Facebook may be involved in your divorce

Facebook is playing a role in as many as a fifth of all divorces in the U.S., according to a study by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Facebook can come up in a divorce case in several ways. One is that marriages sometimes end because people have affairs with people they met – or re-connected with – over the social networking site.

One of the most common uses of Facebook is getting in touch with old friends. But if a marriage is in some trouble already, and a spouse gets back in touch with an old friend (or an old flame) who is emotionally available, a simple “hello” could turn into something much more complicated.

But Facebook can also come up in a divorce case because it can provide evidence of a spouse’s misconduct. For instance, because people put so much of their lives onto the site, it can be a rich source of evidence of adultery.

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Military promotion might not increase ex-wife’s share of his pension

The ex-wife of an Air Force officer might not be able to share in an increase in the officer’s pension benefits that resulted from a promotion he received after the couple divorced, according to a New Jersey appeals court.

The couple divorced when the husband was a captain. The divorce settlement gave the wife 50 percent of his military pension, which was based on his 11 years of service to that point.

By the time the husband retired, he’d reached the rank of major. His promotion entitled him to a larger pension benefit.

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Wife shares in husband’s future partnership profits

A husband’s interest in a business partnership that produced a consistent stream of profits “counted” as marital property, and his wife can receive a share of his interest at divorce, the highest court in Massachusetts recently ruled.

The husband was a partner in an investment advisory firm. Under the terms of the partnership, he received annual cash payments in the form of salary, incentives, return on capital and merit pay.

The wife claimed a share of the value of his partnership interest. The husband objected, arguing that his partnership interest wasn’t “property” since he had no right to the annual payments, which were merely an “expectancy” of future income. (State law says that a divorcing spouse has no right to share in a mere “expectancy” of a benefit.)

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Father’s child support is reduced by SSDI benefits

A father’s child support obligations could be reduced by the amount of his Social Security Disability Insurance payments that went directly to his children, the Vermont Supreme Court recently decided.

The father had been ordered to pay $326 a month in child support when he and his wife divorced. Soon afterward, he went to prison for five years.

When he got out of prison, he applied for SSDI benefits. He received a retroactive payment that included more than $14,000 that went directly to his ex-wife on his children’s behalf.

The father argued that his child support obligations should be reduced by the amount of this payment to his children.

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Husband’s credit card debt was his problem … and not his ex-wife’s

Generally, whatever assets and debts a couple accumulate during a marriage can be split between them at divorce.

But what if a husband racks up an enormous amount of credit card debt without his wife knowing about it? Should she still be responsible for half the bill?

In one recent case, the Kentucky Supreme Court said “no.”

The couple in that case divorced after being married for 42 years. Late in their marriage, the husband ran up $65,000 in credit card debt trying to help their adult son recover from financial setbacks.

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