People often work for the better part of their adult lives so they can look forward to retiring one day. Divorce can throw a shadow over your retirement prospects - after all, an important part of the divorce process is dividing marital assets. 

Small businesses owners in Illinois face enormous challenges when trying to make their business successful. Many years and countless hours spent finding clients, fixing problems, and doing paperwork are no guarantee of achieving wealth or ease. The prospect of divorce can threaten everything an entrepreneur has created, including his or her long-term financial stability. 

Couples in Illinois often still live together when one spouse files for divorce. Many reasons, including the financial impact of maintaining two households, compel them to continue living together while the divorce process is underway. However, divorces can be conflict-ridden, and living together may prove impossible. 

Unlike other things that must be addressed and divided in a divorce, Social Security benefits are often forgotten until after the divorce is over. This is because Social Security benefits are not actually subject to division in a divorce. However, under certain circumstances, divorced spouses are entitled to receive benefits based on their former spouse’s work history. As long as the necessary circumstances are met, the benefits a beneficiary spouse can receive are based on the former spouse’s entire work history - not just the period during which they were married. 

As couples choose to have children later and later in life, and some couples choose not to have children at all, many spouses opt for pet ownership instead. Indeed, pets can feel as though they are a member of the family, and pet parents are often understandably worried about what will happen to their pet if they get divorced. Families with children may also be concerned about who will keep the family pet. Fortunately, Illinois updated the relevant divorce laws in 2018 to allow pets to be treated in a more nuanced way than a car or savings account. 

The marital home is often the most valuable asset a couple owns and is consequently one of the most difficult and embittered issues in a divorce’s asset division. This is complicated by the fact that couples usually have children and the marital home is the place where those children have shared their lives with their parents. Parents may understandably have concerns about uprooting the children by selling the marital home and moving them somewhere new.