Divorce affects most children in the short run, but research suggests that kids recover rapidly after the initial blow. In a 2002 study psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington of the University of Virginia and her then graduate student Anne Mitchell Elmore found that many children experience short-term negative effects from divorce, especially anxiety, anger, shock and disbelief. These reactions typically diminish or disappear by the end of the second year. Only a minority of kids suffer longer.
The judgment also granted his ex-wife property worth 130.5 million francs ($146 million) in property in Gstaad, Switzerland, where the couple owned two swanky chalets. It awarded his ex-wife two other pieces of real estate in the ultra-wealthy area of Geneva known as Cologny, where the couple once lived together, but listed no value for either address. And it confirmed her custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Anna. The couple also has an adult daughter, Ekaterina.
It's always about money, even if it isn't. Estate planning, especially in a second marriage, can require a lot of thought and effort. Does everything go to the surviving spouse, does it get split with the kids, does it go to the wife first, and what's left goes to the kids? If it goes to the spouse directly, the kids generally see that as you just stole from them. If it goes to the spouse first, then what is left over goes to them, then every dollar she spends is seen as taking money directly out of out their pockets, slowly, for the rest of her life. Either way, there is a lot of tension that does not get better over time. Even if the kids do not care about money, they care that the spouse (who is not their mom) is getting it.
Many couples prefer estate plans that maintain their privacy when given the choice. Nevertheless, this tends to not be a dominant issue with most couples. Recently, however, there has been a significant increase in elderly individuals being the targets of fraudulent schemes and borderline fraudulent solicitations. As a result, to the extent than an estate plan can protect a married couple’s privacy especially as they age, this may help protect the surviving spouse from being targeted by such schemes.
4. Get your kids involved in a personal foundation. If you have children still living with you, creating a personal foundation can be a wonderful opportunity to support causes you believe in, get a nice tax deduction, and more importantly to our point, teach kids about money. One of my clients sold his business and overnight was worth more than $25 million. He and his wife had three young kids and they were worried that the dad’s strong work ethic would be lost on the kids now that they could have anything they wanted. We created a personal foundation, and because it was required to disburse 5% of the foundation’s balance each year, we gave each family member the responsibility of researching a cause and donating 1%. This got each of the kids excited about their own cause and seeing how their money could have an impact. It was a great learning experience for the whole family.
