Domestic Partners and Divorce

NAVIGATING THE END OF A DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP WITHOUT LEGAL AGREEMENTS              

For same sex couples who have found they are at the end of their relationships, and they need to divide their assets, Cox has one piece of advice.            

“I encourage either friends or other people to talk to a lawyer,” Cox said. “It’s hard to do any of this without assistance.” If the parties are able to reach some sort f settlement by themselves, it makes the process much easier, and much less expensive, she said. “Couples do this all the time,” Cox said. “It doesn’t have to be a big trauma and drama.”            

The length of the relationship, the amount of assets they hold jointly and whether they have retirement accounts are come of the factors that may make the dissolution of the relationship more difficult legally, she said.            

“I think the thing that even same sex couples should realize that the systems that are set up to handle the end of relationships are not always available to them,” Cox said. “They are going to have to use other systems, and that gets complicated.”  


CUSTODY DISPUTES ARE MORE COMPLICATED

Determining custody agreements add a layer of confusion and difficulty when viewed through a legal lens. The law in most states would not legally recognize the relationship between the parents in domestic partnerships, and therefore, may not legally recognize the parents who have no biological links to their children, Cox said. If the nonbiological parent has completed a full adoption, then the law would recognize parentage. 

But if the nonbiological parent has not legally adopted a child, it is likely that the law would see that parent as it would a step-parent – someone who has no legal or biological ties to the child, but has a significant role in raising the child, Cox said. Abbie Goldberg, Ph.D., has studied the connections within diverse families, such as gay and lesbian couples who have born or adopted children. 

She is an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. One of the striking aspects, Goldberg said, is the amount of money same sex couples have to spend to bind their families together, as opposed to heterosexual parents.“We don’t have to spend several thousands of dollars to go to court applying to be the parent of our own child,” Goldberg said. The costs begin with the cohabitation contracts to define the dispersion of assets, then the money for fertility treatments to have children, then the costs for a second-parent adoption, which is when one parent is the biological parent, and the other parent legally adopts the children between them. 

“There are plenty of people who can’t afford second-parent adoptions because they have just spent $35,000 on infertility treatments,” Goldberg said. Goldberg said that couples in same sex relationships have to spend a lot of money to have children, then they have to work harder within the legal system to prove their commitment to each other. “The more you observe the inequities, the sadder it becomes,” Goldberg said.            

Goldberg conducted a longitudinal study of lesbian couples’ relationships. She began the study before the couples had children, then finished it after they had children, by the time the children were three years old.            

Her results showed that 1/8 of the couples had separated. And among those, the couples who had second-parent adoptions had fewer conflicts during the separation process.            

It was the couples who had not completed the adoption process for whom the most difficulties arose. Among those couples, the parent who had borne the child, who had a biological connection to the child, had all of the power in the separation, Goldberg said.            

The power struggle may have come as a surprise at the end of the relationship. The couples may have acted as equal parents when together, but after the split, the power inequity became pronounced, Goldberg said.            

“Suddenly, that became the source of power – well I’m the biological mom, and I’m taking my child with me,” Goldberg said.            

The couples had to rely on the trust between them to come up with equitable custody arrangements because the court system wouldn’t be helpful, Goldberg said.