Williamstown, NJ Divorce Law Firms & Lawyers

I dont know when the trial court entered its order on your cohabitation issue and on the counsel fee issue but there has been several recent reported appellate division decisions reversing trial court judges on their analysis of the  cohabitation issue and whether something amounted to cohabitation under the new statute. From the entry of a final order, you have 45 days to file an appeal with the appellate division. Since the court did not rule on the counsel fee until later, you could not file an appeal until that issue was disposed of -so it might be worth your while to sit down ( videochat) with a family law attorney to review the courts orders and the underlying pleadings and the transcript material to see if it is worthwhile filing an appeal. I don’t know what your alimony obligation is or what your proofs looked like for suspension or termination purposes, but if you still have a significant period of time remaining and a significant amount owed, it may be worth it to explore an appeal. If you are interested, contact my office so that they can schedule an initial consultation with one of the partners in the firm to discuss your matter. My suggestion is that if you are going to contact our office or another family law firm, provide the underlying orders, pleadings and statement of reasons from the court in advance so that the lawyer can determine if there is a proper basis for appeal, whether the time frame for the filing of the appeal has expired and what the cost of the retainer would be to hire the lawyer to represent you.    

Proceeding down the path you are pursuing will be the quickest way to get your wife to file a domestic violence complaint against you and having your world turned further upset down. You are married and you and your wife have a car with payments on it. As part of a divorce, one of you will end up with that vehicle and presumably the payment obligations associated with it as well. So, instead of stressing out and looking to create unnecessary issues for yourself, go meet with a family law specialist and get educated on your rights and your responsibilities as part of the divorce process as opposed to threatening your wife about her driving the car. Let me give you an insight – you acknowledged that you and your wife purchased a vehicle in 2019 and after its purchase, your wife has been driving it and now that you have decided to divorce her, you feel she should no longer be permitted to drive it and you are trying to figure out how to take it away from her and you are trying to rationalize your view. After being a family law specialist for the past 34 years, I can promise you that if you try and take that car away from your wife, you will be looking at a domestic violence setting, where your wife will state that you are engaging in harassment type behavior and took her car away from her to punish her and I can promise you that 96.275% of the family law judges in the state will view your actions as harassment and if so, impose permanent restrictions on you and more likely than not, require you to immediately return the car to your wife as well. So, meet with a family law attorney, get educated and do things more constructively in your divorce, so that there are fewer consequences to your actions.