Financial Divorce Options

Freya’s Financial Facts Regarding Divorce

West Coast Woman

Published June 2005

 Questions & Answers

Question: I have been a stay at home mom during most of our marriage. Since my husband is the one that worked during our marriage and money went into a 401K account is that his money only?

Answer: Financially speaking, the money is yours together as long as it was earned during the marriage. If your husband worked for and contributed to a 401K prior to your marriage, then that money could be treated differently. In that case, you could only be entitled to the amount of growth the account earned during the course of your marriage. The principal and any growth it earned prior to your marriage could belong to your husband.

 Question: How is child support calculated?

Answer: Child Support is calculated based on a predetermined formula by the State of Florida. Some of the factors that go into the calculation to determine what the child support will be are: income of each parent, age of the children, how much time the children spend with each parent, who pays for the childcare and health care.

 Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages between going to court, mediation and collaborative divorce?

Answer: There are advantages and disadvantages to all depending on how you view your divorce. I am giving you my opinion here, but from my own personal experience and the experiences of our clients, the more you can work towards an amicable agreement the better off you will both be. I will cover the three categories below:

Court—This is not my idea of the best way to approach divorce! It is very costly to you and very time consuming. If your idea of getting a divorce is to ruin your mate, then this is the best way to go about it. You may have well meaning friends who are fueling the fire between you. That is one reason that we always encourage our clients to see a competent counselor to help you work through this difficult time. The idea is to calm the waters instead of stir them up. Now having said that, there are circumstances that may require immediate court intervention. In cases regarding abuse or where one party has access to all the money and the other party is left without anything, court action should be taken.

 Mediation—Typical mediation is done with each party having an attorney and another party, the mediator who is another attorney or counselor get together for several hours to hammer out the differences between the parties. This scenario often involves a great amount of pressure on the parties to make a decision right there without having the information about how their financial life is going to be affected by each decision they are being forced to make. It is also an expensive option as you are paying essentially for 3 attorneys for each hour that you are in mediation.

The private mediation that we provide is typically done with each party at separate meetings. We find that the emotions are too high for everyone to be together at one time. We also like our clients to have time to reflect on the decisions they are about to make as these are financial decisions that are going to affect them for the rest of their life. We also employ our Certified Divorce Financial Analysis along with the mediation that allows the client to see the affects of the options they have before them so that they can make an informed decision about their financial future. Our clients are reporting great satisfaction with this approach to resolving their differences.

 Collaborative—This is another model that works well for couples wanting an amicable settlement. In this model each party has an attorney, there is one mediator and one divorce financial analyst and sometimes a personal coach or counselor for each party and if children are involved there might be a child psychologist also. All of these professionals and clients agree upfront to work together as a team in a non-adversarial relationship. This model requires each party to provide full disclosure and to work together without going to court. If at any time any of the parties does not agree to work together and stay out of court, the group disbands. This model encourages the cooperation of everyone. Some people think that this would be a costly approach, but in fact studies have shown that it saves people money in the long run as compared to a courtroom battle. We find that many people especially in complicated divorces are already paying for these services separately. Not all attorneys are comfortable with this approach; however we have good working relationships with excellent attorneys that are proponents of this mode.

Freya Robbins

Freya has been assisting families for years, combining professional training and her own experience in marriage, parenting and divorce; she truly relates to her clients. Freya founded Zollinger Mediation was in 2004, and she has been assisting families with divorce mediation, marital mediation, pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements and eldercare mediation since. Freya business is known as The Positive Alternative to adversarial divorce. She educates her clients and shares ideas in a straightforward but accepting way about how to resolve conflict. In addition to her mediation practice, Freya holds a Series 6 License and is licensed to sell Life and Health Insurance, Annuities, Mutual Funds and Retirement plans. She holds a Certification in Long Term Care (CLTC) and is certified as a Chartered Special Needs Consultant (ChSNC). She helps families with special needs as she has a son with Epilepsy. She also cared for both of her parents as they needed assistance with care and in preparation for passing. Freya has written articles for West Coast Woman Magazine, the Observer and has been volunteer speaker for the Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota County. Freya is an advocate for eliminating Childhood Sexual Abuse and serves on the Board of the Child Protection Center in Sarasota, FL. Freya raised her 2 children as a single parent while building her businesses. Freya serves on the board of the Sarasota County Senior Advocacy Council and Josh Provides Epilepsy Support Group. Her most recent claim to fame is her marriage to Loyd Robbins in May of 2015. Love lives again!