Divorce financial advice today is more critical than ever because few parts of divorce are more divisive or contested than the financial issues.

As with child custody, people spend too much time and money fighting over finances.

Since financial issues likely contributed to the deterioration of your marriage, is it any wonder finances become a huge part of your divorce?

If you're not careful, you can really get screwed here. You have three primary areas of financial exposure: Assets, alimony, and child support.

Assets:

There are two types of assets:

Premarital: Those possessions you brought into the marriage. Things you had before you were married.

Marital: Those possessions acquired during the marriage.

Assets include the marital home, bank accounts, furniture, cars, etc. In most states, marital assets are not divided equally, they're divided equitably. There is a big difference.

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Equally would mean a 50-50 split. This is almost never the case. If there are kids involved, your ex-wife will get the house and most of the furniture.

Here's some financial advice you may or may not know. In most cases your ex-wife will be required to compensate you for your equity share of the house (but not until your youngest turns 18).

Alimony (also known as spousal maintenance)

Alimony is not the big issue it used to be. Several decades ago, men were the breadwinners while women gave up their careers to stay home and raise the children.

The purpose of alimony was to insulate women from the harsh financial realities of life after a divorce and to provide her with an income while she could build up her job skills.

In some cases, it was to compensate her for raising your kids so you could go off to work carefree each day.

Child support:

If you're like most guys and have kids, you'll pay Child Support of some kind. And your child support payments greatly exceed the children's true monthly expenses.

In most cases, there's hidden alimony in the so-called child support payment. Calculating your child support can be complex.

Each state has specific laws dictating child support payments. This is known as "Guideline Child Support." Now it doesn't mean you and your ex-wife can't come up with an arrangement on your own. Many couples do.

As long as you both agree, you can do anything you want. But the law is clear: Unless you both agree, you'll pay guideline child support. End of story! No fancy "lawyer talk" is going to change that situation.

So to sum it up, the best divorce financial advice is to nail down your situation in regard to Assets, Alimony, and Child Support.

For information on how to make sure you keep as many of your Assets as possible, pay only the Alimony the law requires, and determine your Child Support to the penny, we suggest you take a look at Matt O'Connell's best selling guide, "No BS Divorce Strategies for Men."

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