Guest Author - Stephanie L Watson

When you get a divorce there are many things that you will have to think about and be responsible for that you or your spouse may not be used to dealing with. You have the cable bill, Internet fees, various bank accounts, Suzie's braces, and various other bills and responsibilities; it is a lot to keep track of. You've grown accustomed to your spouse taking care of it, or maybe you take care of it all, and he has no idea. It's time for you both to get to know what your true financial situation is comprised.

It will help if you make a list of all the debts and assets that you and your spouse are responsible for right now. This will help you decide what may need to be switched to the other person's name, paid off with savings, or if an asset, transferred or sold.

Some items to include may be, insurance, life insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, the mortgage, utilities, doctor bills, credit cards, store cards; essentially any item that you own, are responsible for, or owe. You should make a list of all of these items, write down whose name they are currently in, and who is responsible for them now and who will be responsible for them after divorce.

Going through this process will assist you in deciding what you can reasonably keep and what you must dispose of, either by selling or transferring to the other party. Making sure you that you take care of these things prior to the finalization of the divorce can go a long way in keeping the peace later.

You don't want to have a situation five years from now where you are relying on your ex spouse to sign a quit claim deed so that you can sell the house. Believe it or not, you might not even know where your ex is, and you will suffer serious legal consequences that will cost you dearly. Finalize everything now, do not put it off.

Make sure that you both open your own accounts, and take your joint names off all other accounts. You may have some issues doing this with credit cards, therefore, a good idea is to open new accounts in separate names and pay off your part of the debt with your new card, closing out the old card that was in both of your names. One thing to note about credit cards; they do not care what a divorce court says about who is responsible for a bill, they will make whomever they can responsible and whatever your divorce judge said is irrelevant to the contract you signed when you obtained the credit.

Getting credit in your own name prior to filing for the divorce will also help you establish credit which may be necessary in order to switch utilities to your own name, leases to your own name, or apply for a mortgage in order to buy your ex-spouse's equity in property that you jointly own.

Doing these things prior to filing for divorce will go far in helping you and your ex divorce with as little acrimony as possible.