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spouses. The marital portions of the respective accounts are bookended by the date of marriage and the final date of di- vorce, not just upon the filing of the divorce action.
Maintenance is established based on the length of the marriage and the respective incomes of the parties. Shorter marriages of under five years usually do not require either spouse to pay maintenance to the other; however, longer marriages of five years up to 20 years or more can require one party to pay permanent or even lifetime maintenance to the other party. This is in addition to the claim that the spouse has on the member’s pension, deferred compensation and other retirement accounts.
Divorcing couples can minimize both the time and cost of a divorce by doing their best to separate their feelings of hurt and loss surrounding the breakdown of the marriage from the important issues of child custody, parenting time, child support and other financial issues going forward. While many of us want to fight it out and prove that “she” or “he” is the problem, the end result is that sometimes the fight is not worth it. Remember, even though you are divorced, if you have children, that person you walked down the aisle with may be in your life for a long time. You have birthdays, hol- idays, graduations and weddings that you will both attend. Plus, while the divorce decree does spell out exact times and days for certain things, life needs to be flexible, and when you get those unexpected Sox tickets on “her day” or “his day,” an understanding and flexible ex-spouse will surely make it easier. Divorce is not about fighting things out, it is about getting out, and sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle.
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