The ending of marriage calls for completely separating the lives of two people. A significant part of divorce ensures that all marital property is equitably divided. If one spouse makes less money and supports the other spouse during their marriage, they may be entitled to alimony, which is called spousal support in Illinois. A court order or divorce decree can highlight spousal support as a requirement.

Sometimes, the spouse ordered to pay spousal support may not like the final decision and choose to ignore the order. This neglect can lead to frustration, annoyance, and financial woes for the other party. There are several factors and strategies that you can utilize to make them comply and follow those orders. 

Can You Enforce Spousal Support Payments in Illinois?

If an ex-spouse decides not to comply with a divorce order on spousal support, it can turn your life upside down. Luckily, in Illinois, you can take a few actions to enforce the divorce decree. Here are a few actions you can take with the help of a divorce attorney to enforce your spousal support payments:

When you were growing up, did a trusted adult in your life ever tell you that you needed to eat breakfast to have enough energy to get through the day, even if you were too tired to eat? As adults, there is not always someone around to remind us of what we need. Yet, the basic sentiment of that long-held wisdom still applies. If you do not take the time to invest in the basic care of your body – in addition to that of your mind and overall well-being – you will not have the energy that you need to make it through the day. This is particularly true when you are navigating particularly trying periods of life, including the consequential transition that is the divorce process.

Clear Eyes, Full Heart…

Whether you are feeling numb, devastated, enraged, inspired, overjoyed, or any emotion in between, chances are that your heart is feeling very full as you process that your marriage is at an end. Emotions – for all their benefits – tend to impair one’s ability to make clear-headed decisions focused on future interests. They are far more likely to inspire choices fed by the heat, ice, or fog of the present moment.

How Self-Care Can Help

By engaging in self-care during the divorce process, you will place yourself in the strongest possible position to do the following:

Whether you have an established parenting plan or you are in the process of crafting one post-split with your child’s other parent, you may benefit from adding virtual visitation terms to that document. Oftentimes, co-parents focus on outlining a parenting time schedule and articulating various rights and responsibilities within their parenting plan. However, this document can also address any other co-parenting issue that could benefit from being both clearly articulated and enforceable. Virtual visitation is a subject that may significantly benefit from attention in your family’s unique plan.

Virtual Visitation Basics

Virtual visitation allows whichever parent who is not currently residing with their child to communicate with them. Depending upon the age of the child and their unique needs, a family may choose to utilize video chats, bedtime story calls, texts, email, postal mail, social media, or any other means available to participate in virtual visitation sessions.

Why Virtual Visitation Is Worth Your Consideration

Children of all ages – whether consciously or subconsciously – crave both stability and connection. Virtual visitation offers both. When parents who are not physically present make an effort to connect with their child via virtual visitation, they will remain more present in their child’s life and offer them a kind of support that they may not have consciously known that they needed.

Parents should never speak ill of the other parent, either directly to, or around their children. This practice harms your relationship with your children, and by extension, it hurts your children. You will be forced to deal with this situation because letting it fester can make things worse. If the badmouthing is extreme, a family law attorney could even file a motion to change custody. 

Do Not Try to Get Revenge

You may be tempted to turn around and badmouth the other parent to either even the score or set the record straight. This will only harm the children further. They will feel like they are caught in the middle, and it will make them feel even more conflicted. This case is clearly one time where two wrongs do not make a right.

Talk to Your Children

You can make it clear to your children that they can and should come to you if they want answers to their questions. You need to remain calm during the conversation and be transparent when you can. Make sure to remain calm and to not take your frustrations out on your children. They have been put in an impossible position themselves, and the situation is not their fault.

One of the most foundational elements of any divorce case is the division of marital assets. Traditionally, marital assets included things like real estate properties, bank account balances, retirement funds, and investment income. However, with the advent of digital assets and digital currency, property division during divorce has become much more complicated.

Cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other types of digital assets have an equivalent value in real currency, so they must be properly addressed during divorce, just like any other asset. However, classifying digital assets as marital or non-marital property and determining the value of the assets can be a real challenge.

Determining Ownership of a Digital Asset in a Divorce

Digital assets can be broadly defined as anything that is created and stored digitally and has value. Digital assets may include documents, data, videos, software code, and even social media accounts. Some of the newest types of digital assets include security tokens, crypto assets, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, tether, and USD coin.