Ex-it Strategy

As divorce attorneys, we get asked this question a lot. We cover it in depth in this episode. It's important that you have a plan for leaving a relationship and this information can save you a lot of time and stress.

What is Ex-it Strategy?

Your no bullsh$t guide to divorce with experienced attorneys from New Direction Family Law and guests and professionals who have been there. Unfiltered discussions to help you move from victim to victorious and from bitter to better.

Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Good afternoon, everyone evening, morning, whatever you're listening. I'm Elizabeth Stephenson, but new direction, family law. And

Joe: I'm Sarah Henke today. We're going to talk about a question that we get asked a lot of times. I'm going to leave. What can I take?

Elizabeth: And that could be anything. Think about it.

What would you, could I take the dog?

Joe: Yeah, take that dog. And be smart about it. Are you going to have, are you going to have a yard? I guess we should say did you buy the dog when you were married? If he had the dog before you got married and you just really love it and you are going to leave him, but you want the dog.

You might should leave the dog. If it's not yours, technically

Elizabeth: you can't make me

Joe: leave it. Not at the jeez can't call the cops on you. [00:01:00] I guess he could, if he had some kind of papers from its kennel or whatever, it's called from Alabama that learned how to hunt and stuff.

Elizabeth: That's his dog.

Yeah.

Joe: But if you got the dog together, it's your family pet. I would say if you really want that dog, go ahead and take it as the person that ends up with it. It's going to get that dog.

Elizabeth: So if I walk out the door, what happens? What rights do I have with a dog? No. That too, but they'll say I'm just tired of his bullshit and I'm gone.

I'm going to go stay with friends for a couple of weeks. And I expect him to, I've got a joint account. I expect him to pay me because I've been a stay at home mom. So of course he's going to pay me. Now I'm just going to leave that the best thing to do.

Joe: No. So generally how I'll explain it.

And it differs case to case, depending on how everyone's personalities and how confrontational it is. But,

Elizabeth: And let me preface this by saying, if there's not domestic violence involved, let's say this is just a. I just need to get out. He's an asshole. Yeah.

Joe: Trying to make a plan. Like you're not doing this immediately.

But [00:02:00] fast forward, we look at everything on the data separation and value it. So we're really going to talk about what's in the household items that you can take. And also what are in bank accounts? As far as bank accounts go, if you're a stay-at-home mom, I definitely want you to take half the funds in the bank account.

And we are just going to assume that half of those are yours. Now, if we fast forward and it turns out that was maybe more then. You should have taken. If we factor in all the debts and everything, we can always move things around to adjust to fix that, or if it was less and you really should have gotten more we can find more assets, but the point of view taking half is not to just do that division and be done.

But as to make sure that you have some funds to live off of, if we can't give you, get you to court to get any kind of support immediately, and

Elizabeth: unless we clear that most of our judges calendars are now closed out. Through it's ridiculous or the end of the year. So if you leave today, I can get you.

A hearing on having him ordered to pay you support for [00:03:00] months.

Joe: I filed a new case in October and it was a stay at home mom. She started school has no income husband makes 300,000 and he hasn't paid a dime and we didn't get a court date until the end of this month. So you may get lump from that.

Yeah. That's all, that's five months or six or something

Elizabeth: like that. They're shocked. They're just, they don't understand that. Neither you, nor I, no attorney can make anybody do anything. Nope. Only a judge can make you do that. And then some people still don't do it.

Joe: He won't look good in court for this.

He won't look good, but that's all I can say until we're in court.

Elizabeth: And not only that our previous topic was printed up. So that's the main reason why you need a prenup. But if you and I always tell, I tell folks sometimes, because if you leave, you're not allowed to come back, it's your house.

You still own it, but the locks can be changed. So if you want. The bedroom suit and you want the flat screen TV and you want to set a China and your kids' clothes, you better pack up a truck and you get your stuff while he's at work.

Or

Joe: that's what I tell my clients. I'm like, don't tell them you're [00:04:00] going to leave too far in advance.

I have people who call months in advance and they're planning and they expect for me to just start that conversation with them. And just based off his speaking with them, I can realize that there the other spouse is not going to be the nice guy. And so it's a lot harder to go back into the house and try to get those items.

Even if you're on court, it's whoever ends up with them in their hands is going to have all the leverage in dealing with it. And it's not, if that TV, it doesn't have a ton of value, but if you don't have a lot of money, if your income's not high, those things add up or

Elizabeth: they do. And it's especially if we'll talk about kids in a minute, but you're having to set up a household, not for yourself, but if your children, then you've got to think about things like that, too.

You just

Joe: usually tell them, if you have three or four TVs, take two of them. All right,

Elizabeth: leave it empty out. Don't empty it out. And I always say, take a video of what you've taken, take a video of the house after you leave, because there are all sorts of things that people say she trashed it and picked her show up.

So have somebody there with you, take pictures, take a video. What you have a list of what [00:05:00] you've taken so that you can account.

Joe: And they'll come and say, Oh judge, she took everything. She's lying. When he could be the one line people lie all the time in court. Let me just break that to you.

Elizabeth: Yes. It's my biggest advice that people and I do hearing prep. We always sit with people. We never walk in a courtroom with you where we have not prepped you, where we haven't sat down with. You told you what the process is gone through the questions and exhibits my best devices. What you just said, people lie all the time.

Do not roll your eyes. Do not rum, do not get mad and put your head down and scream when you get out. You're right. People don't understand and you have to think you're going to go to court, even though you may not. But take those videos, take that

catalog,

Joe: right? The evidence. Cause that's not you can't fudge that.

And the court, if you have to have evidence that the evidence hard evidence, and if you think the person's going to be violent, if they're going to be there while you're taking your things, make sure you have the sheriff there. Right column

Elizabeth: when sometimes they'll get involved in something. Sometimes

Joe: they won't help it.

Sometimes they will depends [00:06:00] on who shows up.

Elizabeth: So if you want to take the stuff, you're doing nothing wrong with doing that, but it has to be accounted for, if you get $25,000 worth of stuff out of the house, then that $25,000, it's going to be attributed to you. So he's, you're going to have to pay that other person back in some way, whether it's less of a retirement or less out of the checking account or something,

Joe: right.

We all, we can work that out on the back end, but if . You leave and you only take some of your clothing and you leave the rest of your clothing there. Some Pico people can be real jerks and they will not even let you come back and get the rest of your clothes.

Elizabeth: So then you and I have to file a what we call them motion for interim distribution or.

Go, let us go into the house and take an inventory. That's $5,000 later, you

Joe: get your clothes. And the only person's winning is your attorneys that are going to have to bill you for it. But if you can only control yourself, that's why you need to take it on the front end because we can't control the other party.

And as much as we want to tell the other attorney to get their party and to get their client in line, some don't care. They're just [00:07:00] like, whatever.

Elizabeth: That's at the end of the day, the client's the boss. We can advise and tell them what to do, but then a day it's. Their choice of what

Joe: they want to do.

I do give her clothes back. I would tell them that

Elizabeth: I didn't tell them that men sometimes they'll listen to me say that it's true.

Joe: They don't listen a lot. That's true too. So if you were expecting that, it wasn't going to go well, is there like a trusted third party you could have there? Could you hire a PI or somebody to say look, this happened on the up and up.

There's actually a referee, the court appointed referee the guy that works at foot locker with the stripey shirt. I wish

blowed. Yeah. I wish that'd be a lot more fun, but the court appointed referee is typically another attorney in the family law area and they will go through and look at everything list and give it. The fair market value based on just their everyday knowledge. Really. Yeah. And so they help everyone determine what who's going to get.

What of these items could you do that if you were planning on, like you guys said earlier, leaving when they're at work? That seems like a lot of [00:08:00] coordination.

Elizabeth: Generally, if they're like, if they have a nine to five job, I say. Coordinate with friends, get a truck or a van there, get, know what you want to take ahead of time and get in and out of there within, an hour or take what you can, don't be

Joe: the wrong guy internet.

So like the ring camera isn't catching you either or something like that, turn that off. And

Elizabeth: so some people can do it some can't. If they're very suspicious and they want the ring and it's often they're going to be there then yeah. They have somebody there for this

Joe: past year has been hard because everyone's home all the time.

So they don't go anywhere. So they can't like make, get, help them sneak out.

Elizabeth: Right. And it's hard. And you have to think ahead of time and we got it off the subject. What I can take, let's say you want to leave and you don't have any place to go yet. And you're staying with friend and you have kids that can be held against you.

I've had that happen. I'm not gonna let you see the kids cause you don't have anywhere for them to stay, and tell you, there are all sorts of things you have to think about. Can I take my kids? You absolutely can, but it may backfire on, you may not be the best thing for your kids. So if it's not domestic violence and you can take the time to [00:09:00] work out a plan, that's

Joe: always better.

And Oh, I don't have any money to get an apartment. Let's look at the funds you have in your bank account and see what we can take from

Elizabeth: there. A lot of times it's well, he gives me an allowance. Then $5 here and $10 here, and a hundred dollars adds up to a hundred dollars and then you've got to get the deposit, so it may not happen today.

It may happen three, four months down the road, but . Don't be impulsive, and don't just walk out. Yeah, it's all I can say. Say I'm going to get a pack of cigarettes or a gardener milk and don't

Joe: come back and we can tell our clients average. They don't listen. And the next thing I know the next day that they call on the go, I just had to go when she won't let me back in.

Elizabeth: Sorry.

Joe: Four years later, we're still dealing with this. I

Elizabeth: swear. This is true. You laugh, but that's true. Yeah. Okay okay. So we talked about personal property and animals. So when

Joe: candy changed, the locks say that my husband left and he took some of the things, but not all of them. When can I change the

Elizabeth: locks?

I would say you could change them then. God bless law enforcement. Sometimes they get in our mouse. Cause I don't really want to be [00:10:00] involved in that. So a lot of times it's, they may say, I'm sorry, sir, you can't come back in and you're trespassing and they cite you. Or it may be, you got to let him back in, he's that cause in, I can't tell a client what some, what a law enforcement official will do and they don't know the law and they don't, and they didn't want to be involved.

So I can't say to you, you can change the locks and he won't be able to get back in. And I always say, get it in writing, get me a voicemail, do something that says I am moving out.

Joe: I am done. That's what you need because. It's if they go to the store, they're going to the store and you change the locks on them.

That's not fun

Elizabeth: at the beach for the week. They're going to the mountains that go out and think about stuff that's not. And I always tell my clients, if you're going to do that, write a note, put it in an email or a text I'm leaving just to cool off. I need some time to think I will be back on this day.

So they come back and the police are there and the locks are chains. I'm sorry, officer. Yeah,

Joe: I would have, did not leave with the intent to separate for a minute and stay out of the house. Yeah. So keep everything in writing. Y'all I don't know many people still talk on the phone and I don't talk on the phone [00:11:00] and I got his clients to talk on the phone all the time, talking about just text, keep it in right attacks.

Cause if you didn't record that phone call, it's not going to do us any good. Not in court, not anywhere. Okay. So I had

Elizabeth: to leave, my friend came and picked me up and now I'm going to come back and get my car. Can I do that? It's in the drive. It's in the garage. But what did we say? It's the garage code.

What can I do?

Joe: You can't get access to it then you're not going to be able to get it

Elizabeth: right. But if it's in, but if it's on the property, can I go if I've already said, Hey dude, I'm leaving them. I'm not coming back. Can I go, Oh, it's a

Joe: sketchy line there because the property is the property line. It's not just like in the house.

Right?

Elizabeth: So sitting in the driveway, not on the street.

Joe: You're still setting yourself up there if they were gonna yeah. Actually get law enforcement involved because we have that the criminal domestic trespass statute in North Carolina. So even if your name is and the property, it pretty much is for these, this purpose and it's safe.

Even though, we understand that people get married, they have residents, they live together and then they [00:12:00] separate. And once they separate that. This other person it's their possession. So if the husband's still in the house, he's in possession of the house, they've separated and therefore it becomes his house in the, in this realm of trust.

Yes. And possession. It doesn't mean that he gets all the house all of a sudden, because he's the last one in there. It just means that the wife now can't just come and go as she pleases. And so they set this all up. In a lot of cases for victims of domestic violence, too, just recognizing that you just can't come and go and change the locks.

And if you come on the property where you can be arrested for this domestic trespass law regardless of if your name's on that property or not. So the wife couldn't just follow the husband Harris Teeter grabbed the car when he's inside

Elizabeth: traveling. I think so it's marital property. I Even if it's registers

Joe: of that back and forth, tracking on their phone, all right.

But

Elizabeth: People do it. That's unfortunate, or go get it while it's there. And I haven't even seen it when the kids are there. You don't have any transportation

Joe: that wasn't me to do that. Yeah. It was really crappy. It was, Chris was telling me. [00:13:00] Chris Lee, the attorney with our firm.

And he's been on here before. It's only about one of his cases and the wife was paying the lease on the car and she was making more money than the husband. I don't think that was when he was even working, but the lease was up and he had to turn in the vehicle and he punched out the windows before he returned the vehicle back to the leasing people.

And they went and pressed any criminal charges against them. Yeah. I mean go. So now she has to pay for the damage done to the car, right?

Elizabeth: Ks where the house was completely cleaned out and one party saying he did it, the other party saying she did it and the police are going, this is, there's been.

Weeks a month on an investigation at the end of the day, man, this is all domestic. We're not getting involved in this.

Joe: Yeah. Don't end up like those people don't do it. I'm Downey. You think that, your spouse or whatnot, but whenever shit hits the fan, they can be a completely different person than what you thought you

Elizabeth: knew.

Yeah. And it's do you want the diet? You're not going to get the dog. I'm sorry. And they don't want the dog. That's don't want you to happen to be spiteful.

Joe: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I've had plenty of attorney's fees spent on dogs. [00:14:00] Yes.

Elizabeth: I'm trying to think the craziest thing, people fight over [00:15:00] it.

I think the one

Joe: that I saw when I used to be a paralegal was them fighting over the lettuce washer. They literally on the equitable distribution inventory affidavit. EBIA for short, which is a. For me, you have to file with courts. If it's in court, they put lettuce washer that the spouse had taken it and they wanted the lettuce.

I'm like in the time it took just a pair of legal to read that you goodbye about two or three lettuce washer, it's really get real, emotional, real vindictive, real petty. And these situations. Is there a 24

Elizabeth: 99 on Amazon. Oh yeah. That's pretty expensive.

Joe: I don't know. Use your hands and the water from the state.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I will tell you, judges are not going to put up with that math. They don't want to hear anything about personal property. Y'all need to split that.

Joe: Yeah. Or they'll appoint the referee I was talking about so that they are not going to deal

Elizabeth: with it. And I don't. But there was something I'm thinking about.

There are some things that I'm really attached to, even though it's a thing, you're still attached to it [00:16:00] because I liked them to have like a sentimental value

Joe: kind of thing. If it's your, it's like a family heirloom, that's going to be a separate property. So take that, make sure.

Yeah. Yeah, that's

Elizabeth: true. When you're leaving, make sure you get all your separate stuff you had prior, or that was given to

Joe: you during make a plan. Get, if you're not going to move into a place right away, get a storage facility. And they had the truck hire some movers, some good luck and movers. Some I can do.

Oh, I was going to say, what about important documents? Take those or at least pick out or what are those documents look like? What kind of document,

Elizabeth: like your passport, your kids' birth certificates, wills, healthcare, power of attorneys. I would even, I tell people to print off their bank statements and go back as far as they can.

I know that. Like medieval, but we're going to need them. And sometimes the, your access is cut off that before anybody knows that you're getting ready to leave. Go down

Joe: there. Yes. And if you have a safe, where you keep cash, go in count, take pictures, take it. Take

Elizabeth: that [00:17:00] take, it could have been, if you have jewelry, get that out of the house.

Cause it's gone. That gets lost real quick,

Joe: quickly. Oh, I lost it in the vacuum or something.

Elizabeth: Or picture or pictures of your kids or to do public holiday decorations.

Joe: People fight over like the Christmas ornaments with their kids. Just split it in half and move

Elizabeth: on. Yeah. And we have to get down to the minutia of.

If you hear all the pictures, you pick out the ones you want, then y'all had to split the cost or getting copies made, and you had to bring the originals back. He just spent $1,500 for us to write that paragraph or set a mediation to deal with that. And if that's what you want to do, we're more than happy to do that for you

Joe: for it.

And it sucks if you're, and that's yeah, let's, don't do that. But then the other person is the one insisting on it. And Clear as day, why that marriage didn't work, but it happens a lot. And I tell him how much of that fighting do you

Elizabeth: guys think is spite a lot? Most of it is then [00:18:00] it comes in.

It's not that I don't want you to have it, and it doesn't definitely happen with those. Divorces that people and people do say this a lot. We just grew apart and they're not accurate. It's not bad. No, but somebody had an, if somebody had an affair or somebody thinks they did, that's when it generally comes

Joe: into it where there's mental health issues.

And this is just like a side effect of their like narcissism or borderline personality disorder. And they're just in general and asphalt. Yeah. I literally heard people say, Oh, I'll pay you three times. Whatever I got to before I would pay her. Yeah, like it's so vengeful I'll go to jail for, I pay her another dime and then he will

it really only happens in the cases where it's really spiteful. And you've got to leave in the middle

Elizabeth: of it when it's not equitable. Yeah. I If people are just grew apart, they're all United, the kids are ground. They're still gonna. Be some wrangling over, Oh, that's my 401k. I worked my [00:19:00] ass off for it.

But at the end of the, but it's not petty. Like you don't get the ceramic dog.

Joe: Not always, but I don't know, like a lot of my cases that are like that. Yeah. Maybe I just bring out the best in everyone. Just want their favorite, whatever. I would like that fighting, ever dogs fighting over like golf clubs fighting over.

Family money trusts. Oh yeah, for sure. Get a nasty.

Elizabeth: That was, this is all public knowledge, but one of the most spiteful things I've ever seen is and had to do with their retirement, where it was supposed to be valued at the data separation. Plus any gains or losses. And so two years later, the guy withdrew all the money and hidden it.

So there's zero money in all the accounts I had about half a million dollars in them. And his argument is that was a wall,

but that's how spot. Like I said, that's the worst I've ever seen.

Joe: Yeah. There's always that's

Elizabeth: the most [00:20:00] spiteful thing I've ever seen.

Joe: That classic picture of the two. People in the divorce court dividing their beanie babies up. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. So take your beanie baby collection.

That's really important to you. That's a classic picture. It isn't.

Elizabeth: I remember him on the floor and it was like in the seventies since he had. It

Joe: was not in the, I think it was like 90 days. I pretty sure Sarah and I were living wouldn't beanie babies or a thing we were alive. I don't think they had colored pictures back in the sun.

This is color

no, I think it was in the nineties. We are not history buff. Yeah. So these little things, and if you can do it beforehand, If you guys can just talk about it and do it on your own, that's always the, what I'll do

Elizabeth: they'll do the agreement on your own?

Joe: No, just the beanie babies and stuff. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah, because I just had a separation agreement. They did their sell and it said husband shall receive a hundred percent of their retirement, but wife will pay for acute [00:21:00] or I would get 50% of it. Okay. What does that mean? I can't go and I can't help you with that, sir. Yeah.

Joe: You mentioned family before.

I thought just common sense. Like if. If somebody got separated and their family had money, don't they get all the money, regardless if you're married or not. Yeah. You said common sense. And that's where you lost in the whole divorce.

Elizabeth: I'm sorry.

Joe: I was thinking like, if that was all her money, then it would still be all her money.

You got to think about how there's different ways to set up these like trusts. Funds and businesses that run a family business, and maybe you have a certain share in that business. So if I have a share in say McDonald's and Morgan says my family's business, then that money . If I come into it during the marriage, it's marital.

If I start a business with someone else, then my part of it is marital. So I would have assumed let's say that somebody gave a couple, a bunch of money and it was the wife's husband [00:22:00] or wife's father, and then they got divorced. Then that wouldn't be all the wife's money in that case it would okay.

There's an equal distribution, which is a division of assets and property. There are these factors that can swing it from 50 50. And one of those factors is having a large sum of money. So you live off of, or your inheritance. It's not he has $30,000 of inheritance. Therefore she's going to get half of that in the distribution of their assets.

It's more like he has $30 million of inheritance and she has no retirement to split because these people don't have a retirement. The court's going to be like she needs, she should get more than 50, 50 based solely on this factor. This is the minutia of law that we will, go over in your case.

It's not it's just not fun.

Elizabeth: I should

Joe: also if you didn't want one of your kids, his spouses to have the money, could you put that in your inheritance? No, this is just there's.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. In the case of a, whatever, [00:23:00] a lot of people do that, that either give it to both, because if you do a will, it has to be named specifically to somebody.

And generally, always going to be your children and you name them or after born or whatever that is. And if that's the case, then it's not given to you and your spouse, it's only given to

Joe: you. And also, this is similar to that, where you get a gift, say that my dad gave me and my husband $50,000 and we took it and we put it on a down payment, on a house.

Then we separate. And then my dad's that was to you, Sarah. I have to show that it was specifically to me and not to the marriage needs to be in writing. It needs to be in writing. So I remember that

Elizabeth: when you give your kids, a lot of people will give them gifts because I need to do it for tax purposes.

Make it, you can note it on the check on the notation or wherever you want to do it, but don't just say it, put it in writing. That's the best

Joe: way to do it. It's alone. And then not as a debt and the distribution. Yeah. Yeah, there's that we got a little off track of what to, but that's what you take your loan documents or money [00:24:00] owed to you if there's money owed to you that's or owed to your spouse.

But talk with an attorney to find out exactly what you shouldn't take

Elizabeth: and here's yet here's what talk about businesses. A lot of people know, or do, or having rentals I'm on their side. Side jobs sort of thing. And so I've had people, one party redirects the renter to send the rent money to them, and cuts the other spouse out.

So I don't know what you get them. They've got business documents or rental lease agreements and that sort of thing. Make sure you take those with you. And I would contact the people that you're doing business with and, let them

Joe: know. We'll let them know for sure. Yeah. Take the dog,

Elizabeth: take the cat all day, the dog leave with gas.

Joe: And when you want just take them and take the cash in the safe. Cause that's, what's the hardest thing to prove. If you leave that cash in the safe and you say. Hey, Sarah, there's $50,000 in that safe while there's no track record, there's no bank account statement. That's going to show me that.

So if I go tell them that we think there [00:25:00] was $50,000 and then they were like, Oh, there's 10 or nothing,

Elizabeth: or nothing crazy. I always talk about,

Joe: we

Elizabeth: can't do it. Anything that's collectible, you have a coin collection or guns or knives, take pictures of that stuff and get serial numbers. If it's something that you can trace, you want to make sure you have those too, cause that's going to be valued.

And it doesn't matter if it goes missing. By the time you get to court, if you can show that it was there and what the value of it is, the court can attribute it to the other party, value it and you get have,

Joe: right. And also if there's drugs, like lots of drugs in the house, don't take those, leave those, but take pictures of them.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah. So they can prove that if you're on anti-psychotic medicine, depression, or whatever, then you've got

Joe: pictures. Yeah. Cause you're not getting back in the house. So if there's some evidence you want to gather that's bad. Take pictures of the drugs, take pictures of, the heroin and the corner.

I don't know where people live at. I probably not just some random corner, but take a picture of it and take a picture of the devices that they use. Take a picture of the alcohol. They drink alcohol problem. I [00:26:00] don't, you know what else? Their porn collection. Take a screenshot of it. Yeah. Don't take it.

Take a screenshot of it. Just do your gathering of evidence before you leave them. Because if you leave and you're telling me all these things, I'm like, wow, it'd be great. If we had pictures,

Elizabeth: teachers have all that. And the other thing you just mentioned about you asked what to take your prescriptions, you take your yours and your kids, or if they have inhalers or nebulizers and that kind of thing, you want to take those

Joe: to take the kids?

Elizabeth: It depends. I, I. If you don't take them, you may not see them for a very long time because dad's got them. You're leaving. You can't go back in the house. You can there's no school. You could go to school and pick them up and then you get them. Then they go back to school and dad gets them. And these poor children are locked in this horrible

Joe: place.

If there's any violence or just mental instability, take the kids. If you think they're going to be really vindictive and withhold the kids and have threatened to do that, then take the kids. If you really just like the dog, just take the dog.

But hopefully yeah, in most cases, I like to [00:27:00] think the majority of cases you work out custody. There's plenty of people who come to me and everything else is horrible of finances. We're going to fight forever. And they're both like, yeah, 50, 50. That's true. I knew how thankful for

Elizabeth: that. Yeah, I agree. And

Joe: that's true.

There's still issues with parent co-parenting, but it's like seeps down, but they're not

Elizabeth: withholding.

Joe: That's always the worst. I agree. I agree.

Please leave his shit. Don't burn it.

Elizabeth: But that is a question to get all the tele say he leaves the Holly's all his shit there.

What could they do with this? I

Joe: typically tell them, if it's shit flush it, but it's like other stuff, put it in the garage. Don't just get rid of it.

Elizabeth: No, but just up in the garage, I knew you've asked him to come. You've asked him to come. He won't come by and get it. I tell him to, keep receipts

Joe: and all of that, keep receipts and make sure yeah.

Having all this in written correspondence. So you can say give them an opportunity to gain an opportunity. Yeah. As long as you're giving [00:28:00] opportunities and it's reasonable time period, not just come get your stuff by tomorrow, getting rid of it. No, that's not going to work, but if they're just being lazy or just trying to, leave all their junk with you or whatever, then definitely.

Get

Elizabeth: rid of it. Yep. Yep. And change your not only the locks would change. If you have a garage door know, change all the

Joe: passwords, the security system, the password to your wifi. Remember

Elizabeth: if your spouse owned a security system, they are in charge of it and they can. So yeah. Everything you're doing,

Joe: yes. It happens a lot.

You don't

Elizabeth: crazy. Don't think about it. Yeah. The fun at something you're thinking about, even though that the security in there, cameras in the

Joe: house. Yeah. So get the security camera in your name. Even if you're in a loving relationship, I lied. I have one more question. Okay. So you're talking about taking the kids cause this has happened before.

I know when someone calls in inquiring about services and they Let's say one person, the person left and they took the kids. And so then the other parent is I need to file kidnapping charges on my parent. Can you kidnap your own kids? Yeah no, not really. If your CPS tells you, you're not supposed to have them [00:29:00] and

Elizabeth: you just split up and you take your child.

If you take them over state lines, we have might have a problem. But if you're just taking them to your apartment, you just rented. You're not doing anything wrong legally by doing that.

Joe: Yeah, but if you take them across state lines and the other parent who cares, then lot of times they do, you're going to find yourself in a lot of trouble.

I always

Elizabeth: say, don't do that. I

Joe: say, don't do it. And then they're like, it's going to be fine. He won't care. Just leave and go to Minnesota with your family. I understand you have a support system there, if there's kids involved, I just think that sometimes people. Hold back on leaving an unhappy situation because they've been threatened by the other spouse that like, we will never see

Elizabeth: your kid.

Yeah. And I just tell everybody that submit such bullshit because you're going to see your kids, unless there's something horribly, hardly wrong. You're going to see your kids. It's just a way to control you. Yup. Protect the dog.

Joe: When in doubt, take them, take the dog. All right. Ain't that? Some days, shit.