Transcript

Lindsey Obenhaus: The first thing that you have to start with, with a spouse, with a working woman going through a divorce is transparent communication about what the standard possession order looks like.

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast, your source for the latest news and trends in family law in the state of Texas. Now, here’s your host attorney Brandi Crozier.

Brandi Crozier: Hello, everybody and welcome to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast. I am Brandi Crozier. I’m filling in for Holly Draper today. And we have the privilege of having Lindsey Obenhaus on today’s episode. Lindsey specializes in representing clients who particularly are women who have big careers and that can range from doctors to teachers and women who have demanding jobs.

And she helps them navigate how they can divorce as a woman who has a very strong career, and also a family. Lindsey is one of the best attorneys we have in this area in Dallas. She has been named in D Magazine’s Best Lawyers in 2021 and 2022. And most recently, she has been named a Rising Star Super Lawyer in 2023.

And I am happy to say that I was also on that list. And I’m in good company having Lindsey on that list with me. So on today’s podcast, we will be talking about how divorce affects women with careers versus a stay at home mom and how we have to approach those cases differently. So welcome to today’s episode, Lindsey. We’re so happy to have you.

Lindsey: Thanks so much Brandi. I’m so excited to be here talking to you about this.

Brandi: All right. So Lindsey, can we talk a little bit about the history of the Texas law and how that was developed and where we’re at because it’s my understanding that has varied vastly since, women’s careers have varied vastly since the time these laws were put into place.

Lindsey: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I think this is such an interesting part of the history of our jurisprudence that not all of us know, or really appreciate the progress that we’ve made in our laws. So for a long time, Texas didn’t have any form of alimony. And so before I get into the property division, I think I kind of have to start there. And so for years, we didn’t have any alimony, which for people who are listening, that’s post divorce payments by one spouse to another.

Often that’s to kind of bridge the gap after divorce for you know, an equal earning power or something like that. And to this day, even in our state, it is considered to be pretty hard to qualify for spousal maintenance or alimony in our state. So even though we have it now, we’re pretty hard on what it takes to qualify to even get those payments.

Brandi: Why is it so hard to qualify to get those payments under the current laws?

Lindsey: You know, I think that’s just part of our jurisprudence and just the policy of our judicial officers and our legislature who kind of formed the laws. I think that just the policy that you see going through is we like to protect our property when we’re not married to someone else. And so, you know, it’s a little bit less forgiving. But that’s why we have our just and right division of property.

Our family is often misperceived as a lot of family lawyers might know that clients come in and say, well, I just want, you know, my 50%. The family code doesn’t say 50%. It says a just and right division. And the reason it says a just and right division is partially because of the unequal economic situations of the spouses.

And because alimony was not on the table or difficult to qualify for for a while, the just and right division is kind of intended to offset some of those imbalances by giving one spouse more of the community estate, rather than more property after divorce, and just half of the estate. So does that answer your question?

Brandi: I think that it did a great job of answering the question. But has that changed now that women have become much more integrated into our workforce? And how has that impacted this?

Lindsey: I think that’s an interesting question, and one that it’s hard to answer. I mean, it’s interesting when you start looking into the research on this, and what the statistical data shows, is, I was shocked when I found that in 1950, only 34% of women were involved in the labor force at all. And in 2019, which is the most recent federal data available, we had 57% of women involved in the labor force.

And so we have almost an exponential growth in just a matter of decades there. And we all know that after 2019 COVID probably dipped that number a little bit, but we don’t have the comprehensive research on it. But I think that as women become involved in the workplace, you know, you kind of see our law kind of staying where it is but women doing this and the law is still down here.

And so when we end up having our clients in cases where we have women involved in the workforce. And I’m not just talking here about C suite women, CEOs, I’m also talking about teachers, accountants, you know, just secretaries, assistants. It doesn’t have to be some high earning powerful position. Just women in the labor force at all is somewhat of a new phenomenon at the rate that we’re involved in it.

Brandi: It’s fair to say that when, as lawyers, when we’re approaching cases, and we have, you know, a female client who might be working, or might not be working, or maybe even one with just a part time job, our approaches to those cases are very different.

Lindsey: Yeah, it does change the landscape a little bit. I would say, I mean, first of all, with a lot of working women that I encounter, you know, one thing that’s really a noticeable change with women involved in the labor force versus not, is, you know, they’ve got, they’ve got a huge juggle on their hands. They’re hard to access during the day, their weekends are for their kids.

And so sometimes they’re scheduling in our calls, our meetings during lunch hour, 7:30. I do my kids’ carpools on certain days. And I’m like, okay, I’m in the carpool line. Are you in the carpool line? Let’s do our call then. And so sometimes we have to coordinate our calendars because it is a juggle. That’s still true for stay at home moms. I’m not trying to say it’s not at all a full time career of its own.

But I think that the pressures and the rigidity of the schedule is a little bit different with working women, especially when I approach cases. But we also have to think about the schedules with their kids, the property division, the economic impact of having dual income household in a divorce. Those are all important things that we discuss when we encounter women who work coming through our offices.

Brandi: Now, let’s face it, most of us women are also responsible in our homes as well for housework and things like that. Does that have an impact on how we approach this, and women working as well, when we’re talking about divorce? Is it fair to say that women have almost two jobs, we think?

Lindsey: I think that is fair to say. I think there’s some research on that that’s coming to light. You know, women have certain pressures. And this is not just moms, this is women in marriages, too. Is that women tend to take on more of the unpaid labor. There’s statistical data that shows all of this. Women showed this is called, you know, the second shift, or the mental load of the unpaid housework, caregiving, things like that.

And that puts stress on a relationship. I mean, it’s commonly known that women are often the ones to file for divorce. But I also found it interesting that women CEOs, specifically and this was in the American Economic journal, women CEOs are more than twice as likely to divorce within three years of their promotion than men.

Brandi: That’s really interesting.

Lindsey: I know. You can kind of unpack what all the possible reasons that might be. But it is, I mean, suffice to say, I think it does add to the pressure that it can put on a relationship, the pressure it can put on a woman individually, when the expectation of women is to manage these tasks.

Which I think our law also still kind of may somehow have that packed inside of it that inherently that we’re trying to unpack here. But when we go through our cases, we’re also trying to balance that out with our client and the realities and the practicalities of their life at the time that we meet them.

Brandi: Yeah, I think those are all things that we always have to take into consideration. And it’ll be interesting to see how the law changes as we move forward during the next, you know, legislative years ahead. So let’s talk about how specifically, a woman with a career can, what we need to consider when she’s divorcing, and what those things could look like.

So when we’re going through a divorce, we’re thinking about things. Property division, we’re also talking about child custody. I always kind of explain it to clients that we’re almost playing two games. I don’t mean to reduce anyone’s life to a game but it’s a good, you know, demonstration for thinking about things. We’re playing Chutes and Ladders on one piece of this.

And we’re playing chess on the other or Monopoly, because we’re dealing with money and property. And so if we don’t interchange the pieces, but we also need to discuss both games. And so let’s start with more of the Chutes and Ladders game with child custody, possession and how and even child support and how that will work out.

So what do you do when we’ve got, you know, a mom who’s got a career and how do we do a possession schedule? Because we don’t have a stay at home mom, or someone who can pick the kids up and take them to school because life changes when we divorce. How does the working mom have to deal with her possession schedule?

Lindsey: Yeah, and first I love your analogy of Chutes and Ladders. Totally going to steal that from you even today. Yeah, it’s so accurate. But in terms of, you know, what do we need to be thinking about? Obviously, the way I, you know, I think and the courts also take this approach is, you know, a married couple with kids, you can look at it as a business, right?

We all have our economies of labor, the roles that we specialize in, in our relationship in our parenting, you know, our little household business. You know, I may be the mom that makes pancakes, and he may be the dad that does basketball after dinner or something like that. And so we all have our economic, you know, I do pickups, he does drop off something like that.

You know, we may have those kinds of daily rhythms, and habits that we always do as parents or as spouses. And so when we look at these schedules, it’s often you know, something that we want to look at of what was the role? What are your current parenting roles? What is the current rhythm of your household right now?

Because especially in dual earning households, where we have both spouses involved in the workplace out during the day, you know, they’re going to have some system of labor already planned out in their relationship. It’s a fair starting point to say, okay, well, can that continue post divorce?

But then you also have to look at the fact that just because one spouse did it before the divorce, doesn’t mean they can’t pick that up after the divorce. It doesn’t mean that business rules can’t change during that process. But I want to get back to really the heart of your question, which we always start as family lawyers.

And in our family code of the presumption of the standard possession order. The standard possession order, our family code, says that’s presumed to be in the best interest of the child. Now, that’s the kind of a minimum time schedule that’s in our family code. And we can adjust based on the practicalities and needs of our case.

When you look at our standard possession schedule, it does have you know, what I would consider more of a weekday parent who gets more weekday time. So our standard for people who are listening that may not be familiar, it’s a custodial parent that gets the kids at all times not delegated to the other parent. And the other parent will get first, third and fifth weekends, really, from Friday to Monday morning. And then every Thursday overnight.

And so that means that on alternating weeks, it really goes from Thursday to Monday. And so we’re really when you look at that on a calendar, you see, you know, if I’ve got a pink and blue with pink being the custodial parent, you know, I’ve got a lot of pink during the week, and I’ve got a lot of blue on the weekends. And so if you have two spouses who work during the week, that’s a lot to juggle for the pink spouse.

Brandi: It can be. So what do we do in those situations? I mean, is this a matter of you know, sharing childcare, is it a matter of, you know, sharing the same nanny? Is it a matter of, you know, coming up with a real detailed schedule and having a lot of flexibility? I mean, how do we encourage our clients to deviate from the standard possession schedule laid out in the family code or the expanded standard possession schedule?

Because sometimes, I feel like people will say, well, I know so and so who got a divorce. And this is exactly what they got. And I know that that’s what the Texas Family Code says. So how do we work our clients through those types of conversations?

Lindsey: Yeah. And I think that’s a great question. Because the first thing that you have to start with, with a spouse with a working woman going through a divorce is transparent communication about what the standard possession order looks like. You know, custody battles are already loaded enough with emotion, and loaded enough with you know, emotion about someone taking their kids away from them and taking time away from the other parent or not being there at certain times. It is rife with emotion.

And so trying to take a step back from this, and be abundantly clear on what a standard looks like. So I always compare the standard possession order to my clients, almost like a car, and I’m not really a car person. So it’s a funny analogy for me specifically to use, but it’s how I visualize it.

So when I’m talking to a working mom about the schedule, and what it is, you want to be transparent about what that actually looks like. Because like I said, there’s a lot of time in the pink. And so looking at what this is, this is what are family code presumes. Do we need to add different wheels? Do we need to change the paint color? Do we need to turbocharge the engine? What do we need to do to modify this that makes it fit for your family?

And there’s other schedules, other you know, varieties that we can introduce to our clients as options that might work for them and their family. You know, there is no one size fits all family. And so the presumption of a standard schedule, while we have to have it, of course, it’s really difficult to apply a one size fits all solution to every family that comes through.

Especially like I said, when our laws here, and we’ve got women in the workplace going up like this. You know, we’ve got to look at our schedules of how can we as family law practitioners, help these women have a more livable schedule than maybe what standard may have and maybe that works for them, right? Maybe their work hours or on the weekends or something like that. But how can we adapt this?

Brandi: And so when we’re talking about deviating from a standard possession schedule or an expanded standard possession schedule, what specifically should we be taking into account? Do we take into account just the parents? Or should we take into account the kids and their activities as well? How do we get creative? And how do we come up with solutions here?

Lindsey: Well, of course, you start with what’s best for the kids. And I think, you know, even the impetus behind our standard schedule is so that there’s not so much bouncing around between kids. It’s kind of this presumption that there’s a home base during the school week, so that their homework, their backpacks, their rhythm, that routine stays pretty consistent week to week.

And that’s really important for kids, and we want to make sure that’s okay. But also listening to your heart as a parent. And so talking to your clients about, you know, what is important for your kids and taking emotion out of it. And just looking at what your kids are doing, where your kids are heading, and then also where you are best as a parent.

And so for example, if you are a mom, who’s an anesthesiologist, and you work three days a week, but you start at 5am, and you end at 2pm, that may actually work great for school pickups, but definitely not for school drop offs. And so taking that into consideration of are these the best days for you?

How are we going to address this? Is this something you can work with? And also accounting for childcare? Right, most dual income households have some form of childcare unless they’ve adopted their work schedules around school schedules.

But nannies, aftercare, things like that, can also be brought into the discussion about how to make a schedule that really fits a family, and that’s going to be best for the kids, that’s going to be best for the parents. I think it’s going to be, you know, really something that lasts them into the future without them hopefully ever having to come back.

Brandi: Now, what if we have two parents who are anesthesiologists, or even two parents who are teachers, and we’re talking about doing pickups and drop offs. So how do we come up with the solutions there? What if the mom says, well, I really liked this nanny, or the dad says, I really liked this nanny. What if they share childcare? How do we work through some of those issues?

Lindsey: Yeah, you know, I’ve unsuccessfully tried to split a nanny in a divorce decree before. Doesn’t end up well. So I mean, it really takes a high level of coordination and functioning between the parents to really make shared childcare work. I think, you know, I’ve had plenty of families who’ve come through, who’ve had lifelong nannies who endure the divorce and go between the homes and it actually helps the kids a lot with the transition.

But it does take a high level of cooperation in order to make that work. I think generally speaking, it’s best for both parents to plan on their own childcare. That’s definitely the safest line to stay in. It’s your time, it’s your childcare. And that way, we don’t end up with fighting over things going back and forth, influencing the nanny, alignment, payment, you know, things like that.

You know, tattling on what’s going on back and forth between the houses. I think it’s just best to keep childcare separate between the parents unless they have this, you know, unique unicorn relationship, which is great that allows them to share that individual for their kids.

Voiceover: This episode of the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by the Draper Law Firm, providing family law appellate representation for non parent custody cases, jurisdictional issues, property division, standing, conservatorship, possession and access, termination, parental rights, and grandparent access. For more information, visit draperfirm.com, or call 469-715-6801.

Brandi: Now, I can imagine we have got two parents with, you know, careers, and we’re talking about things with, you know, maybe we have two people who are C suites, or maybe we have a person who is a C suite and a teacher. And if that’s the case, how important is communication between parents at that point?

Lindsey: Yeah, I think that’s a great question. Because sometimes we talk about working women in a divorce and you just assume that we’ve got two equal earners here, right? We’ve got two equals, and there’s inequality within earners, right. Even in working parent relationships, because of kids. Oftentimes, one spouse, particularly the woman will take a job with fewer hours or less responsibility or less, you know, less income because of the child giving care responsibilities.

But she still works. He just makes more. That’s a common scenario that we see. And so when you talk about the communication and the things that’s necessary in order for them to thrive, I think it really takes looking at their schedules, takes looking at am I going to change jobs? Am I going to keep this job?

And making sure that they know what their commitment is going to be at work and also talking to their employers. You know, if I have a working mom going through a divorce, and it’s going to be a demanding process or it’s important for her in her case for her to be doing these pickups or for her to be doing soccer, for her to be there for her kids during that time.

That’s the time that she needs to have that crucial conversation with her employer, about her other obligations. So it’s not just communication with the spouse, it’s also communicating with your workplace to make sure that this whole business of raising kids, either in a marriage or outside of a marriage is going to work for that woman.

Brandi: That’s a really good point, Lindsey. I think a lot of attorneys that often sometimes just focus on the communication between the parents, and I think it’s imperative that when people are divorcing, they have conversations with their employers, too. So I think that’s a really good point to highlight, and bring out. And I also think, maybe even like coaches, and you know, people who are involved in the children’s activities and things like that.

Lindsey: Yeah, you need to protect the kids to make sure that they know where their safe spaces are, and to keep the conflict out of it. I think it just helps everybody to keep an eye on the kids and make sure they’re okay.

Brandi: Now, when we’ve got parents who are divorcing, when we’ve, you know, let’s face it, most moms are the ones who kind of keep the schedule in the house. And there’s some really good dads and I know I have some, you know, dads who are engineers and their spreadsheets are things that I worship. They are so fabulous. And so I think that we know, I give kudos to anyone who is an Excel Pro, because it’s not my forte. I fumble through it.

And I’m good on a very basic level. But are you a fan when we have parents who have, or maybe not a fan, but an advocate for parents when they’re going through divorce and we have parents with careers, using a parenting app to help maintain schedules and things like that? Or what how do you advise clients on those things?

Lindsey: I’m a huge fan of it. I think whatever system works for you. We’ve got this, we’ve got so much technology that’s here to help kids, parents, schools. I think that’s great, because one, it keeps the conflict out of it. It helps parents communicate, especially when we have you know, like your hypothetical two anesthesiologists who may have conflicting schedules. That’s going to really help them know who’s on deck when.

You know if one parent is you know, in a surgery, but someone’s getting a call from school that someone’s you know, got strep throat or something, you’ve got to know who’s going to be on deck for that situation. And that has to be considered as part of the parenting plan. The apps, though, are really helpful. There’s some really great ones out there on the market.

But I’ve also found a lot of high functioning clients with dual income marriages, who have already developed their own system. And by the time you meet them, they’re like, oh, there’s an app for that. I’ve been doing this on Google workplace for seven years. And their Google calendar is this, you know, matrix of, you know, lessons and where to be and vacations and things like that.

And I’ve also seen some really, really interesting new beta testing projects on AI, where you can text you know, just random, you know, emails, schedules, whatever you get into the AI bot, and it will generate the Google Calendar for you. It will generate reminders for you and the other parent. It’s pretty cool, but very early.

Brandi: Wow.

Lindsey: I know. So AI is really going to be here like, you know, chatGBT and all that. That is where this is going to go. And I think that helps parents stay aligned, stay neutral. They’re both getting the same amount of information. And it keeps conflict out, right. We want them to cooperate like professionals in their child raising responsibilities, and try to keep as much emotion and conflict out of it. These tools are here to help them do that.

Brandi: I think those are great tips. Now, one other thing that I envision coming up, is we are looking at crystal balls and we’re going in the future and people are divorcing are things like when we have two parents with two careers, or maybe when both parents maybe don’t have all the flexibility in the world with their jobs.

So as you know, most majority is the mom is the one who’s usually taking care of the kids when they’re sick and things like that. That changes during the divorce, obviously. So how do we advise clients and best set them up for success when there is an illness with a child and we’re having to take time off work and things like that? How do we kind of factor those in having to help clients through those issues?

Lindsey: Yeah, definitely. And I want to take a timeout here and just emphasize that we are talking in generalities here. That there are vast exceptions to this in every family and every marriage of you know, a husband who handles the majority of childcare, the woman who’s the breadwinner. You know, roles can get switched. There are truly equal house, those things all exist.

The situation that you and I are tailoring our conversation to is really the common situation that we see of where we have a woman who has taken on more of the child caring responsibilities with a job. So in that situation, when you’d have a sick child or something like that post divorce. You know, when you go back to our standard and you look at how that lays out over the course of a month, those pink days, those are all the school days.

And that’s all day. Which means that if the school calls and someone’s got a fever, or I’ve had a case where I had a kid who was biting someone at daycare and getting called out every day on it, and but that’s all on, technically that parent’s parenting time. And so the school may automatically be calling the mom anyways, because that’s what the school does.

Or it just may be their parenting time. And they’re going to call that parent first. That needs to be discussed, and make sure the client is aware of that. Unless they have a really high functioning relationship, I don’t see there’s much that parent can do. And where that comes into Brandi is where that parent needs to then talk to their employer about the reality of the parenting situation that they’re in.

Not every job is flexible. Not every employer is forgiving about stuff like that. But I think that puts, though, the parent with the custodial weekday time in a difficult spot. And that’s where your allies, your friends, your network, your childcare is really going to have to come support that person, if the other co parent won’t or can’t.

Brandi: I think that’s a really good point too. And I do want to put a caveat on there that maybe we can ask the podcast company to kindly say, but more towards the top of this when they’re doing their edit that we’re not this is tailored very much a conversation tailored to working women.

And when we have two parents in here, this is not saying that moms do all the heavy lifting, because there are plenty of dads out there who do that, too. So I want to make sure that we’re making that point very clear throughout this podcast is that this is tailored towards the working mom. Now, Lindsey, what about, you know, we’re going back to this communication issue as well.

I think, you know, when we have sick kids and things like that, you know, is this something that a mom should be or a dad should be talking about when we’ve got two careers that it’s maybe telling the school that don’t just call me also call the other parent? And let them know what’s going on? And the parents can kind of help coordinate? Is that something that would be beneficial to do as well?

Lindsey: I think it’s always good to tell the school to call both parents assuming we’re in a joint custody situation. There’s no reason not to. I think that’s always something that we should be telling the schools to do is to involve both parents equally in their communication. So yeah, I do think that’s a great thing to do. But the reality of a court order is, you know, is if you know, it’s somebody’s Monday, and the call comes in on Monday, the parent who has Monday has to go get the kid. And so I think you end up in a situation.

That’s just an unfortunate inconvenience of parenting. We don’t you know, we don’t do this, because it’s easy. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to have challenges, it’s going to make you frustrated. But that’s just one of the things you’ve just got to deal with. If the other parent can cooperate, great. If not, we’ve just got to live.

Brandi: Yeah, I think so. Is there anything else you want to add here regarding the possession schedule with kiddos when we’re going through a divorce and we’ve got, you know, two parents with careers that we’re focusing on?

Lindsey: Yeah, I want to emphasize that, you know, one of the benefits of having such a robust family law bar in our state is that we’ve got so many different schedules to consider. Standard is great. It works for millions of families, I’m sure. But there’s also so many other options. Like I’ve got female physicians who are ob gyns. And you know, their call schedule can be crazy.

And so they actually have really loved week on week off schedule, because it allows them to block their call schedule very easily and know when they need childcare. And so there’s tons of different types of iterations of schedules and unique things that we can do to help these families because there’s not a one size fits all solution for these families that have such dynamic schedules and lives.

Brandi: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. So let’s move on and talk about property division. Now, let’s go play our game of chess. We are done with Chutes and Ladders. Let’s talk about chess. And so, or Monopoly, I guess, is probably the, I said that earlier, it’s a better analogy. Is you know, we’re dealing with literally money and property in Monopoly.

So how does a woman who has a career and you know even when we have two people who have careers, how does that impact property division in a divorce? Is that different than how it would affect more of a stay at home mom or stay at home dad situation?

Lindsey: I’m going to give the very lawyerly answer of it depends.

Brandi: I knew you were going to say that.

Lindsey: I know. But as much as we hate that answer, it really does. You know, like I said, there’s just because we’ve got two spouses in the workplace doesn’t necessarily mean they’re economically equals or that the female who’s working is necessarily the breadwinner in that situation. So there can be economic imbalances, even between working spouses.

And so when we look at property division, we go back to those magic words of just and right division. It doesn’t say 50/50. It’s a great place to start. But it doesn’t say that. So we may look at a spouse who is a higher earning CEO, you know, I’ll say husband here who, you know, makes millions. And then the wife may be a substitute teacher as a passion project.

Those are two spouses in the workforce with vastly different economic outcomes in that divorce. So when we look at the property division, that can be shifted by their earning powers, their earning potential post divorce, the needs that they may have from the other spouse, or their responsibilities that they have with the assets they’re getting or with their childcare responsibilities.

But I will say, assuming that we’ve got two professionals, and let’s take the situation where we’ve got two roughly, you know, same earners, professional spouses going through a divorce, that situation makes it disproportionate division a lot harder. You know, when they both have equal earning power, equal outcomes, post divorce, you know, no one’s worried about anyone’s financial future here.

And I think in that case, we’re going to end up with much more of an equal split. So yes, it does impact how we do our property division. But it really looks at their earning powers now and their earning potential post divorce.

Brandi: And I think going back to your it depends answer because I knew you were gonna say that. It depends on a lot of factors. I think, then what you just said, we’re talking about things where we don’t have situations of concern, like we have no parents who are, you know, have any kind of there’s no family violence, we don’t have abuse going on. We don’t have addiction issues, things like that. And so, or gambling problems. And so this is just kind of the baseline of assuming everything is normal and calm waters.

Lindsey: Healthy family dynamics, otherwise, yeah, that’s correct. We’ve all got outliers. But yeah, this is assuming everything else is, you know, greenlight healthy.

Brandi: It’s one of those reasons, because having both people employed really affects, you know, how we can position our clients for spousal maintenance arguments under the family code. Do you think that’s where this really comes into play?

Lindsey: I do. Because like I said, at the very beginning, you know, spousal maintenance can be difficult to qualify for. Absent some sort of unhealthy or catastrophic dynamic, like abuse, or even having a disabled child or suffering from a disability yourself. You really have to prove that aside from being married for a very long time, that the spouse who’s seeking maintenance or alimony is incapable of meeting his or her minimum reasonable needs.

And that’s not a lifestyle calculation. That’s a like bread and butter, like, do you have shelter? Do you have food, do you have health care kind of calculation. And so when we look at two spouses who work, you know, generally speaking, most people in the workforce are going to be able to support themselves to some degree.

And that’s where we sent to look at, it might be harder for them to get a maintenance award in that case, but they may have a better argument under the kind of equity argument of just and right division of getting more assets if they’re really at a disproportionate earning power to their spouse.

Brandi: I think that works. And I think that those are all things that we have to take into consideration when we’re going through these cases. So all right, Lindsey, I really appreciate your time here today. This has been a really great conversation. I hope people get a lot of information out of this and it’ll probably pique even further discussions amongst our colleagues, is what I anticipate. So do you have any closing remarks that you’d like to make before we sign off today?

Lindsey: I love it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s get it out in the open and let’s help these families get through the process. This has been great. Thank you so much for having me on, Brandi.

Brandi: Thank you, Lindsey.

Voiceover: That Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by the Draper Law firm. We help people navigate divorce and child custody cases and handle family law appellate matters. For more information, visit our website at www.Draperfirm.com