Wallops Island, Virginia is normally a quiet wildlife refuge on a small barrier island just south of Chincoteague. Every so often, Wallops resounds to the thrill and din of rocket launches, since the island is also home to a NASA flight facility. NASA launches 16 different types of sounding rockets, and each requires its own launch preflight checklist. Your Virginia divorce needs its own preparation checklist. Done right, your divorce preparation checklist can have you flying high and moving fast.

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Why a Divorce Preparation Checklist Matters in Virginia

Whether you have a contested or uncontested divorce in mind, your planning can benefit from a swift boost. Developing a divorce preparation checklist can help you get through tough emotional times, speed up the paperwork, and streamline the process.

We are hardly the first folks to advocate for a divorce preparation checklist. Forbes offers a set of eight Do’s and seven Don’ts, for instance. They’re … okay, we guess; not great, but not awful.

The problem with many of these checklists is their combinations of emotions and practicalities. We support everyone going through the emotional rocket launch of divorce and know it can be emotionally exhausting. But the main function of NASA’s preflight checklists and a good divorce preparation checklist is to get from ground to space — or married to divorced — with no fuss. The emotional aspect could be a valuable, secondary or even tertiary checklist, but it does not belong in your preflight planning or divorce preparation.

For practical purposes, we are going to give you a countdown to success based on real things you really can do. Everything in our checklist has a measurable result. You can take the incremental steps to your goal and know you have accomplished many of the tasks toward completing your divorce.

What Should You Do Before Telling Your Wife You Want a Divorce?

Before you assemble a pragmatic checklist, start with a difficult but necessary conversation with yourself.

Ask the following:

  • Why do you want a divorce?
  • Have you explored solutions to keep your family and marriage intact?
  • Have you researched divorce in Virginia?
  • Do you know the types of divorce — contested, uncontested, pro se, no-fault, at-fault, divorce from bed and board, divorce from matrimonial bond — and have you chosen the best one for your issues?
  • Are you acting on impulse, or have you examined the challenge over time?

Surprised we said to start with yourself? Many men are not accustomed to soul searching, to probing their motivations and goals. In the following months you will need to know more about yourself than you ever have. So begin the divorce process with a lot of self-examination.

Second on the divorce preparation list is your spouse. Only after a thorough, sometimes painful internal monologue should you begin talking to your spouse about divorce.

The experts at Marriage.com suggest, “If you have not yet broached the subject, decide how you will talk about it. Try to remain calm and inflict as little emotional damage as possible. Be prepared in case the discussion becomes heated.”

What Financial Documents and Accounts Should You Prepare for Divorce?

Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra may or may not have famously made a comment about sitting atop a rocket whose every part was made by the lowest bidder, according to Quote Investigator. But your divorce checklist needs to start with Wally’s same awareness of finances and quality. Divorce through any means is expensive. Be prepared by using this first part of the divorce preparation checklist, a section on finances:

  • How will I set aside money to pay an experienced divorce attorney?
  • What does my current credit report say about me and our marriage?
  • Do I have my own transportation or do I need to save money to buy wheels?
  • Do I have passwords for all online accounts?
  • Who will get the marital home and who will move out of it?
  • Do I have physical and electronic copies of all bank and credit card statements, tax returns (federal, state, and local), investment account records, and all transactions for the last three to five years?
  • How does my health insurance and life insurance work?
  • Am I in good health, so I can end one insurance arrangement and start something new if needed?
  • What are my personal assets and liabilities?
  • What are our marital assets and liabilities?
  • What is separate property and what is marital property?
  • How will child support be arranged?
  • What do we want for our children?
  • Should I expect to pay spousal support, and if so, how much?
  • How soon should I separate our marital finances by using separate accounts, separate credit cards, and removing my name from financial documents?

Your divorce attorney can offer guidance on your necessary financial decisions. Know your budget.

Virginia Divorce Preparation Checklist: Steps to Take Before Filing

Separation and divorce begins a countdown similar to ones used for spaceflight. For months and months, you move things along in incremental steps until you get to those final, frantic, dramatic, emotionally exhausting moments. A rocket liftoff in one case, a final divorce decree in another.

If your checklist was right, that final decree lets you coast into a serene, post-divorce life.

And so, without further launch delays, here is the rest of the checklist that begins after you communicated clearly with your spouse and after you examined your finances:

  • Stop posting marital information on social media — If possible, go dark for the duration of your divorce proceedings
  • Establish new, independent contact methods — Create a new email, rent a private post office box, and consider buying a new telephone with a new, private phone number
  • Remove yourself from the marital home’s electronics — Avoid the family computer, tablets, and cell phones; be aware of security cameras and how their images are stored
  • Select a date or season to begin the steps to separation and divorce, taking into account prepaid vacations, children’s school schedules, holidays, and work schedules; be prepared for the entire process to take months longer than you could imagine
  • Hire an experienced divorce attorney — Avoid Jack-of-all-Laws attorneys and concentrate of finding  the very best divorce lawyer your budget can afford, then gather all your pertinent financial records (tax returns, account balances, a list of assets and liabilities) for your first consultation, along with a printed list of questions you want your attorney to answer
  • Find a trustworthy real estate agent — Explain your situation and have your agent begin a search for suitable housing if you are going to want to vacate the marital residence; the search for the right abode will take time, which is your most valuable and fleeting asset in a divorce
  • Find a trustworthy confidant — Do not start any new romantic relationships but do find at least one person to unburden yourself to, seek advice from, and share your concerns with; the person could be a professional counselor, a trusted longtime friend, or a member of your extended family
  • Select your ideal parenting approach — Having the divorce discussion with your spouse is one thing; informing your children of your divorce is a far more emotionally charged, complicated moment; you may want to rehearse, negotiate with your spouse, or seek advice from mental health professionals before telling your children about the divorce
  • Get up to speed on your children — Add apps to your phone; create lists of all your child’s interests, needs, medications, medical conditions, school performance, teachers’ names, after-school activities, and friends’ names
  • Select your ideal parenting time schedule — Know what would be perfect for you with your children, and then be ready to work with your divorcing spouse on interim schedules for parenting time, visitation, holidays, and all child-related activities
  • Inventory — Decide which of your possessions will go with you and which you will abandon; have a bug-out bag of essentials — medications, work clothes, sentimental items, toiletries, financial records — ready in case the relationship becomes dangerous or unworkable
  • Improve your note-taking skills — You will need to make endless lists and reminders of many new experiences: your attorney will educate you on the subtleties of property settlement agreements, child custody, parenting time schedules, and much more; your financial advisor will swamp you with ways to retain financial security; your mental health professional will offer coping skills; be prepared to record everything
  • Establish a way to monitor marital debt during divorce proceedings — Marital waste is real; arrange to receive alerts on all accounts and liabilities
  • Collate all documents you will need to update, revise, or abandon after divorce (beneficiaries on insurance policies, heirs on a will, deeds and titles on property; your attorney can help with this)
  • Develop a post-divorce life plan — Will you move to another Virginia city or town, or move out of state? Will you change jobs or pursue higher education? Having post-divorce goals in mind even before you separate can help you through some dark times

How Can You Build a Support System Before Divorce?

NASA has always had a philosophy about human spaceflight: every mission must have redundancy, in which a main system is backed up by at least one other system. Many missions had triple redundancy: two systems could fail and the astronauts would return safely home.

The same is true of your divorce. Some days your brain will discombobulate. Some days your body will weaken. Some days, all you will want to do is rage at the world.

You must have backup systems in place so you and the divorce can carry on, despite minor setbacks.

Your divorce attorney is your primary backup. Your support system is a secondary backup. Your vast trove of documents, electronic records, and financial information gives you triple redundancy.

How Can a Virginia Divorce Lawyer Help You Prepare?

You can find longer, more detailed divorce preparation checklists on the internet. You can find divorce checklists dedicated to getting your mental game up to par. All of them have as goals the smooth translation from married life to divorced life.

Reentering the world after divorce can seem surreal, like a long, strange trip into space. The longer your divorce takes, the harder will be that reentry. Astronauts returning from six months on the International Space Station have to be put in easy chairs. You can smooth your reentry into normal life by working with experienced divorce attorneys at The Firm For Men. Contact us online today or give our Virginia Beach offices a call at (757) 383-9184.