Spousal maintenance, which people in many places call alimony, can be a complicating factor in many Arizona divorces. Dependent spouses who have left their careers or put their ambitions on the back burner to raise children, care for family members’ health needs or take care of the marital home may need support to live independently when their marriage ends. They may feel entitled to years of support, while the spouse who supported the family financially may resent such obligations.
People often end up arguing intensely over spousal maintenance in divorce proceedings because they have unrealistic expectations. It is important to understand one’s rights and responsibilities when it comes to spousal maintenance when preparing for the divorce process in order to avoid unnecessary tension.
Many factors influence maintenance payments
There is no specific formula that always generates an accurate figure for spousal maintenance payments. There are numerous considerations that influence the appropriate amount of maintenance.
How long the marriage lasted, the paid and unpaid contributions of each spouse to the household and even the health of each spouse can affect what a judge views as an appropriate length of maintenance. In cases where someone has health issues or is otherwise unable to support themselves after a long-term marriage, a judge may order permanent support.
However, in many cases, the goal of support is to help rehabilitate the lower-earning spouse. The payments will only last a set amount of time, often only a few years. Still, there are certain scenarios that would end maintenance payments before then.
When situations change, the order may change too
A dependent spouse remarrying could alter maintenance obligations, as could drastic changes to the financial circumstances of the person paying. In most cases, maintenance will persist for exactly as long as ordered by the judge and will end on schedule.
If circumstances change to make maintenance no longer appropriate, the spouse paying will typically need to request a modification rather than simply stopping their payments. Otherwise, they risk being accused of violating a court order. Securing a modification to a spousal maintenance order is sometimes possible after a significant change in circumstances.
Learning more about how Arizona handles spousal maintenance can benefit dependent spouses and wage-earning spouses alike as they consider filing for divorce. Seeking legal guidance can be tremendously helpful as well.
Most people get nervous when they are stopped at a DUI checkpoint. And this is understandable. Even if you are sober, you just cannot predict what is about to happen. You may have an open bottle in your car that you do not plan to drink while driving, but this can still lead to your arrest under Arizona’s open container violation law.
For this reason, you may be tempted to ignore the checkpoint or try to turn around and head in another direction. Is this ever a good idea?
DUI checkpoints are legal in Arizona
Law enforcement has a duty to ensure public safety. Thus, if they have reason to believe that you are drunk driving, they will stop you for investigation and possible prosecution. And this is where a DUI checkpoint comes in.
Do you have to stop at a DUI checkpoint?
Like it or not, running through a lawful DUI checkpoint will land you in trouble. You may be charged with evading the police if you refuse to stop – and that charge would be on top of any associated with drunk driving or an open container.
If you see the checkpoint ahead, you do have the option to simply turn away before you get there. However, you need to make sure that you obey all traffic laws in the process. Otherwise, you’ll only give the police justification to stop you and conduct an investigation, anyhow.
You can be charged with evading or eluding the police if you bypass a DUI checkpoint. If you are charged with ignoring a DUI checkpoint, you need to explore your defense options.
Are you in a covenant marriage and want a divorce?
The Arizona State Legislature recognizes a different type of marriage called covenant marriage. According to state laws, individuals who intend to enter into this marriage type will agree to live together as husband and wife for as long as they both live.
People pursuing this marriage type should understand that it’s for life. They will be required to take all reasonable measures, including marital counseling, when they have difficulties.
Nonetheless, you can file for a divorce if you are in a covenant marriage in certain situations, including:
Both spouses agree to it
If you and your spouse have irreconcilable issues that both of you agree to get a divorce, you can file for divorce like those in standard legal marriages – without necessarily having legal grounds to support the decision.
However, if your spouse does not want the divorce, you may need to prove the grounds for the dissolution, such as:
Adultery
If you have evidence to prove your spouse has an affair, you may have grounds to dissolve a covenant marriage.
Drug addiction or alcoholism
Being addicted to drugs or alcohol is another ground you can use to request a divorce from a covenant marriage. It may help to prove how the use of drugs or alcohol has affected the quality of your marriage.
Abandonment
If your spouse deliberately left your marital home and they no longer observe their responsibilities and have not provided a good reason, you may have grounds for a divorce.
Physical abuse
The state protects its residents from physical abuse. Thus, if you experience it, you can dissolve a covenant marriage.
If you are in a covenant marriage and want a divorce, it will be best to obtain adequate information to make the right moves.
If you’ve decided to end your marriage and you share a minor child with your spouse, you will need to clarify the child’s post-divorce living arrangements. Commonly known as a parenting plan, you’ll need to craft an arrangement that outlines how you will co-parent your child.
Ideally, the court prefers that divorcing parents work out a parenting plan on their own. If you and your spouse can resolve your differences amicably in this way, the court will eventually review and (very likely) approve whatever plan you come up with. To ensure that your parenting plan is approved, however, it must reflect your child’s best interests.
Here are three things you need to take into account when creating a parenting plan:
1. Each party’s responsibilities
It is important that you clearly outline how you and your co-parent will share parental rights, responsibilities and childcare duties. For instance, if one parent works night shifts, it might make sense for the child to live primarily with the parent who is either working from home or day shifts.
Also, be sure to specify exactly how parenting time will be shared. Setting realistic expectations is important so that everyone involved can plan and can be held accountable for not honoring their responsibilities.
2. Decision-making process
You will still need to make some decisions together on your child’s behalf after the divorce, just as you did while you were living together. Decisions regarding their healthcare, education and co-curricular activities may best be made together. It is important that you specify how these decisions will be made and what issues will require the input of both parents.
3. Conflict resolution
Conflicts are part and parcel of life. Even if your divorce has been amicable, there is always a possibility that differences with your ex will develop over time. It is important that you include in your parenting plan how you will handle conflicts when they arise. You may want to specify a conflict resolution mechanism, like mediation.
Let’s face it – parenting after divorce can be difficult, especially if you do not have a plan. Find out how you can create a post-divorce parenting plan that will work for you, your child and your future co-parenting relationship.
Do you have the right to defend yourself in Arizona?
Defending yourself against an attacker seems like a natural thing to do – but a lot of people still end up in handcuffs after they’ve been in an altercation of some kind.
Sometimes, the police simply make a bad call and arrest someone whose actions were well within their right to self-defense. Other times, people just don’t quite understand how far their right to self-defense goes – and where it stops.
Arizona has specific laws that address this issue
ARS 13-404 and ARS 13-405 are the two primary statutes in this state that speak on this issue, and here are the rules you need to keep in mind about self-defense:
- You can use force (violence) to protect yourself when it is reasonable to believe that your actions are immediately necessary to protect yourself.
- This includes the use of deadly force, when that amount of force is reasonable and proportionate to the danger being posed by the other party.
- You do not have a duty to retreat before using force if you are in a place you are legally allowed to be and not doing anything illegal while you’re there.
You cannot, however, claim self-defense if you were resisting arrest (even if the arrest was unlawful) so long as the police officer in question didn’t exceed the legal use of force. You also cannot claim self-defense if you provoked the other party – unless you clearly tried to withdraw and the other party wouldn’t let you, nor may you use this defense if your use of force was a response to mere words.
In practical terms, this generally means you can’t claim self-defense if you were trespassing and got attacked by the property owner. Nor can you claim self-defense if you threw the first punch in a fight, even if the other person verbally insulted you first. It also stops being self-defense once the other guy throws up their hands and tries to back away or when you return a shove with a knife attack.
If you’ve been arrested for a violent crime and you were just defending yourself, it’s wise to learn more about your legal options right away.
Why is fentanyl illegal in Arizona?
Fentanyl has been in the news recently; however, many people do not fully understand what it is, why it is illegal or the potential consequences of having it.
Fentanyl is classified as a narcotic. It is a synthetic opioid made in a lab and a Schedule II controlled substance. While it does have a medical use, it also has a high possibility of abuse. If you are caught with even a small amount of fentanyl, you can face drug trafficking or distribution charges, even if other drugs in the same amount would only result in possession charges. Understanding why this is the case can help you better understand your rights in these situations.
Fentanyl is strong and potent
Fentanyl is stronger than heroin and morphine. Because it is so potent, even small amounts can result in an overdose.
Having other drugs may result in fentanyl-related charges
Illicitly manufactured fentanyl is more likely to result in overdoses than pharmaceutical fentanyl. One reason for this is that it is used for cutting other drugs.
You may not even realize you have this substance since detecting it is only possible with specialized testing strips. If you are caught with another drug and the authorities test it for fentanyl, you may face more serious penalties if it is found. This is true even if you were unaware that fentanyl was in the drug.
Protecting your rights when found with fentanyl
As you can see, being caught with fentanyl is serious, and the authorities take these crimes seriously. Because of the penalties you may face, it is best to learn your legal rights and how to protect them.
Both you and your spouse made contributions to your marital household that benefit of the other. You likely shared income and insurance benefits with one another, and each of you may have performed certain tasks around the home.
Separating your lives will be one of the biggest challenges in your upcoming divorce. Financial issues are often one of the leading sources of disputes and misconduct in modern divorces. Your spouse, intent on beating you, might illegally act to deprive you of your fair share of the marital estates. What are some of the ways in which people manipulate the outcome of property division proceedings?
1. They undervalue assets or do not report personal belongings
Some people comply with your financial discovery rights but only minimally so. They may provide an inventory of assets that includes ridiculously undervalued property or may not truthfully account for their personal belongings, such as a designer wardrobe or a fine art collection. While you may not intend to return those assets in the divorce, you have every right to claim your fair share of their value.
2. They hide income or resources
Your spouse may have had a secret bank account since before the two of you ever got married. They may take money out of their paycheck every single week and move it into that private account without you ever knowing it exists.
They could also have spent months or even several years making incremental purchases of items that they intend to keep for themselves in the divorce. They may store these items someplace away from your home to set up an apartment or separate house once they leave you. People often need to bring in financial experts, such as forensic accountants, when they hope to prove that their spouse has hidden money or other assets.
3. They intentionally diminish your shared resources
Maybe your spouse gives away thousands of dollars in furniture and household belongings shortly before filing for divorce. Perhaps they hold a garage sale and sell items for pennies on the dollar. They might even make gifts to family and friends with the intention of reclaiming the items after your divorce.
Other people might wastefully spend or accrue credit card debt to limit what their spouse receives in the divorce. When you believe that your separation may lead to financial misconduct on the part of your spouse, you may need to employ a particularly cautious approach to your upcoming divorce proceedings.
Accounting for financial misconduct as you prepare for property division proceedings can help you obtain an appropriate outcome in your divorce.
How do you parallel parent?
As divorcing parents of minor children, you need to keep cooperating to raise those children. Yet, the turmoil of a divorce ( and the events that led to it) can make that incredibly challenging.
What then? What if you just cannot get along enough to co-parent?
Parallel parenting offers an alternative when co-parenting is not realistic
A dose of realism can go a long way. Once you accept that you are not yet at a point where you can talk about things without every conversation having the potential to turn into a full-blown argument, you can look for ways to reduce your contact.
Remember that conflict is damaging for your kids. So if not talking to each other is what’s required to keep the peace, it may be what you need to do. Here are some ways you can do that:
1. Set out how you will communicate
Maybe you agree to communicate only via email and between 9 and 6 on weekdays, except for emergencies. You could use something like a shared calendar or parenting app to reduce the need to talk. If you each enter events relevant to your child there, you let each other know without direct communication.
2. Leave the other person to parent as they see best
If your child is with their other parent, they might go to bed later than you like. They might not eat as healthily as you like, or they might see a movie you’d rather they didn’t. Just accept that parents don’t all think the same and that most things are not really going to harm your kids. The only time you should step in is if your child is in danger.
3. Arrange handovers to minimize contact between parents
Maybe you agree not to discuss anything at a handover, as things could easily flare up in front of the kids. Or perhaps you use school starting and finishing as the handover time to reduce the chance of lateness by one parent becoming an issue that leads to an argument.
While it would be ideal if you could co-parent, parallel parenting is sometimes the best choice, at least for the moment. Take legal help to understand how to build your custody plan around it in a divorce.
Is a plea deal a good deal?
There is a high chance that a prosecutor will offer you a plea deal if you face criminal charges.
Despite everyone having the constitutional right to a jury trial, most cases are settled with plea deals. It suits the overburdened legal system. It suits the prosecutor, who can chalk up yet another win. But does it suit you?
Not if you are innocent
Many innocent people accept plea deals because they don’t believe they can prove their innocence. The prosecutors will try to scare them into believing the odds of an acquittal are next to nothing. Buy that’s not true. There is always a chance if you have the right legal support.
It might not be the best deal even if you are guilty
Prosecutors may exaggerate the líkely sentence you’ll receive if your case goes to trial and you are convicted.
Judges take a lot of things into account when determining what sentence to give and can be much more lenient than the prosecution would like or will tell you.
There are also many technical grounds on which a judge may dismiss a charge. For example, however steadfast the evidence against you, if the police seized it during an improper search, the judge should refuse to admit it.
If it was properly collected but improperly stored, the judge might instruct the jury to discount it due to a lack of reliability.
Whatever your situation, if a prosecutor offers you a plea deal, seek legal help to understand more about your defense options and whether accepting is right for you.
Christmas is approaching fast. While divorce might take away a lot of the seasonal stress – no more having to be polite with the inlaws – it can add plenty more, especially if you have children.
If this is the first Christmas since you and your spouse split, your children may struggle. Here are some tips to help them through it:
Do not let it become a competition
Maybe you can afford to buy your seven-year-old a new MacBook Pro this Christmas. It doesn’t mean that you should, as it could have negative side effects.
Perhaps they will feel guilty about being so happy about your present when they know their other parent can’t afford the same. Maybe your ex-spouse might accuse you of trying to buy your child’s favor, or maybe they will blow their budget to try and outdo you.
Time and peace is the best present you can give your child
When they say Christmas is a time of goodwill to all, that should include your co-parent. Staying civil will make for a more relaxing Christmas for your children (and for you).
If you did not take good account of special occasions such as Christmas in your parenting schedule, consider a bit of flexibility. While it might be one of your turns to be with the kids on the 25th, your children would probably prefer to see you both if at all possible, at least for a bit. You could also consider giving them two Christmases, one on the 25th with you and your family and one on the 26th with the other side of the family (or vice versa).
Whatever you do this Christmas, put your children’s best interests first. Seek legal help to learn more about creating parenting schedules around important dates.
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