details of their divorce instead of hiring individual lawyers or leaving the decisions to a judge. These decisions might include the distribution of assets and property, child support, child custody and spousal support.

As any parent raising a child alone can attest, every bit of financial support helps. For parents who are owed child support payments but aren't receiving them, the Colorado Division of Child Support Enforcement has many ways of ensuring that child support payments are made. Here are just a few of them:

1. Income-related enforcement: If you're behind on making child support payments, CSE could arrange to have current and past-due payments garnished from your paycheck. If you've just gotten a new job, your employer is required to notify the state that you've been hired. This is one way CSE tracks down parents who fail to make payments on their own. If you don't have a job, the payments may be deducted from your unemployment or workers' compensation benefits.

When it comes to family law, children are often powerless over their own circumstances. Whether it's a case of child support, custody or foster care, usually a child must rely on adults to ensure their best interests are served, and sometimes those adults can fail them.

But the Colorado Court of Appeals has put some power into small hands by ruling that social workers can be held responsible for failing to protect children from abuse, and cannot be shielded by the state government's immunity law in cases where they acted recklessly.

A couple weeks ago we discussed a proposal by a Colorado state senator that would have required a "cooling off" period for couples intending to file for divorce. Citing "extraordinary" feedback, the lawmaker has since elected to do away with the bill.

The measure would have required couples seeking a divorce to complete six hours of class instruction on how divorce affects children, along with an eight-month waiting period. The bill only applied to parents of underage children and provided some exceptions, such as in cases of sexual abuse.

Are you and your significant breaking up after living together a significantly long time? If you live in one of the states that recognize common law marriage, your split could resemble a complex divorce even if you decided to forgo the ceremony at the start of your life together.

Common law marriage is recognized in Colorado, eight other states and Washington, D.C. Seven more states recognize it for certain limited purposes. Although every jurisdiction has slightly varying rules, common law marriage is generally established by the following conditions:

1. A couple lives together for an extended period of time.

2. They hold themselves in a public manner as a married couple.

3. They demonstrate an intention to be married.

As you may have already discovered, there's a lot more to divorce than just moving out and signing some legal papers. There's also the division of assets. The recent surge in celebrity breakups reminds us that money can not only lead to divorce, but greatly complicate the split itself. You'll want to make sure that as you and your spouse break up, your finances do, too.

Here are a few tips to help you prevent your divorce from turning into a financial disaster:

When it comes to the decision of divorce, it seems everyone has a different threshold. Some say couples should stick out their marriage no matter what. Others say that at the first instance of infidelity, it's time to pull the plug. Or maybe you're one of those people who likes to refer to your union as "my first marriage," assuming it could crumble at any minute.

Regardless of your own grounds for divorce, the Colorado Legislature has its own ideas of when it's time to untie the knot. One representative has proposed a bill that would make it more difficult for people to file for divorce. Those with minor children would be required to take a class that discusses how the decision will affect their children. They would also have to undergo a "cooling off" period.

Just as the institution of marriage has changed over the past 100 years, so have people's attitudes about it. Once viewed as a means of financial security, as well as legal protection for women to prevent their husbands from straying, marriage is now seen by many individuals as a sort of trap.

When couples simply cohabitate and split up, they can usually take what they brought into the relationship and leave. This no-hassle approach to relationships is part of the reason why more couples, especially lower-income people, prefer not to get married. If they don't get married, they don't have to get divorced, some believe. According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, just slightly more than 50 percent of adults in the United States are married, which is the lowest number in decades.