According to a poll of 1,500 people conducted by GFK Roper, 60 percent of people going through a divorce are most likely to turn to friends and family for support before professional or spiritual advisors.  Furthermore, 26 percent of men said they would turn to family first, while 25 percent said they would go to friends first.  Among women, 45 percent said they would go to family and 25 percent said they would first turn to friends for support.  In general, men were more likely to turn to professional support first than women.

In addition, only 7 percent said they would turn to professionals like lawyers, accountants, or financial planners for advice, and another 7 percent said they would go to a religious or spiritual institution.  Five percent told surveyors that they would first turn to therapists for help, and another four percent said they would go to support groups.  

If you or someone you know is in need of support or advice through a divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of Marshall & Taylor P.C. at 919-833-1040 to learn more about your rights. 

A divorced couple in Maryland were granted split custody of their beloved 16-pound gray-black Lhasa Apso.  A sympathetic Judge Graydon S. McKee III recognized during divorce proceedings that they were both responsible and loving pet owners, and so agreed to allow them to split custody of the dog into two six month periods a year.  

McKee stated, "It was very clear that both of them love this dog equally ... The only fair thing to do was to give each one an equal chance to share the love of the dog".  McKee also said that he does own dogs, but his love for dogs did not factor into his decision.  "I really applied good common sense ... Treat other people the way you would want to be treated if you were in that situation".

Under Maryland law, pets are considered jointly owned property and are to be sold if the owner's split up and cannot agree on who should keep them.  The proceeds from the sale are then split between the owners.  

If you or someone you know is considering filing for divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of Marshall & Taylor P.C. at 919-833-1040 to learn more about your rights. 

A new study done by three researchers at Brown University, Harvard University, and The University of California San Diego shows that the chances of somebody getting a divorce dramatically increase when those around them are going through a divorce or are divorced.

Their results showed that people with a divorced friend are 75 percent more likely to get a divorce than people whose friends are happily married.  People with friends of friends who are divorced are 33 percent more likely to become divorced.  Furthermore, people with divorced coworkers are 55 percent more likely to get a divorce than people with married coworkers.  People with a divorced sibling are 22 percent more likely to become divorced than people with married siblings.

The researches named this phenomenon  "divorce clustering".

If you or someone you know is considering filing for divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of Marshall & Taylor P.C. at 919-833-1040 to learn more about your rights. 

Gaston County's current divorce rate is 59 percent- three percent more than North Carolina's 56 percent, and 9 percent higher than the national average of 50 percent.

Now, a delegation to the North Carolina General Assembly is asking Gaston County commissioners for a thirty-day waiting period before marriages are performed in the state, in which time couples are required to take premarital counseling.  The thirty-day period could only be waived with certification of prior premarital counseling.

The idea for the resolution initially came from the First Things First of Gaston County organization, according to State Representative Will Neumann, whose mission is "to bring better quality of life by strengthening families, specifically reducing divorce, out-of-wedlock births and the number of absent parents".

No bill has currently been introduced, but officials believe that what is now being proposed in Gaston County could easily spread state-wide. 

If you or someone you know is considering divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of Marshall & Taylor P.C. at 919-833-1040 to learn more about your rights.

The recent announcement of Al, 62, and Tipper, 61, Gore's pending divorce is making marriage experts and psychologists take notice of the rising numbers in late-in-life divorces.

The pair have been married for forty years but experts expect their separate careers and busy lives contributed to them filing for divorce.  Furthermore, as late-in-life divorces have increased over the past few years, experts cite generational changes in the baby boomer generation.  Baby boomers, they believe, have more independent values and are more self-centered than previous generations.

The Office of National Statistics has stated that divorce rates are falling in all categories, except in the over 60 category.

Last year, Bertie and Jessie Woods made history as the world's oldest divorced couple, divorcing when both were 98.

If you are considering a divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce attorneys of Marshall & Taylor, P.C. today by calling 919-833-1040.

The social networking site, Facebook, grows daily and currently reports having 400 million users.  Considering this, it may seem easy to believe that something posted on one's Facebook is trivial and that your page is only one in millions.

However, Facebook is becoming the new source for attorneys and private investigators to gather evidence on suspects.  In divorce cases, it is very common for a husband or wife to come to an attorney with suspicion of infidelity, only for this to be confirmed via wall posts, statuses, and pictures posted on Facebook.

In a recent case this past April, a woman saw her lawyer after believing her husband had started drinking again.  After a friend informed her of pictures on his facebook of him drinking alcohol a few weeks before the case, her lawyer decided to present these to the court knowing it would undermine the husband's credibility.  The wife won the case soon after.

Simple things like someone's apparent behavior or the way they express themselves online can be the pivitol factor in a case.

If you or someone you know is considering a divorce contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of Marhsall & Taylor P.C. at 919-833-1040 to learn more about your rights.  

When men contribute to housework, shopping, and childcare, their marriage is far more likely to be stable and remain so, a recent academic study claims. 

“The results suggest that the risk of divorce among working mothers, while greater, is substantially reduced when fathers contribute more to housework and childcare," said Wendy Sigle-Rushton, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics. 

“That men’s failure to contribute to housework can increase the risk of divorce may seem surprising, given that all of the families in my sample had fairly young children over the time period they are followed and a divorce would have had substantial economic consequences and would not have relieved most mothers of housework and childcare responsibilities,” she continued. 

The risk of divorce in a situation where the woman returns to the workplace while her husband does not help in the housework increases 97 percent, according to the report.

“This study underscores the importance of taking into account relationships between’s men’s behaviour and marital stability. In economic and sociological research, there has been too great an emphasis on women’s paid work and not enough attention given to the division of unpaid work,” said Sigle-Rushton.

If you are facing marital trouble or are looking for legal advice when it comes to divorce, contact the Raleigh divorce lawyers of the Marshall & Taylor Law Firm, P.C., today at 919-833-1040.