The Leaving Your Husband Checklist

Looking for a Leaving Your Husband checklist?

This is the most thorough divorce preparation checklist.

That way, you don’t miss a thing when figuring out how to leave your husband.

Let’s dig in.

Can You Settle Your Divorce Outside Of Court?
Do You Need To Hire A Lawyer?
Do You Have A Parenting Plan?
Collect Documents Needed For Divorce
What’s In Your Divorce Financial Checklist?
How To Prepare For A Divorce For A Woman
Moving Out During Divorce
Preparing To Live On Your Own
What To Do About A Violent Partner?

Custody can be devastating. It’s heartbreaking when parents lose custody of their children. Spouses end up having to pay agonizing amounts of financial support.

If you want to protect your rights, not wrongfully lose custody, and not get raked over the coals financially, fill out the form below. Free consultations are first come first serve. We always run out of slots. Make sure you get yours locked in now.

Leaving Your Husband Checklist

When you’re considering how to leave your husband, it can feel overwhelming.

You’re faced with challenges like:

financially preparing and adapting
emotional turmoil
logistical nightmares
potential custody battles
breaking up the family home

Having a checklist for leaving your husband can help make things go smoother.

And makes sure you’re prepared so you have a fair outcome in your divorce.

Use this Leaving Your Husband checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything important.

1. Divorce Settlement Agreement Checklist

All divorces have issues needing to get resolved, like:

who pays alimony and how much
how to split marital property
how to split marital debts
child custody arrangements
who pays child support and how much

If you and your husband can agree on these issues, then you can have an uncontested divorce.

But if you cannot agree on them, your divorce will be contested.

And you will need to hire a divorce lawyer.

Let’s assume that you are able to resolve these issues.

When you file your divorce papers, you’ll want to file your divorce settlement agreement too.

The judge will review your divorce settlement agreement.

And, if it’s fair to both parties, they will grant the divorce.

Once signed, the divorce settlement agreement becomes a binding contract.

It’s a good idea to have an attorney review it before either spouse signs it.

If you don’t sign it, you can still file it with your divorce papers.

And the judge will make sure it’s fair to both spouses.

The judge’s approval will make it a binding contract.

We don’t recommend that you sign the divorce settlement agreement until a lawyer or judge has reviewed it.

2. Hire A Divorce Lawyer To Leave Your Husband

Next on the Leaving Your Husband checklist is figuring out if you need a divorce lawyer.

You are not required to hire a divorce lawyer to file for divorce.

And you don’t even need to if you and your spouse have an uncontested divorce.

What you have to figure out is if you need to hire a divorce lawyer.

It does make sense to at least have a divorce consultation:

before starting the divorce process
before signing the divorce settlement agreement

Hiring a lawyer increases your cost of divorce significantly on the front end.

But, it can save legal battles, protect your rights, and make sure you don’t lose assets and custody.

3. Parenting Plan Checklist

If you have children, creating a parenting plan is the next item on your Leaving Your Husband checklist.

A parenting plan will outline how:

you each handle disputes and parenting issues
you want your child raised
to handle holidays
you want the parenting schedule to look
you should handle expenses
to handle vacations and travel
to handle important decisions like education, medicine, and religion

Your parenting plan checklist should include all of these issues.

And how to handle any disagreements down the road.

For example, let’s say one parent wants to relocate and take the child with them.

How would that conflict get resolved?

It would be smart to add a clause in your parenting plan.

One that says any disputes have to get resolved in mediation.

4. Collect Documents Needed For Divorce

When you are preparing to leave your husband, you need to collect divorce documents.

These include agreements, marriage licenses, and insurance.

Agreements can be:

prenuptial agreements
postnuptial agreements
wills
living trusts
power of attorneys
healthcare directives

You’ll also need to locate your marriage license and store it in a safe place.

If you can’t find your marriage license, you can request a copy of it.

Just go to the State Office of Vital Records where you were married.

And ask them for a copy of your marriage license.

Your life insurance policies will most likely get used in negotiations.

A life insurance policy can protect:

child support payments
alimony payments
pension or retirement funds

5. Divorce Financial Checklist

There’s a lot of financial documents to prepare for your Leaving Your Husband Checklist.

This is going to help you in the discovery phase when filing for divorce.

You’ll need to make a financial checklist to make sure you gather everything.

If you forget something, it could be considered hiding assets in a divorce.

And the penalty for hiding assets in divorce is pretty serious, even if it’s unintentional.

The financial documents you need are:

W2 to prove your income
tax returns for the past two years
a list of your assets (cars, jewelry, houses, art, businesses, etc.)
a list of your debts (credit cards, student loans, home loans, business loans, etc.)
bank statements for all accounts (checking and savings)
credit card statements
retirement plan statements (401k, Roth IRA, pensions, profit-sharing plans, etc.)
lists of your insurances (health, life, property, and cars)

You’ll need to prepare these documents for your divorce attorney.

Related: How to Leave Your Husband

6. How To Prepare For A Divorce For A Woman

This part of the Leaving Your Husband Checklist is how to prepare for a divorce for a woman.

You need to figure out how to make the transition into your new life.

Some things that you need to do to prepare for divorce when leaving your husband are:

protect your credit
get new bank accounts
protect your information
set up a P.O. Box or new address
find health insurance
itemize your belongings
update your insurance documents

You should consider canceling your credit cards.

Your husband can run up the credit card bills and leave you with half of the debt to pay off.

But you still need your own credit card.

If you open a new credit card while you’re married, it’s still marital property.

That’s the case even if it’s only in your name or theirs.

But you can open a new one once you’re separated and it won’t be marital property.

Consult your divorce lawyer and make sure you time it correctly.

You should open a bank account in your name only.

Again, consult your lawyer to make sure you time it right.

Otherwise, this account would be marital property.

You have logins to your emails, personal accounts, retirement accounts, etc.

It’s likely that your husband knows, or has an idea of, what your passwords are.

You’ll need to change your passwords to all your accounts to protect yourself.

And you’re going to want to set up a new address to receive mail at.

This can be a new house, new apartment, family’s house, or a P.O. box.

But this allows you to redirect your mail that you want to keep private.

Update your beneficiaries on your insurance and retirement accounts.

Otherwise, your ex could receive payouts from your accounts.

Related: How Long Does A Divorce Take

7. Divorce Moving Out Checklist

In this portion of the Leaving Your Husband Checklist, you’re preparing to move out of the marital home.

Moving out is a big deal, especially if you have children.

Before you move out of the family home, consult your attorney.

In some states, moving out of the family home means you’re giving up your rights to the home.

The other issue is that, even though you move out, you’re still responsible for half the bills.

So, you have to make sure you can afford to pay for your new place and half of the marital home.

But after the divorce gets finalized, you don’t have to split the bills anymore.

Because, most likely, you’ll sell the house and split the money.

And make sure that you are getting a new place in the same county.

The judge won’t want to make your children:

move schools
lose their friends
move away from their extra-curricular activities

They will favor the parent who is remaining in the area.

So, make sure you don’t move too far away.

8. Preparing To Live On Your Own

You may have your financial situation figured out already.

And, if you do, you’re way ahead of a lot of people.

It’s tough to go from a dual income to a single income and try to maintain your standard of living.

Let’s assume that you need to find a new job so that you can support yourself.

You’re not alone here.

There are a lot of people in situations similar to this.

When you’re considering leaving your husband, take stock of your employment outlook and determine if:

you need to gain experience
you need to gain more education
you need more training

It’s smart to try to accomplish this before you leave your husband.

That way, you can leave your husband with solid footing.

And not struggle so much financially.

Get Help With Your Leaving Your Husband Cheklist

If you want the best divorce attorneys to represent you, fill out the form below.

We have the experience needed to ensure that your rights are protected.

This means that you don’t wrongfully lose custody of your children.

We also make sure that your divorce judgment is equitable and fair.

This means you don’t get raked over the coals financially.

After you fill out the form below, we will set up your free consultation.

Talk soon.