Tips for Divorcing a Partner with Drug Addiction Problems
Your partner’s drug addiction can ruin your finances and endanger your children’s lives. Your partner’s addiction can also affect your divorce process in different ways. Take the following tips to protect yourself, your children, and the divorce process if your partner abuses drugs.
Request Emergency Orders
People abuse drugs at different levels. Drugs also affect people in different ways. For example, functional addicts may abuse drugs but still maintain a semblance of normalcy and continue with their everyday activities. However, some people become dysfunctional, abusive, and even violent when abusing drugs. In some cases, the abuse increases when you mention divorce.
You might need measures to protect yourself and your kids if your partner is abusive. A helpful measure is to request emergency orders from the court. For example, you may request emergency child custody and restraining orders.
Provide Proof of Addiction
The court will not just take your word for it when you claim that your spouse is a drug addict. After all, courts have dealt with false accusations of drug addiction or abuse. The onus is on you to prove your partner’s addiction and its effect on your life. Here are some ways to prove the addiction
Pictures
Take pictures of your spouse’s drugs and their paraphernalia. Save the pictures in their original state to avoid potential claims of editing or manipulation.
Receipts
Transaction records of legal drugs might not mention drugs. However, people also abuse legal drugs, and their transactions might show up in credit card records. For example, you may find evidence of marijuana or prescription drug purchases.
Eyewitness Testimony
Eyewitnesses can be neighbors, friends, and even drug sellers. A private investigator may help you locate witnesses if the neighbors and friends cannot testify.
Treatment Records
You can also use treatment records as proof if your partner tried to undergo or underwent addiction treatment. For example, you can use addiction records at rehabilitation centers.
Drug Tests
In some cases, the court may allow or require independent drug testing. The test may be necessary if our partner has denied their drug use and you don’t have alternative evidence.
Request Sole Custody
Request sole physical custody of your child if you believe that the child won’t be safe with the other parent. For example, you should request sole custody if the other parent might:
- Leave the child without food
- Not provide adequate shelter for the child
- Not provide healthcare to the child if they fall sick
- Abuse drugs in the child’s presence
- Physically abuse the child
You can use evidence of the parent’s past misbehavior to prove why they should not have physical custody of the child. For example, a recent history of domestic abuse can serve as evidence.
Request Supervised Visitation
Consider supervised visitation if the other parent has domestic violence or abuse history. Otherwise, the child might suffer for the few visitation hours they might have with their parent.
Supervised visitation requires a third party’s presence when a parent visits with their parent. The third party can be a worker or a family member. The visitation occur place at the child’s home or at a visitation center.
Prove Financial Effects
Drug addiction does not automatically affect asset or debt division. However, an addiction that has affected your marital resources can determine asset and asset distribution. Say your partner sold your marital assets to fund their drug habit. Provide evidence of the same to get compensation for the loss during asset distribution.
Hopefully, you will get a fair divorce settlement despite your partner’s drug addiction. The Law Offices of Lynda Latta, LLC, specializes in all areas of family law. Contact us for help in your divorce and benefit from our decades of experience.