To paraphrase Santayana: those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Here are a few of the lessons I have learned in almost two and a half decades of divorce litigation:
Wait too long to file for divorce/modification/enforcement.
The date of filing a divorce has the important distinction of being the cutoff date for determining marital vs. nonmarital assets and liabilities. So, when you separate from your spouse, but before the divorce is filed, you are still accumulating marital assets and acquiring marital debt, and so is your wife.
Surprise: she may validly claim and be granted 1) an interest in the property you acquired after separation and 2) that you owe towards her new debt that she acquired after separation.
You both own the marital home, but when you separated she kept the home and you moved out. You bought a new home for yourself, and you are solely paying the debt service, building equity. During the separation your wife is making only partial payments toward the mortgage and she is also running up credit card debt that she has little hope of ever paying. Her partial payments are affecting your creditworthiness. When the divorce is finally filed, she makes a claim that 1) you are liable for half of her additional debt, 2) she is entitled to half the equity in the home that you purchased and solely contributed toward, and 3) she wants all of the equity in the marital home, or alternatively she wants you to be liable for the increased mortgage debt because she has accumulated late fees and additional interest charges.
Surprise: All of her wishes may be granted under Florida Statute 61.075.
Your child support obligation was set when your income was high. You lost your job through no fault of your own, so your income is lower but you are okay because you and your ex verbally agreed to eliminate the child support . Years go by, and nobody informs the court of your new arrangement. The kids have now grown and moved on with their lives, but one day you receive notice from the Department of Revenue that you owe tens of thousands of dollars in arrears.
Surprise: You will probably be required to pay the total arrears, despite what were once pretty clear grounds to modify.
One day your Wife moves away without letting you know where she is going, taking the children with her. She calls you from time to time, and lets you speak to the children, who just love their new home and tell you they don’t want to leave it, even though they miss you . You do nothing, and a year later the calls stop, and you don’t know where the children are. You finally wise up and file for an immediate return of the children, but you don’t know where they are and have no way of locating them or the means to afford an investigator.
Surprise: You have no jurisdiction in your state of residence, and unless you find her, you are unable to serve her with anything.
The takeaway from the above is that you should contact a qualified divorce law firm immediately to discuss your circumstances any time there is a major change to the family, up to, and including separation.