Dayton Divorce Law Blog

Dayton's congressman, Rep. Mike Turner, has finalized his divorce from his wife of more than 25 years. Turner and his wife submitted a petition for dissolution of their marriage in March, and on May 1 the Domestic Relations judge presiding over their divorce granted that petition. Despite the fact that the former spouses had relatively complex marital assets, it appears that the two were able to come to a fairly amicable agreement for dividing the property.

For example, among the couple's assets were a home in Centerville and four vehicles, three Cadillacs and one Toyota Prius. Under the terms of the agreement, Turner's wife, a business executive, will keep the house and Rep. Turner would make his residence in Washington, D.C. The distribution of the vehicles is not mentioned in an article about the divorce.

For many years, the man of the house was known as the breadwinner, and the wife was typically known as a housewife. Forty years after women began to enter the workforce in large numbers, the percentage of women who earn more than their husbands do has begun to increase. While it is not common, it is no longer rare, just as some men have become househusbands.

For a wife who earns more, the prospect of divorce may be no less stressful. She may not need to worry if she will receive a sufficient alimony payment or how she will obtain adequate training to successfully reenter the world of work, but a woman in a high asset divorce with a substantial income, a professional practice or personal assets will have her own unique set of concerns.

When you get a divorce, you hire a divorce attorney. As a legal professional, they are trained to handle family law issues and their experience gives them additional insights into the near infinite variety of things that can occur during a divorce. However, they are legal professionals, and while they may pick up specific knowledge of other matters that they have to deal with on a regular basis, you may have issues in your divorce that require assistance from someone with expert knowledge.

If you have a high-asset divorce, with a complex finances, you may need guidance from a tax attorney and an accountant experienced with handling sophisticated marital estates. If your spouse owns his or her own business or professional practice, there may be difficult questions of the valuation of assets as part of the division of property.

Over the last 20 years, women have been marrying ever later in life. However, many of those women have not delayed becoming mothers. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention find that women in their 20s now make up 60 percent of the unmarried mothers.

Marriage, overall, is also declining, with many couples choosing to never marry. This means we have a large group of women who live with the fathers of their children for a while, but if their relationship fails, lack any of the protections that married women have under the law via a divorce. For them, there is no marriage, and no divorce, no property settlement, and no custody or visitation agreement.