Fort Worth, Texas Divorce Law Blog

Texas residents and others can establish paternity in two different ways. First, they can voluntarily acknowledge paternity by filling out a form at the hospital when the baby is born or at any point before the child turns 18. It may also be possible to establish paternity through genetic testing if there is doubt about who the child's father is. Genetic testing will involve the mother and the child in addition to the alleged father.

If a man alleged to be a child's father doesn't submit to testing, he could be named the child's father by default. The same could occur if the tests reveal that he is the father and there are no efforts to dispute the finding within 60 days. Establishing paternity can be beneficial to the child because he or she gets to inherit from that person.

When the courts in Texas stipulate that children must spend the majority of their time with one parent, that person is referred to the custodial parent. The noncustodial parent may have an integral role in raising the child as well and work collaboratively with his or her ex, but the custodial parent still has the most responsibility, according to the law.

Parents who are awarded sole physical custody of their children are not always classified as custodial parents under the law. In situations where single parents are bringing up their children on their own, and the other parties are not participating in their children's lives, the single parents may be required to petition the court for child custody to be considered the custodial parents according to the law. People who are uncertain if they are legally classified as custodial parents should speak with an attorney who practices family law.

Parents in Texas can create a number of different arrangements for child custody and visitation depending on their schedules. While a traditional arrangement in which the noncustodial parent has the child every other weekend might work for situations in which parents work regular 9-to-5 jobs Monday through Friday, this is not the case for every parent.

If the custodial parent often travels on weekends, for work or other reasons, the child could stay with the noncustodial parent until Monday. Another alternative is for a child to have a weekday evening visit with the noncustodial parent. This could also be turned into an overnight stay.

People over 50 are twice as likely to get divorced than they were in the 1990s, and this could lead to financial problems for people in Texas who have not been active participants in the household finances. According to a report published by UBS Global Wealth Management, 56 percent of married women allow their spouses to make major financial and investment decisions.

This statistic does not appear to be generational. The study found that 54 percent of baby boomer women and 61 percent of millennial women allow their husbands to make the investment decisions. Twice as many men as women described themselves as very knowledgeable about investing while 75 percent of women said they knew little about investing. Combined with a divorce late in life, this lack of understanding about finances can result in financial stress for women after divorce. Over half of women who were widowed or divorced said they wished they had learned more about finance during their marriages. Remarried women tend to become more involved with marital finances.