Splitting up after marriage or a long-term relationship is one of life’s most stressful events. In addition to the emotional trauma, your day-to-day life, living arrangements, 
relationships with your children (if you have them) and financial life change. Often partners only realise the full impact of their decision when they are already well into the process of divorcing or breaking up.
Giving some consideration as soon as you can to the financial issues you will face, and the information and facts you will need to navigate them, may help you.
Also consider consulting a financial adviser to help you manage the financial implications of the breakup. A lawyer will help you with the legal process, but they are not trained to help you manage your finances.
If you were consulting an adviser as a couple, it will be wise for one of you to find another adviser, so there are no conflicts for the adviser.
In order to reach a divorce settlement, you will each need a list of assets and liabilities and income streams.
This means knowing:
Your incomes;
The value of any property you each own or own jointly;
The value of any investments you own separately or jointly;
The value of each spouse’s retirement savings;
The value of any businesses you each own or own jointly;
The value of any trust accounts and assets; and
The outstanding balances on any loans, finance or credit agreements, particularly where the loan is secured by an asset or listed as security for a loan.
In order to prove these earnings, assets or liabilities, it will be worthwhile gathering copies of:
Tax returns;
Any applications for finance, loans, credit or lease agreements;
Financial statements of any company owned;
Personal and business bank account statements;
Salary slips and contracts of employment;
Investment and retirement fund statements;
The mortgage bond documents or title deeds for your home and any other properties;
Short-term insurance policies that value any properties, vehicles or other assets;
Any trust deeds.
When one or both spouses become hostile, one or both may try to hide their assets and income, to influence the amount that needs to be shared.
If you were married or signed a co-habitation contract, revisit the agreement to be sure you understand the terms of that agreement and what it means to you financially.
If you are married in community of property, it means you each own half of the joint estate and half of its debts.
If you were married out of community of property without accrual it means that what you brought into the marriage you take out of the marriage.
If you are married out of community with accrual it means you may have agreed that what each of you brought into the marriage belongs to each of you, but the assets and liabilities or debts you built up during the marriage are shared in what is known as the accrual calculation.
During a marriage spouses have a duty to support each other, but when a marriage ends spouses have no automatic right to claim support from each other. A former spouse may be awarded maintenance if they are unable to support themselves – for 
example, an older woman who has been a stay-at-home wife and/or mother for many years and would be unable to find work.
The court that makes the divorce order may award the spouse who is unable to support themselves ongoing maintenance from the other spouse until they remarry or die, or maintenance for a limited period or a lump sum intended to provide an income for a period of time.
A spouse who can work but has been out of the job market for some time may receive rehabilitative maintenance for a limited period during which they would be expected to train or retrain to enter the job market.
If both spouses are breadwinners with incomes, spousal maintenance may be more difficult to negotiate.
If you are a parent who stayed at home or worked reduced hours to care for children, you should consider what income you will need and could realistically earn after the break up, especially if you are not sure what you will be able to earn and/or if you plan to start your own business, with an unknown earning potential.
If you are still considering divorce and you are the lower earner, it may be worthwhile upskilling if you have the time and means to do so.
There is an obligation on both parents to maintain the children in line with their means and your divorce order should include a maintenance order ensuring that the parent who is not the primary caregiver contributes to the children’s care.
The ongoing costs of raising children is often a financial shock when parents split. The parent who leaves is often surprised by the costs they are expected to contribute towards and the parent who becomes the primary caregiver is often shocked by the many incidentals that arise and that were not included in the payments from the other parent.
If you are going to be the parent who cares for the children, start documenting all the possible costs that arise in caring for your children – from incidentals required for school, pocket money, clothing, transport and food and the costs of running a home large enough for them to live in.
Think about unforeseen expenses such as health care, extra lessons and counselling your children may need after the divorce.
Don’t forget to factor in the cost of additional care for the children if one parent moves further away and the other returns to work full time.
Remember that your maintenance agreement will include annual increases and should take into account the fact that education costs and medical scheme contributions typically increase by more than inflation each year.
If either parent’s circumstances change after the divorce order has been granted, the court can be approached to increase or reduce the original maintenance order.
Changed circumstances include remarrying, although step-parents are not obliged to maintain step-children.
Maintenance is provided to at least age 18, but typically beyond this age if the child is still dependent because they are studying further. After the age of 18, the parent can agree to pay the child and the child can apply to the court for their own maintenance if they are not self-supporting.
During and after a divorce, many former spouses stop making maintenance payments or pay late, putting the spouse who has custody of the children at financial risk.
You can return to the maintenance court to get the maintenance order enforced, but this is both time-consuming and often emotionally draining. In the meantime, the parent caring for the children needs to run a household.
You can ask the court for an emoluments attachment order (EAO) (often referred to as a garnishee order) on a former spouse’s income, but you are vulnerable if your former spouse resigns, moves to another country, dies or is disabled.
Spouses who are paying or receiving maintenance should ideally have an emergency fund, because a parent who fails to pay maintenance will create a financial emergency for the spouse who has custody of the children and/or who relies on spousal maintenance. Divorcees struggling to reduce their lifestyle costs may find it difficult to build an emergency fund, but whatever you can set aside will help you avoid even more costly debt that will make your financial situation worse.
Despite anything that is agreed and made part of the divorce order, both parents are legally responsible for the children’s school fees. If a parent defaults, the school can initiate legal proceedings and collect the debt from either parent.
Emergency funds will also assist former spouses who are paying maintenance but are subject to unanticipated and sometimes unreasonable demands from the caregiving spouse on behalf of children.
It is always cheaper to run one home than it is to run two. When couples split up, one partner often stays in the existing home while the other finds a new place to live. This means between them they need to pay all the existing costs plus the costs of the new home.
Consider all the costs - rates, maintenance, electricity, water, security, and insurance. How much of these costs can the spouse who remains in the home shoulder alone – often while caring for the children - and how much can the spouse who leaves be expected to fund in addition to paying for the costs of a new home and furnishing it.
Give some thought to who is paying for what and what exactly those costs are. Is it realistic to keep the existing home or will both spouses need to downgrade.
Divorces – even uncontested ones - are expensive. The costs of a contested divorce, which requires more time from lawyers and witnesses to be called, can escalate quickly.
Mediation is a cheaper alternative but also comes at an hourly cost. It can provide a better way to work out a separation agreement that suits you both, but it may also fail if either of you are not committed to making it work.
While it is very difficult to keep your emotions in check when a relationship breaks down, decisions driven by emotions typically have a poor financial outcome.
A level head and the right professional assistance can help you make peace with what has happened and move on so that you can work on recovering emotionally and financially.
If you have been a stay-at-home spouse and you do not have a bank account and a credit score, use any time you have before a divorce to open an account, learn to manage your own money and build a credit score.
Depending on your marital regime, if one of you has no retirement savings or very little retirement savings and the other has managed to build up a much greater amount, your divorce agreement may include splitting retirement savings or pension interest more equitably between you. This only applies to pre-retirement savings, not a pension paid after retirement.
This split must be provided for in the divorce order and it must identify the fund correctly. Finding out what retirement funds your spouse has and the difference between your savings balances as at divorce is key.
If you are the spouse who will receive retirement benefits from another spouse and you do not have your own retirement fund, it will be worthwhile establishing a retirement annuity fund to avoid paying tax on the payout and to ensure you preserve the money for your retirement.
If your former spouse is paying you maintenance or paying maintenance for your children, their death puts you at risk financially. You may be named as a beneficiary of 
your former spouse’s life policy, but you will not know if they change the beneficiary or cancel the cover.
As the spouse receiving maintenance, you can ask the court to order that a policy be maintained with you and/or your children as the irrevocable beneficiaries. You could also have the policy transferred into your name and have the premiums paid to you as part of the monthly maintenance.
