This is the first of a series of articles that will share some ideas on how to prepare yourself for divorce or separation from your significant other, whether you’re married to that person or not. Actually NOTHING you’re told will ever really prepare you for what may occur because no one can predict what will happen, and this is where it gets difficult for those of us who think we know our significant others, NOTHING will prepare you for when that person you have loved turns into Mr/Ms Jekyle before your very eyes. I can already hear you thinking…NO! he/she would never do that! They will be heartbroken and angry, yes, but they won’t do despicable, angry things to me for leaving them…and I can hear that because, to my extreme detriment, I said and thought exactly that and dismissed all the warnings of all those who had gone before me. Well, you probably won’t listen either but I’m going to give it a try anyway.

To leave or not to leave, that is the question. If you are at the point where you feel you need to get out of a live-in relationship there are several things you need to consider before embarking on that very turbulent journey. I will be writing from the perspective that you are similar to me, children are either all grown up or you never had any in the first place so there are no child support/custody issues. It really isn’t going to matter whether you’re younger or older, whether your income is either non existent, the lesser of the two or you make more than your partner. Regardless of source of income, you will be similar to me if the funds are thoroughly enmeshed and you’ve allowed your significant other to handle all the financial decisions with a bare minimum of input from you. Hopefully there aren’t a lot of you out there like me, but I have a feeling you’ll get something from this regardless. So here goes.

First, you need to know how entwined your finances are and how much you actually know about them. If you are like I was (hopefully you had more sense than this but, hey, love is blind..) you may have no income, having decided between the two of you that once you had children you would be a stay at home mom or you may have income and have combined your incomes together into mutual accounts and investments. Your partner may, as was true in my case, be the financial guru in your relationship and may have done all the investing and retained control of all those investments and you were happy to allow them to do so. Perhaps they’ve even bought silver and gold (difficult to account for) and because you are busy doing whatever you are doing and because you trust them you let them play with your money and never really ask how it’s doing or even where it is. In other words, you’ve given your significant other complete and utter financial control of you and your life. WARNING! WARNING! WARNING Will/Jill Robinson! We all want to believe in the person we love, we all want to trust them with our hearts and our lives. If we’re married we’ve pledged to love, honor and obey until death…well I’m here to tell you right now GET THAT OUT OF YOUR HEAD! I did just that with a man who everyone thought was loving, honorable and caring and that included me until I left him. That’s when Mr. Jekyle showed up and screwed me. My mistake was handing my life over to him, handing my financial power over to him, trusting him too much and not taking responsibility for my own well being and I bought into the false belief that since he earned all the money it was all his anyway. I, in plain words, was a Fool with a capital “F”. So, if this is at all familiar to you, the very first question I would like you to ask yourself before you even begin to think of starting a separation is this: How much control do you have over the finances right now and if you don’t have any control or perhaps limited control you need to ask yourself how you can get control of at least your half of them. Here’s a caveat to that statement: This is regardless of whether you have a job or not. I’m going to repeat that because it’s important; this is regardless of whether you have a job right now or not! Women, especially tend to minimize their rights and give too much away under the false belief that they don’t deserve it because they didn’t provide at least half of everything owned. Next you need to decide, are you going or are they going? Me, well I acted impulsively and bolted, looking back I think I might have decided something different, I would probably have thrown everything he owned out into the driveway, but hindsight is 20/20 and that’s what I’m sharing with you right now. I’ve been told over and over again, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT THE HOUSE! Of course, there are extenuating circumstances that may necessitate you moving out and quickly so we can’t always follow what would normally be the best route for us in the long run. Since I did leave, I will continue advising on what to do if you are the one moving. Now we’re down to the nitty gritty of life outside of what is familiar and comfortable, even if that comfort is comfort in our dysfunction. This next step will necessitate you doing some research. If you have a job, do you have enough money and credit (you will need to figure out how to find out your credit score) to purchase another place on your own (you will need to contact a real estate agent) or are you going to need to move into an apartment? If you don’t have a job that will afford you the luxury of moving into another property of your own then how much can you afford when it comes to an apartment? You’re going to have to get on line and start looking at apartments once you’ve decided where you want to live. This brings up another decision, how close to your old house/apartment/ex significant do you want to be? Do you want to avoid the possibility of running into them at the store, library, at the stop light? If you’re going to have to move out of the area, what area can you afford to be in and feel safe in? You will have to go and look at apartments and the area around them for amenities and safety considerations. You will need to inquire as to what fees you will be required to pay beyond the rent. Many places now charge for cable, electricity and water. You need to factor in what financial obligations you already have including car payments, insurance (car and medical), credit cards etc. Speaking of insurance, if you don’t have a job that provides medical insurance, you have a pretty rude awakening waiting for you on how much you will need to pay for an independent medical policy and what that will get you so spend some time looking into this as well. Factor in things like gas, maintenance and possible repair expenses. I think you get the drift and it may seem overwhelming right at this moment but eventually you’ll thank yourself profusely for having spent the time and energy to do this. Whatever you do, DO NOT assume your significant other will continue paying any obligations on your behalf or that they will not close down all the checking/savings accounts and put them in their name, cancel all your credit cards if you have shared cards or block you from the investment accounts they’ve set up or that they haven’t done that already! Talk to your friends who have gone through tough divorces and don’t bother with the ones where it all went smoothly, they are an anomaly and won’t do much to prepare you for what might be coming. At this point I’ve only given you the bare minimum you need to consider regarding this but I think it’s probably already got your brain hurting so I’m going to quit here and let you take a break.

If you are still considering moving on with your life without your current partner, and if you haven’t figured this out by now, nothing, absolutely nothing about making this decision is going to be easy and will probably get tougher from here. No life altering decision is or should be an easy one to make so don’t expect it to be a hazard free experience. However, that’s the bad news, or at least some of it, but the good news is this. Through all this expense of energy, brain power, and at times what seems like emotional torture, you will gain a sense of self that you probably haven’t known for a very long time. When you finally make your move, you will move with a great deal more confidence and hope than if you willy nilly fly away into the unknown blind and foolish. You are becoming a Babe In Total Charge of Herself and the ride from that point forward will be yours and yours alone to control. Believe me on this one!

Keep an eye out for the next article which moves into “To Lawyer Up or Not to Lawyer Up, THAT is the question!”