The common combination of high assets and the need to depend on those assets means there is a strong need for good financial planning to both protect and maximize the benefits from those assets.

Couples aged 50+ have had many years to accumulate assets. Your assets may be your main source of income in the retirement years. If you and your spouse choose to pursue a Collaborative Divorce,  a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst is dynamically included in the process. Otherwise, for those pursuing a traditional divorce, our Seattle family lawyers can give you the names of some financial specialists we work with.

A financial specialist can help you both make better, more equitable decisions as you work to divide your assets. This often means each party ends up with a well-rounded mix of housing, retirement, and other financial entities. Parties will walk away well-informed of the long-term risks and growth potential of their assets.

Retirement is often cited as a factor in a couples’ getting divorced. One or both parties entering retirement can mean huge lifestyle changes for the couple as a whole, disrupting routines and greatly increasing quality time together. Retired spouses have to work to find new interests and outlets for energy that used to be consumed by work. Furthermore, leaving one’s job can lead to feeling a loss of identity, which can cause depression.

Retirement can also be an issue in gray divorces as couples need to wrestle with questions like living on fixed incomes, how pensions and IRA’s are divided and how to best conserve the resources they have accumulated. Talk to a Seattle divorce lawyer for more information about dealing with these kinds of issues.

If at least one spouse is still working, there may be a need to negotiate spousal support for a period of time. However, this support is typically treated as tentative rather than relied upon. Spousal support is look at as a way of balancing the financial situation of the parties going forward. However, that income situation can be uncertain. Especially for older workers, it may be very difficult to find new employment if a current job is lost. In addition, since health issues get more frequent with age, you want to ensure your right to retire is preserved so that you can act on it when the timing is right.

Therefore, our attorneys will often try to define spousal support amounts as a percentage of income as it comes in rather than agreeing to a fixed amount for a fixed period of time.

Health issues become a larger part of life as we age. One should expect that not only will their ability to work and remain active decline over time, but that there may come a point where expensive care is needed. Therefore a financial specialist may advise various strategies for remaining financial flexible to be able to adapt to changing needs, while also preserving/growing assets for the long term

Adult children are still very much affected by their parents’ divorce, so their needs should be considered in the process. This might surround their need for financial help down the line or questions of inheritance.

However, it’s also important to address how each parent plans to move forward in such a way that both children are able to maintain good relationships with their parents, and are excluded from any conflict. It is be important to talk to your children non-judgmentally about how the divorce may be affecting them, to give them an opportunity to voice their feelings as well as to ask questions.

We suggest discussing your adult children’s needs and roles in your lives with your Seattle family lawyer.