The Separation Process What to Do

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judged by contract and business principles, with few accommodations
made to account for the fact that your financial connections arose out of
a committed personal relationship.
In general, the laws governing married couples do not apply to same-sex
couples outside of the marriage-equality and marriage-equivalent states.
The Separation Process: What to Do
Married or not, breaking up is hard to do. Here are some suggestions that
may help to make a painful process as good as it can get. This section
describes a typical separation process, in basically chronological order.
Advance Planning
If you are the one initiating the dissolution or you sense that the sky is
growing cloudy, you might consider taking some precautionary steps.
Which of these steps you decide to take will depend on how amicable you
think the breakup might be. If you think things will be difficult, you will
need to take more precautions than if you think the trust between you
will support a calmer process.
Here are some tasks you can consider attending to, depending on your
assessment of the risks:
• Locate the critical documents of your joint financial lives; make
copies and store them in a safe place. These documents include
bank records, property deeds, business records, insurance policies,
and credit card account information. It’s important that you
have a complete picture of your financial situation, no matter
how confident you feel about your ability to reach a cooperative
resolution.
• Think about securing particularly valuable items of personal
property. If you own precious art or irreplaceable family heirlooms
that are yours alone, store them with a friend or be prepared to
remove them quickly.
• Start considering who is going to live where. Some couples continue
living in the same house even after officially breaking up; for many,
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though, living apart will be important. If you have a friend or
close relative you can stay with for a while, make some preliminary
arrangements.
• Learn about the laws that might be relevant to your situation,
particularly if you have children or if your legal partnership must be
dissolved through filing termination documents or through formal
court proceedings. (Chapter 11 has information on researching
the law, and Chapter 5 has information on legal rules relating to
parenting.) If you’re having trouble understanding your state’s rules
or how they apply to your situation, talk with a qualified attorney
who can explain the dissolution process.
• For those who are married or in marriage-like legal relationships
and live in a state that recognizes their relationship, get some more
legal information and advice before doing anything that affects
your jointly owned property. For others, avoid putting large sums
of money into joint accounts. Consider closing joint credit card
accounts. But unless your partner is irresponsible with credit, it’s
probably best to discuss this before doing it—taking unilateral
action on a jointly owned account can escalate conflict. Whatever
you do, don’t empty joint accounts into your own pocket.
• If you are concerned about domestic violence or other abuse, set up
a support system for yourself. You may want to talk with a therapist,
trusted friend, or family member, or seek assistance at a gay
community center or domestic violence agency. (There’s more about
this in “Domestic Violence in Same-Sex Relationships,” below.)
Your goal is to minimize conflict and confusion, understanding that
you can’t avoid them altogether. If your relationship is characterized by
high-pitched emotions and strong, impulsive actions, you may need to act
very quickly if the conflicts suddenly explode.
Practical Aspects of Separating
Once the split is agreed on or inevitable, or even if you choose a “trial”
separation, each of you will face a few immediate tasks. While every
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breakup presents its own particular challenges, here are a few simple
guidelines that should help keep things under control.
If you have children, work on making cooperative and realistic
decisions about their custody. Your children’s needs should come first. If
you’ve been denied access to your kids or you urgently need child support
payments that your ex is refusing to make, consult an attorney right away.
But try as hard as you can to work it out between the two of you, possibly
with the help of a custody mediator or therapist. Keep in mind that from
your kids’ point of view, harmony and predictability are more important
than you getting your way on every issue.
Close joint accounts and credit cards, and if you leave any accounts
open in order to pay joint obligations, make sure that joint authority is
needed to withdraw any joint funds. This may limit your access to some
of your own money, but that is far better than having your ex simply take
everything.
Figure out which bills are essential to pay, such as home insurance
or the mortgage payment, and make arrangements to keep these bills
current. If necessary, ask a trusted friend or an accountant to make these
payments for you, so you don’t lose your house or find yourself uninsured
in the midst of a relationship crisis. Next, make arrangements for paying
the less urgent bills.
Make some practical decisions about furniture and personal
possessions, but don’t feel compelled to sort everything out the moment
you break up. Valuable items should be handled with some thought, and
it may be necessary to put them into storage for a few months. Spending
a few hundred dollars to store disputed valuables safely is wiser than
letting them be destroyed or stolen, or giving up on them and handing
them over because it’s easier than trying to work it out right away.
Assess what the longer-range issues may be, and agree to disagree if
necessary. If you can both acknowledge that certain conflicts remain
unresolved, and can agree on a method of resolving them, you will both
feel far more at ease—and less compelled to sort everything out the day
you leave.
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Figure out who is going to live where and try to put together a simple
written agreement on how you are going to handle the costs and legal
implications of your short-term housing decisions. If you own a home
together, you will need to decide whether the person who moves out
should pay any portion of the mortgage or insurance costs, and you’ll
want to make it clear that a temporary departure is not a permanent
abandonment of the residence, which might give the partner who stays
an advantage if you litigate ownership shares later. If you are renters, you
may need to decide who is going to stay on the lease and who is entitled
to the return of the security deposit. There’s a sample agreement below
that you can use when you first separate, to memorialize your agreements
about housing.
Sample Postseparation Agreement Regarding Housing
Adrian Wallace and Chris Urban hereby agree as follows:
1. We will live apart, effective March 1, 20xx.
2. Chris will remain in our apartment, and Adrian will move out no later
than March 1, 20xx. If Adrian leaves any of his personal belongings
behind, he will remove them no later than April 1, 20xx at his expense,
with three days’ prior notice to Chris. Any of Adrian’s personal
belongings that he does not remove by April 1 may be kept or
disposed of by Chris, unless we agree otherwise in writing.
3. Any household-related expenses incurred before March 1, 20xx will
be split between Adrian and Chris, following the allocation generally
followed by us before that date. Any household expenses incurred
after March 1, 20xx, will be Chris’s sole responsibility.
4. [If you are renters] Chris will be solely responsible for all rent due after
March 1, 20xx. Chris will retain the right to claim the existing security
deposit of $1,000, in exchange for his agreeing to pay the utility bills,
telephone bills, and insurance after March 1, 20xx.
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5. [If you are homeowners] Effective March 1, 20xx, Chris will pay all
monthly bills for the residence, including the mortgage, insurance, all
utilities, and related expenses. The property taxes and all necessary
repairs will be split equally between Adrian and Chris. However, as
long as Adrian continues to pay his share of these expenses, Adrian
shall be entitled to half of any increase in the property’s value
between March 1, 20xx, and the time the house is sold. Adrian and
Chris agree to make a good-faith effort to promptly resolve the issue
of long-term ownership of the residence. Unless an agreement is
reached by December 31, 20xx, or we agree in writing to extend this
agreement, the property will be listed for sale in January 20xx and
the proceeds of sale will be split equally. Adrian’s agreement to leave
the residence now is not a waiver of his claim to an equal share of the
equity, either through a buyout or a sale.
6. Any dispute arising under this agreement will be mediated by a third
person mutually acceptable to both parties. The mediator’s role will
be to help us arrive at an agreement, not to impose one on us. If
good-faith efforts to arrive at our own solution to all issues in dispute
with the help of a mediator aren’t successful, either of us may make
a written request to the other that the dispute be arbitrated. If such
a request is made, the dispute will be submitted to arbitration under
the rules of the American Arbitration Association, and one arbitrator
will hear our dispute. The decision of the arbitrator will be binding on
us and will be enforceable in any court that has jurisdiction over the
dispute. We each agree to give up the right to a jury trial.
Date
Adrian Wallace
Date
Chris Urban