How to Make a Clean Break After Divorce

When you decide that a divorce is inevitable, you should plan ahead to make a clean break from your ex-spouse. This is important for many reasons, but mostly because it will aid you in moving forward with your life as a single person. Independence and stability are other things to be gained by making a clean break. The steps below are some ways that you can make that break after your divorce.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Remove your emotions from any decisions that are made. Anything that has to be decided upon, such as who will get the house or what debts each will pay, should be done without emotional input. In order to make a clean break after your divorce, separate your feelings to make better decisions.
2. Calculate a budget for yourself. Before you even leave the marital home, plan for living your future without him. Write down your income, without his, and figure your basic living expenses. This will give you an idea of how much debt that you can afford. Making a clean break will require a strict budget and pre-planning, in order to live without him or his income.
3. Separate all debts along with the assets. It is important that you have already finished your budget so that you will know which bills that you will be able to take on as your responsibility. If there will be future disputes between the two of you over who will pay a bill, which will hinder your clean break. Rely solely on yourself for repaying your loans.
4. Have your name removed from loans that are to be paid by her. Call the creditors that she is ordered to pay and take your name off of those accounts. Mortgage companies and banks where you may have outstanding loans do not care which of you pay the payment, however in making a clean break after your divorce, you should not depend on her to have your name taken off. A quit claim must be signed to remove your name from the deed to the house.
5. Change your will immediately. Go to your attorney and take her name out and change the beneficiary in your will. If you do not have a will, this is the perfect time to have one drawn up for you. You won't want to waste time doing this because life is unpredictable and something could happen before you get around to changing your beneficiary. If these were the unpleasant circumstances, she would be the one that inherits all of your estate, even if she isn't even married to you.