For Better, Worse, Or Divorce Podcast

Brian Walters and Jake Gilbreath celebrate 100 episodes of the “For Better, Worse, or Divorce” podcast by sharing a few of their favorite recent episodes and what listeners can look forward to in upcoming episodes. The partners also discuss some recent trending family law topics as well as answer some listener questions.

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Your hosts have earned a reputation as fierce and effective advocates inside and outside of the courtroom. Our partners are experienced trial attorneys who have been board-certified in family law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

Jake Gilbreath: Thanks for tuning into For Better, Worse, or Divorce podcast. This is where we provide you tips and insight on how to navigate divorce and child custody situations. I’m Jake Gilbreath. I’m here with my partner Brian Walters. We’re the managing partners of Walters Gilbreath and we’re celebrating our 100th episode, which is wild to think about. If I recall, we started this during COVID and now we’re sitting here a hundred episodes later and still really enjoying it. I hope y’all are too. As always, if you have any feedback that you want to give us or help us better the podcast, we’re always looking for that. We really appreciate y’all joining us. We especially appreciate our listeners who’ve been here since the beginning. Hopefully y’all have seen the podcast improve over time and it will continue to improve.

Today we’re going to recap some recent episodes, discuss current family law news, and offer a glimpse into what’s ahead for our next 10 episodes. We also have some listener questions that hopefully we’ll have some time to get to that we’ll answer at the end. A hundred episodes in! Let’s talk about recent trending topics and episodes. Brian, tell me about the recent topics that we’ve covered or episodes that we’ve had. What particularly stood out in your mind as in the last few, 5 to 10 or 15 episodes that we’ve done?

Brian Walters: Some of the popular ones have been the one I did with Elise Buie, who is a divorce attorney up in Seattle, Washington and a friend of ours. She’s from New Orleans originally and moved up to Seattle for complete change in climate and experience. We talked a lot about what’s similar to what we do here in Texas and in Washington, and also what’s different between the two places. There are quite a few differences. We also discussed what happens if you have an issue that goes beyond state boundaries, either between Texas and Washington, Texas and California or whatever. That one seemed to be really popular. She’s a fun person to talk to. 

I also did one with Sarah Cuddy, who’s a certified divorce financial analyst and planner. What that means is that she helps people who are going through a divorce make financial plans. That could be the spouse, or sometimes both spouses who aren’t that familiar with finances and money and now they’re about to be divorced. Generally the other spouse has handled all the money and they kind of need help getting through that.

She also helps if they have specific needs. For example, it’s not uncommon for there to be an age or an income difference. Someone may be closer to retirement, so someone needs more income or more access to funds in the short term versus the other one that might not. She talked us through what she does and we talked about some scenarios where that might be helpful. 

We also did a recent series on various Texas counties. We practice all over the state in all the big cities and counties and a lot of small and medium-sized ones too. We talked about the differences and similarities between each county. Harris County, Dallas County, Travis County, all of those. It was pretty interesting too. We did those with some of our local attorneys that work for us that are in those offices. I believe you did one with Bill Eddy recently. Do you want to tell us about that?

Jake Gilbreath: Bill Eddy writes some of my favorite books and testified in court cases as an expert. He presents throughout the nation really both on parental alienation and co-parenting issues. He wrote the book where he talks about BIFF communication. For those of y’all who remember from prior episodes, BIFF communication is the brief, informative, friendly, and firm style of communication that he recommends for co-parenting. Particularly co-parenting with high conflict people and folks with personality disorders that can affect the co-parenting relationship. I know we’ve talked about that a lot in prior episodes. I thought it was great having Mr. Eddy on to give his perspective as a mental health professional, and for those of y’all who remember he is actually a licensed lawyer as well. I love all his presentations and I love all his books. I recommend his books to our clients. I recommend his seminars to our clients. Anything that he does I think is phenomenal. It really was great having him on the podcast with us.

If I’m thinking back on recent episodes, those are some of my favorite ones. Brian, let’s talk about some trending topics that are coming up that we’re going to be addressing in future episodes. I’ll take some of the first couple that come to mind. I know we’re going to be talking about no-fault divorces. We get a lot of questions about that. Not to completely delve into it right now, but we get a lot of questions from clients. Brian, you and I were just feeling this question I think just last week from a client. They had a very complex and contentious divorce and asked about alleging cruelty and adultery in a divorce versus just alleging a no-fault divorce. What does it mean when we say no-fault divorce? Which is actually not a legal term. We call it insupportability in the state of Texas. Also, what impact does it have on a divorce if we allege fault grounds for the divorce? We’ll talk about that in an upcoming episode. 

Another popular topic that we get a lot of questions on is cryptocurrency and how that plays out in a divorce. Obviously it’s an asset that has to be dealt with in a divorce. It can be a very difficult asset to track down and make sure that we’re covering all our bases on that. We’ll talk about the various experts that we work with on that and the experience that we have.

We’re going to be talking about relocation issues and graying divorces or what we call gray divorces. Brian, what’s the brief overview and preview on those?

Brian Walters: Relocation is when you’re living somewhere with your kids after you split up or maybe before you split up and one of the parents wants to move with the children to another area. Let’s say you’re both in Dallas and you’re going to divorce and the mom would like to move back to Arkansas where they came from. This is a really difficult issue. The law has actually changed a lot. Not so much what’s statutory, but the way judges think about it a lot in the past several decades has changed. It’s one of those few issues that I think there’s sometimes just no way to settle it. You’ve just got to go to trial. They’re not that many like that I think in family law, but this is one of them. We’re going to do that with Ryan and Carson who are partners in our firm as well. That should be an interesting one. 

Gray divorces, those are older. I typically say 65 and up divorces. There’s no exact definition of gray, but typically retirement age used to be fairly rare. It’s become more common and there’s a lot of different issues around that. Typically, no children. There might be, but generally not. It’s generally more about retirement and income and those kinds of things. We’re going to cover both of those since we get a lot of questions about that and a lot of cases involving that.

Jake Gilbreath: I always say those can be some of the harder divorces to deal with because people are at retirement age. A lot of times it’s rare that you plan for your retirement with half your assets gone through a divorce, and it’s rare that people take that contingency into consideration. It can be difficult, but certainly something that we deal with and help people manage and guide them through that. Then coming up on the podcast, we’ll continue in our pop culture series. We’re going to be dealing with parental alienation in a pop culture story that addresses parental alienation. For those of y’all who listen to our podcast know that parental alienation is a topic that we talk about a lot on. We bring in various experts to help us manage those topics and give us some expert advice. We’re going to be doing a parental alienation podcast that interplays with the pop culture story that’s in the news.

We will also have some special guests that are going to be speaking. Actually, I know before this episode airs we will have had Jamie Scrimgeour, who is the host of the Kick-Ass Stepmom podcast. For those of you all who missed that podcast, go back in time and a few episodes before this one. It’s one of my favorites that we’ve done recently. My wife Sarah, who’s the CEO of our law firm and a stepmom herself, joined us for the episode. I thought those two women had a lot to say and a lot to offer our listeners, particularly when it comes to the topic of blended families.

Brian, I think you have a podcast coming up with Olivia St. Clair, who’s the founder and principal of Attorney of the O. Long firm in Illinois who focuses on high-conflict divorces. I recently recorded an episode with Sammy Jo Allen, who is a marriage and family therapist in the Dallas area. That episode really has a lot of insights to offer, both for people that are thinking about divorce, working on their marriage, or trying to salvage their marriage. And also for people that have gone the marriage counseling route but are going to be separating, and potentially going through a divorce. She continues to work with those individuals through the process to try to help them manage it in a way that has the least amount of impact on their family system and of course the children.

Those episodes will be coming up. I guess for Jamie’s episode it’ll be shortly before this one, but those will be coming up so make sure to tune in. Briefly before we wrap up let’s handle a couple of listener questions. Brian, this is a pretty straightforward one, but we get it a lot. What are the residency requirements for filing for divorce in Texas?

Brian Walters: The short answer is someone, usually both of the folks in a marriage have to live in Texas. Usually the practical is that both people live in Texas. But if it just takes one of you to live here for six months there’s a lot of details around that about what is a resident? Were you really living here? What if just one of you came and the other stayed behind? There’s some issues around that, but the short answer for 99% of the people is you have to be in Texas for six months.

Jake Gilbreath: Then as far as county, I think 90 days for county, six months in Texas. We’ve had war stories of people having differences of opinions as to where their domicile is and where their residency is.

Brian Walters: Right.

Jake Gilbreath: Of course, people could have multiple residences so that can lead to some interesting both jurisdictional and venue fights. It is always important to consult with somebody on that. Although just briefly, I don’t know why this pops into my mind. Brian, you and I had a case, if you remember it was Guadalupe County where literally the property line or the county line went through these folks’ homes. If you remember, that case goes back to 2017, I think. Literally, if you’re in the living room you’re in one county and if you’re in the kitchen, you’re in the other county. I’ve never seen that before and I don’t think I’ve seen that again. 

Somebody asked, does an attorney’s strategy on a case change when the opposing party exhibits narcissistic behavior? I’ll answer this, I’d say yes and no. I think you should always approach a case hoping it’s not the case, but assuming the other side is not going to be cooperative or your best friend on the case.

All these cases we hope stay out of the court system. All these cases you hope resolve amicably, most do. Even if there is some push back and forth between the two sides, most cases do resolve. But you always have to plan for the contingency that somebody is not going to be cooperative and that somebody’s going to behave as if they have a personality disorder. A lot of times, they do. We’ve talked about this in another podcast. A lot of times if people are involved in litigation, it’s because one side or both has a personality disorder. So you always need to approach the case where you’re hoping for it to go smoothly. But you’re also protecting your client as if the other side is not going to be cooperative and behave in a way that’s very selfish and narcissistic. You just have to prepare for that contingency and hope for the best. Here’s a quick legal question and then we’ll wrap up with maybe one more. Can I get my family law case transferred to a different county in Texas?

Brian Walters: Generally, you cannot. Just because you don’t like the judge or don’t like the people in the county, that’s not a good enough reason. There are some specific rules around child custody modifications. For example, some are based on where the child has been living in the past six months or so. There’s some other rules when the case could be in more than one county and the court could potentially move it between them. But generally speaking, in 99% of the cases you’re going to be in the county where people are living and it’s going to stay there.

Jake Gilbreath: Yeah, I agree. One person asks, how does child support calculation and enforcement vary between different counties in Texas? Child support calculation is, we’ve talked about this in previous episodes, we have a guideline for child support in the state of Texas. We have a cap on child support where eventually an obligor’s income hits a certain amount to where his or her child support would be capped. Although, different judges can apply these differently because these are guidelines. The court can go through the cap in the first particular situation. It is judge specific. It’s important to know how judges in your county handle the guideline child support. Some judges in every single case, it doesn’t matter what the situation is, they do guideline child support. Some judges, it doesn’t matter what the net resources are for the obligor, they always cap child support. They never go above the cap.

Every single case is different and every single judge is different. It’s really important to know your judge in the county. Enforcement is the same. In the family code the rules on enforcement are the same. They’re uniform throughout the state of Texas. How a judge applies those rules depends on the judge because she is going to have some discretion on what remedies she uses in enforcing child support. Somebody asks about modifying child support if your financial situation changes after divorce. The answer to that is yes, you can but it involves a modification. Then lastly, Brian can you talk about, if you ever take a case with stepparent rights? We’ve actually recorded an episode recently on this. What are your thoughts on that? 

Brian Walters: Yeah, I would refer folks to that episode. Maybe we can put the link to it in there. Generally speaking, stepparents don’t have much in the way of rights. Have we ever taken any cases? Yes, but it’s a difficult route to go under the law as it currently is in Texas.

Jake Gilbreath: Those are some quick questions that we’re able to address. We love it when y’all send in questions. You can always do that by emailing us at podcast@waltersgilbreath.com. That’s what we’ll handle for today for our hundredth episode. Again, we really appreciate y’all tuning in. We want to keep doing this podcast. We want to keep improving it. If you like what you’ve heard today, please do us a favor and leave us a review. We appreciate all the feedback that we’ve gotten throughout the tenure of this podcast. We want to keep getting feedback from y’all, so please feel free to email. Again, that’s podcast@waltersgilbreath.com. Thanks for joining us. I’m Jake Gilbreath, joined by Brian Walters, and we’ll see you all in the next episode.

For information about the topics covered in today’s episode and more, you can visit our website at waltersgilbreath.com. Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of For Better, Worse, or Divorce, where we post new episodes every first and third Wednesday. Do you have a topic you want discussed or a question for our hosts? Email us at podcast@waltersgilbreath.com. Thanks for listening. Until next time.