The author is able to review the different search terms that lead people to this website each day, but not, of course, the identity of the people making those searches. Every now and then, a search term is particularly unusual or suggests an answer that doesn't, and perhaps shouldn't, appear in this site. In this chapter, the author will randomly reply to these search terms. This chapter is unpredictably and irregularly updated.

Remember, the law that's being applied here is the law of British Columbia, Canada, and the laws of one jurisdiction are often very different from the laws of the next.

Without getting into a discussion of the mechanics of it all, "consumation" means having sex and the odds are pretty good that you've already consumated your marriage without even meaning to. For more a more thorough overview of human sexuality, try watching the Jerry Springer Show.

Yes... in most cases.

Most divorces proceed on the ground of separation, that the spouses have lived separate and apart for at least one year before the application is made for the divorce order. Section 8(3) of the Divorce Act talks about how this one year period is counted, and says that a couple can resume married life, with the intention of reconciling, for a period of up to 90 days before the one-year clock resets itself.

The question, then, is whether having sex means "resuming married life." If it does, then it means that you can't proceed with the divorce application.

Without a doubt, sex is a part of the "consortium" that defines marriage. However, there is an intentionality here that must also be considered. If you intended, by having sex, that your marriage was back on, and you held this intention for 90 days and acted like you were married, then yes you might have reset the one-year clock. If we're talking about a single (or multiple) sexual event, with no intention to resume the marriage, then don't worry. (Frankly, most men don't "intend" anything when they have sex.) The divorce will still be "legal" since you haven't broken the 90-day rule.

Now, there is an exception to this general rule. The other two grounds of separation are cruelty and adultery. The Divorce Act also says that if you're going to rely on your spouse's cruelty or adultery to get a divorce, you can't forgive your spouse for his or her misconduct. If you do, then you can't rely on his or her bad acts as a ground of divorce.

Now, if anything signals forgiveness, it's having sex. I suspect that if you have claimed cruelty or adultery as the ground of your divorce, and you subsequently play hide the love sausage with your ex, then that might defeat your claim for a divorce... you may have accidentally "condoned" your ex's behaviour.

I should say one last thing. Even if the sex was of such a nature as to break the 90-day rule or signal a forgiveness of your spouse's bad acts, the court will only refuse to grant the divorce if you happen to bring the encounter to the court's attention. Frankly, most people are not going to be writing a letter saying: "Dear Judge, Frank and I had sex last week. I thought you should know since I'm applying for a divorce." As a result, unless someone breaks the news to the court — which seems somewhat unlikely — the divorce order will go through.

Actually, it doesn't.

It can apply if both parties agree to submit their problem to a rabbinical tribunal, providing that the arbitration legislation of the province in which they live will allow the application of religious law to settle a family law dispute. (British Columbia's Commercial Arbitration Act allows this, for example, but Ontario's Arbitration Act doesn't.)

Orthodox Jews may feel the need to get a religious divorce, called a Get, in order to be able to remarry under Jewish law. A Get, however, is not a legal divorce, and you can't legally remarry until you get a divorce under the Divorce Act, whether you feel the need to obtain a Get or not.

These seemed related, so I thought I'd answer them all at once.

Canadian divorce orders take effect thirty days after the date they are pronounced. (The delay is to allow the period in which the order can be appealed to expire.) Once the order takes effect, you can remarry.

If you want to get caught remarrying inside the appeal period — which seems like a bad idea to me — tell the judge who made the divorce order. Otherwise the odds are very good you won't get caught.

Neither the courts nor the Vital Statistics Agency polices divorce orders to make sure no one remarries within the appeal period. In fact, the Vital Statistics Agency won't even check to make sure you're not already married to someone else when they issue you your marriage licence.

To be blunt, the only person who might care that you've remarried within the appeal period is your new spouse, since your marriage to him or her is technically void.

Is divorce immoral? The Pope and I take differing views on this, and he's stopped returning my calls. Most religions, even the orthodox variety, condone divorce. Divorce is discussed with approval in the Koran, Jews can get a divorce through a special rabbinical tribunal, and most Christian faiths are all over separation and divorce, except for the focus-on-the-family evangelical types and hardcore Catholics, and I respect their views on the matter as well.

At the end of the day, regardless of your religious persuasion, comes the blistering truth: is it moral to remain trapped in a loveless relationship until the day you die, forsaking any chance of finding happiness and self-actualization, all for the sake of antiquated notions about the sanctity of marriage that were developed at a time when most people died before their 35th birthday?

Please submit your comments on the subject through the "Feedback" section of this website. Articulate submissions will be posted here.

Frankly, I'm not surprised.

Seriously, though, separation is often as traumatic for children as it is for their parents. Younger children generally do not understand what is happening, and their anxiety at home often shows up at school and reflects in their homework.

Children react particularly poorly when they are exposed to the conflict between the parents, when the parents use them as pawns in their own battles, and where the parents openly fight in front of the children. Children will feel especially anxious when no one bothers to explain to them what's going on, and will sometimes make up their own stories about why the parents no longer live together, including the belief that the break up is their fault. As you can imagine, stories like these are not particularly healthy and can seriously damage a child's self-esteem.

What can you do about this? Here are some ideas:

• The children must be told, by both parents, that each parent still loves the children and will always love the children.
• The children must not be made to feel bad for loving or missing the other parent and saying so.
• The children should be told that the separation is not their fault, and perhaps that the separation is a problem between the parents and isn't about the children.
• Each parent must maintain a positive a nuturing home for the children, and make their time with the children as "normal" as possible. That includes doing homework and talking about the children's days at school, and everything else the parents used to do with the children when they were together.
• The children must not be used to carry messages between the parents' homes, unless the messages are written down.
• The children should not be grilled about what they've done with the other parent. "Did you have a nice time?" should do it.
• The parents must not blame the other parent to the children. Each parent should make a point of speaking positively about the other parent to the children.

I suppose there's really no guaranteed solution or a solution that's particularly easy. Parenting after separation is hard work, but everything that can be done to make the children feel safe, stable and loved should be done and must be done. Even if it means choking on your pride.

The only special things you need are your original government marriage certificate from Manitoba and sufficient recollection of the circumstances of your relationship such that you can complete a British Columbia Statement of Claim.

A blank Statement of Claim is available in the "Resources & Links > The Courts, Court Forms & Case Law Resources" chapter of this website.

Your marriage certificate is the ugly, brown document issued by the vital statistics agency of the government of Manitoba. If you don't have this, you can order a duplicate by writing to that agency. Also, many North American vital statistics agencies will allow you to order duplicates online.

Wow, where to begin.

Arranged marriages are fairly common in certain asian, east asian and african traditional cultures. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the same cultures generally see women as inherently inferior to men and wives are usually subjugated to their husbands' wishes and authority.

One would expect these charmingly antique but very sexist values to attach to contemporary arranged marriages, perhaps not between the couple themselves but definately to the extended families' expectations of the marriage and the wife's role in the marriage.

Arranged marriages also recall a lot of old western attitudes to marriage. Prior to, say, the 20th century, marriage was a financial endeavour. Wives sacrificed their property and their ability to conduct business independent of their husbands in exchange for a legal entitlement to be supported by their husbands. Husbands, on the other hand, took their wives' property and earnings, and received the benefits of a full-time nanny, cook, housekeeper and womb, in exchange for an obligation to provide their wives with often paltry "necessities of life."

Returning to the search term, then, I suppose that the biggest "cons" have to do with the notion of choice and the ability to marry for love rather than for a social or cultural obligation.

It really all depends on how you see marriage. If you don't see marriage as that sort of social obligation, but see it as freely choosing to enter into a life-long partnership with someone you love and respect, then an arranged marriage probably isn't the right plan. Hoping to "learn to love" an obligatory spouse is really rather optimistic, and the marriage comes with no guarantees at all.

To summarize the "cons" of arranged marriages, then:

• new spouse may be unbearable and have disgusting personal habits that you don't know about
• spouse's extended family may be similarly loathsome
• spouse's family will have traditional expecations of your role in the marriage
• being stuck with the new spouse, and his or her family members, forever (theoretically at least)
• spouse's committment to the marriage will likely be based on traditional values rather than on love and respect
• increased likelihood of disrespect, and therefore increased likelihood of emotional, verbal and physical abuse
• absence of choice in selecting new spouse

Please submit your "pros" through the "Feedback" section of this website. All submissions will be posted here.

Unfortunately for some, a lack of sex in a marriage isn't a ground of divorce under the Divorce Act. If might be a reason for a divorce, but it's not a legal ground to end a marriage.

A lot of people think a marriage can be annuled because the marriage wasn't consumated. Not so. The case law on this subject says that simply not having had sex is not enough... one of the spouses must actually be unable to have sex, either because of a physical condition or a psychological condition.

Now, whether the marriage was consumated or not, and it's simply a matter of the couple's love life drying up, you can still get a divorce. The Divorce Act recognizes three grounds of divorce:

1. separation for a period of not less than one year;
2. one party's adultery during the marriage; and,
3. mental or physical cruelty inflicted on one spouse by the other.

If a lack of sex has ended your marriage, then what you're probably looking for is a divorce based on separation, and that means you'll have to announce to your spouse that things are over and wait for a year to pass. In a case like this, the lack of sex might be the reason why the marriage has broken down, but the legal ground of divorce will be separation.

99% of the time, child support has everything to do with income and nothing to do with assets.

Income is money that a person receives on a regular basis. Income can come from employment or self-employment. It can also come in the form of interest paid from an investment, as royalties, or as draws taken by a shareholder from a company.

Assets are fixed, tangible things. A house, a bank account, an investment, a car and so forth; anything that someone would pay money to get.

An inheritance is an asset. If the inheritance produces income, it will usually be in the form of interest payments arising from the property inherited. Most inheritances, however, are a simple transfer of cash or money from the estate of the dead person to the beneficiary.

When someone receives an inheritance, they have received an asset. It may substantially improve their living conditions, but it won't change that person's entitlement to receive child support or the amount of child support that person must pay. Getting an inheritance will only change the amount of child support being paid if:

1. the inheritance is producing interest income;
2. the inheritance is capable of producing interest income; or,
3. the inheritance is received by the payor of child support and the amount paid is lower than the usual amount because of undue hardship.

Short answer: no.

A person paying child support is not entitled to make deductions from the amount of support paid to account for the expenses the payor incurs on behalf of a child. The only expenses both parents must contribute to are expenses that qualify as "special expenses" within the meaning of s. 7 of the Child Support Guidelines, and those expenses are paid on top of the base amount of child support.

I don't want this column to turn into a "how to get your lawyer" thing, but this sort of search term does come up fairly often. First, I'll assume that you're talking about your own lawyer. Second, I'll assume that you're not talking about your lawyer's bill. Third, I'm going to assume that you're not talking about filing a complaint against the lawyer. (Information about these last two subjects is contained in the chapter "The Legal System > Lawyers & Litigants.")

In general, people can only sue their lawyers for professional negligence, although I suppose it's possible to sue a lawyer for breach of contract if there was a retainer agreement and the agreement was detailed enough to establish a breach.

To sue your lawyer for negligence, you must file a Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia that sets out the facts underlying your claim and exactly how you think your lawyer was negligent. You will then have to serve these documents on your lawyer. Note that the forms required are the standard civil litigation forms, Form 1 and Form 13, not the special form used for family law proceedings.

Now starting the law suit isn't all there is to it. You still have to prove that your lawyer was actually negligent, and that means showing that the lawyer obviously acted or failed to act in a way that had an adverse impact on your interests, and that the harm you suffered was reasonably foreseeable by the lawyer. The lawyer's conduct will be measured against the conduct that would normally expected of a lawyer in similar circumstances, which can be a bit subjective.

This is all a bit complex, certainly the law on this subject is complicated, and you are ironically advised to hire a lawyer if you're thinking about suing your lawyer.

This is a very common search term that finds my website. Firing your lawyer isn't rocket science, you just need to tell the lawyer that his or her services are no longer required and what the lawyer should do with your file and what the lawyer should do with any money left in your retainer.

You've hired a new lawyer:

"Please be advised that I have hired Ms. Jane Doe to act as my new counsel in this matter.

"I thank you for your services and help with my file. Please forward the balance of my retainer and my file to Ms. Doe at your earliest convenience."

You can't afford your lawyer:

"Please be advised that I can no longer afford to continue to retain your services in this matter and wish to represent myself.

"Please forward the balance of my retainer and my file to me at your earliest possible convenience. I would appreciate it if you could also supply with with a Notice of Intention to Act in Person."

You're unhappy with your lawyer and want to make it known:

"I write to advise you that I no longer wish to retain your services.

"Since I hired you on [date], I have had the following problems with your handling of my file:"

[list the problems and be as specific and detailed as you can; it's hard to respond to generalized or vague complaints, and specific complaints will usually be taken more seriously]

"Although I have attempted to address my concerns to you [number] times, these problems have not been addressed to my satisfaction. Please forward the balance of my retainer and my file to me immediately." [complain about bill]

There really isn't much more to it. If you feel that you must complain to the Law Society, please do so. There is no charge to make a complaint and you don't have to hire a lawyer to make one. The Law Society of British Columbia exists for the protection of the public, not lawyers.

Information about making complaints to the Law Society and challenging a lawyer's bill is available in the chapter "The Legal System > Lawyers & Litigants."

Illegitimate children, that is, children born of unmarried parents, used be at a disadvantage under the law. They had no right to use their fathers' names, they had no right of inheritance, and the father had no duty to support them. Not anymore.

Today in British Columbia, and indeed for the last several decades, there is no difference in status between children born of married parents and children born of unmarried children. None. Regardless of the circumstances of their birth, all children have the same right to support and use the name they chose. By the same token, the rights and obligations a parent has toward his or her child has nothing to do at all with the nature of the relationship he or she had with the other parent.

All court files are open to the public, except for the few files that have been "sealed" by the court. A sealed file is one that the court has decided should be kept private. Other than that, all court files are matters of public record and everyone has the right to go to the courthouse and ask to see a file. The court registry even has a computer you can use to search through the different law suits that people have started.

The one big exception to this is family law files. Only lawyers and the people directly involved in a family law action can look at a family law file.

If the court file is one that you have access to, you can ask the court to make copies of the documents in the court record. Be careful what you ask for; copying costs a dollar a page.

Technically a defendant filing a Counterclaim is called a "plaintiff by counterclaim." We don't use this language any more. In a Counterclaim, the parties are still identified as they were in the original Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim: the person who started the law suit is still the plaintiff, and the person against whom the claim was brought is still the defendant, whether the defendant choses to file a Counterclaim or not.

Yes, it is. In fact marriages anywhere outside Canada will be valid in Canada... with a couple of exceptions.

In general, the "formalities" of marriage (the nature of the ceremony, who can perform the marriage, how many witnesses are required and so forth) are those of the jurisdiction in which the marriage is performed. If, for example, the laws of Nevada said that only Elvis impersonators can perform marriages, then you would have to married by an Elvis impersonator if your Nevada marriage is to meet the formalities of marriage in Nevada. If a marriage isn't valid because it doesn't satisfy the formalities of the place in which it was performed, it won't be valid in Canada.

The legal ability to marry, however, is the law of the jurisdiction in which the person lives. In most provinces in Canada, for example, only people older than a certain age can validly marry. If two 10 year olds got married, their marriage wouldn't be valid in Canada, even if it was valid where the children married.

This is a fairly common problem. In essence, what sometimes happens is this:

1. A parent enters into a new relationship.
2. The new relationship gets serious.
3. If the parents are in conflict, the new partner allies with the parent.
4. The new partner encourages the parent to think poorly of the other parent in order to protect his or her position in the new relationship, and discourages the parent from acknowledging the good qualities of the other parent.

This, of course, encourages the enmity between the two parents and encourages the parent to take objectively unreasonable positions when dealing with the other parent. It also gives the parent to leap on minor difficulties with the other parent and exploit them as reasons why cooperation is impossible or why the other parent has poor parenting skills.

If the new partner and the parent marry or start to live together, things can get much worse:

5. The new partner is jealous of the other parent's status as the biological parent of the children.
6. The new partner encourages the new family to become as much like a stereotypical nuclear family as possible.
7. As there is no room in the traditional nuclear family for "third" parents, the other parent's role becomes trivialized and marginalized.
8. The children are encouraged to marginalize the role of the other parent.
9. The other parent is disowned as the biological parent of the children in favour of the new partner.

One of the side effects of this process, which may or may not go all the way from start to finish, is that the other parent winds up having his or her time with the children cut in on as a part of the marginalization process. The parent and the new partner begin to view the other parent's access as unimportant or an unnecessary inference with their lives, rather than a part of encouraging the healthy bond that all children should have with both parents. I have even had a case along these lines in which the children were encouraged to think of the other parent as an "artificial" parent, a concept foreign to most 7- and 9-year-old children.

How do you fix this? By leaping on the problem as soon as it emerges. This process can be devastating and can lead to serious problems such as the children becoming estranged or alienated from the other parent. As a result, when issues arise and there is a new, committed partner in the parent's life, action should usually be taken immediately. A custody and access report should be considered, with express direction being given to the psychiatrist preparing the report to look into the influence and effect of the new partner on the difficulties the parents are experiencing.

Not all cases of re-partnering go this far of course. Conflict is fairly comment whenever a parent enters into a new relationship, but this conflict does not always escalate into a full-fledged attempt to alienate the other parent from the children's lives.

Well, this is something I have never turned my mind to. I suppose that you could sue the priest who married you, if the marriage was later found to be invalid for some reason. The only reason I can imagine why there'd be a problem is if the priest was not licenced by the province to perform marriages and the priest mislead you about his or her licence to perform marriages. Even if you were able to prove that, there's still the question about the damages you might sue for. I suppose you could claim for the cost of having to remarry, the cost of the original ceremony, and perhaps something for embarrassment and emotional suffering.

In general, I'd agree with this statement, depending on the age of the children.

In my view, most children under the age of 10 are too young to make a properly informed and reasoned decision about which parent they want to live with. Most kids, if you give them the chance, will live with the "fun" parent rather than the parent who imposes discipline on their lives, makes sure their teeth are brushed and makes sure their homework is done. Plus, their preferences can change really quickly if there's an argument with one parent or a promised vacation with another, but quickly change back again when the next problem happens.

Things change, though, when children get older. Children between the ages of 11 and 13 are entitled to have their preferences given some serious thought. I'm not saying that their preferences should rule the roost, but they should be listened to, especially when the children are particularly mature.

Once children turn 14, however, there's precious little that a parent can do if the children decide to live with the other parent, except rely on the other parent to refuse to provide the children with a home. The courts rarely interfere with an older child's decision about where he or she wishes to live, unless there is something manifestly wrong with the other parent.

Oh, dear god, think twice. While lawyers are generally great conversationalists and have a wide range of interests, dating one can be a pain. Lawyers keep terrible hours, often work weekends, and must respond to unexpected client crises with little or no notice. Please, go ahead and date us, we're nice people, but be warned that the demands work puts on our time are enormous and that there will be a few dates that have to be cancelled.

Read Robert Emery's book The Truth about Children and Divorce. Dr. Emery provides a number of things to think about and some scripts that might help break the news to the children.

This a very serious question, and one you must think through carefully. You do not want to tell the children in a manner that blames one parent and you must make sure the children know that no matter what, both parents still love them and will still be there for them. I cannot sufficiently emphasize the care that must be taken when children are told about their parents' separation; please read Dr. Emery's book.

The clothes you chose for mediation should fulfil two purposes: convey your acknowledgement of the gravity of the event; and, be comfortable. For men, jeans or slacks, a button-up shirt and a sports jacket should do it. For women, you don't want anything too flashy or dressy, but whatever you pick make sure it's something you'll be comfortable sitting in for a whole day.

"Occupation rent" is money paid by one spouse to the other in compensation for the payor's exclusive use and occupancy of the family home.

Say, for example, a couple owns a house. If one person kicks the other person out (the legal term for this is "ousting"), whether by a court order or some other means, the person who gets to stay in the family home gets to have the house all to his- or herself. The other person, however, doesn't get any use of the family home at all and usually winds up having to pay rent to live somewhere else. Since the family home is a family asset that both people are presume to have an interest in, occupation rent can be paid to compensate the person who got kicked out for his or her inability to enjoy the asset.

The court does not automatically make orders that occupation rent be paid. The ousted person must ask for the order, prove that he or she was kicked out of the house, and establish some logical reason for the amount of occupation rent requested... such as one-half of the rent a similar home would fetch.

When a married couple separates, they have decided to end the marital nature of their relationship. Separation means living independent lives, and ceasing all the day to day activities that makes a marriage a partnership: doing laundry for each other, maintaining joint bank accounts, making dinner, going out together, having sex with each other, doing the family dishes and so forth.

Divorce is the legal termination of the married relationship.

A separated married couple is still a married couple, whether they've been separated for one month, one year or one decade. They may be living separate lives and have grown into new relationships, but until they get an order for their divorce, they're still married.

A judge does a lot of things. First, the judge is responsible for keeping order in his or her court and directing how the matters before the court are conducted. Second, the judge hears the evidence of witness and the arguments of the parties to the action or their lawyers. Third, the judge decides what the appropriate outcome of each application or action he or she hears should be. Fourth, the judge is involved in administrative issues and administrative committees about how the courthouse is staffed and operated.

When the judge makes a hears a case and makes a decision, the judge:

1. decides what the facts of the case are (called making a "finding of fact");
2. decides what the law that applies to the case is (called making a "finding of law"); and,
3. applies the law to the facts and makes a decision about the outcome of the case (called a "judgment").

If the judge cannot make a decision at the end of the hearing or trial, the judge will retire to consider the facts, and the law and the appropriate outcome (called "reserving judgment"). When the judge has made up his or her mind, the judge will either call the parties back to court and give judgment orally (called a "judgment from the bench" or "oral reasons for judgment") or will give the judgment in a written form (called "written reasons for judgment") without calling the parties back to court.

The job of the judge is a tough one. It involves making decisions in every area of the law, from criminal law to family law to the laws about shipping rights, and that means that judges must have a very broad knowledge of the law. They must also make very difficult decisions too, about difficult issues like custody and spousal support, which can have a profound effect on people's lives. Many judges keep very long hours wrestling with issues like this, and deserve a great deal of respect for it.

No. Not even with tongue.

For most folks, that's separation in a nutshell.

When many people end a long term relationship, whether married or unmarried, they tend to go through a greiving process that can last for half a year, a year or longer. One of the hallmarks of this process is that you go through a cycle of emotions, including anger, love, sadness, loss, regret and denial, over and over until finally the peaks and valleys level out. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.

These feelings make a family law lawyer's life rather difficult. In a perfect world, the lawyer's clients would all be at the indifferent stage and would be able to bargain with their spouses in an objective, dispassionate manner. More importantly, neither party would be doing foolish things like throwing their spouse's mementoes and clothing off a ferry or "donating" them to a thrift shop.

Handling these emotions and a client's response to those emotions is one of the family law lawyer's most important jobs. It helps to prevent clients from making unwarranted, costly applications to court and helps to moderate the clients' positions into ones that, to the lawyer, are objectively reasonable and most likely to prevail if the cases have to go to trial.

From the client's point of view, the law and the court system are clumsy beasts that never seem to respond fast enough to problems as they crop up. It can be very difficult to have a lawyer tell you to think about your spouse's good parenting qualities when, in the heat of anger, all you want is to make sure he or she never sees the children again.

People caught up in an emotional whirlwind at the end of a relationship need good, reasonable advice. If they don't get it, they risk getting involved in a court battle that will drag on for years and years and possibly bankrupt them. Of course, for the advice to do any good, they must be prepared to receive and heed it. For some folks this is all but impossible. People in this sort of situation should seriously consider seeing a counsellor who specializes in relationship breakdown, or at least read Dr. Robert Emery's book The Truth About Children and Divorce. It's sometimes better to spend your money on a good therapist than on a lawyer and court fees.

In British Columbia, that'd be the Family Relations Act.

Unmarried couples with kids have pretty much the same rights and obligations as married couples do. They can ask for sole or joint custody of the children, sole or joint guardianship, access, and all sorts of other orders about the care and control of the kids, and what each person can and can't do during their time with them.

All that matters here is the couple's status as "parents," not the nature of the relationship in which the children were conceived.

There aren't any. The same goes for lesbians.

Assuming that you're separated from your husband, what you're probably talking about is "imputing income."

In family law the income of a spouse is relevant for things like spousal support and child support. Certain people have jobs that typically involve a lot of under-the-table work, or jobs involving tip income on top of a fixed wage. Examples of the first kind of job are contractors and plumbers who offer you a no-tax, no-receipt service if you pay cash. Examples of the latter are taxi drivers and restaurant servers who get tips that they don't always report to the Revenue Canada Agency.

It can be very difficult to get an accurate read on the incomes of people in these lines of work, as their income tax returns may or may not reflect their actual annual income. For people entitled to receive support, this means that it can be difficult to prove that the payor's income is as high as they believe it is. Of course, the higher the income the more support will be payable.

In situations like this, recipients want the court to assess the payors' incomes as being as high as possible. In other words, they want income to be "imputed" to the payors.

No one can answer that question. Really, that's a gut call that only you can make.

For some folks, the decision comes down to this: "Why am I in a loveless relationship? Don't I deserve to be happy?" For other folks, marriage is more of a duty, an obligation they are bound to by social morality and the vows they took when they wed, and the question is: "Does the guilt and shame I feel about ending my marriage outweigh my unhappiness in this marriage?"

Of course, for still other folks, the end of a marriage comes when the final straw breaks the camel's back... the last affair, the last insulting comment, the last bill that bounced, the last fight about something stupid, or the last assault.

No one knows when their marriage is over but the person involved in that marriage.

If you can't make up your mind, you might consider couples counselling. Maybe your unhappiness is something that some counselling with your spouse will find a solution.

Yes, I know what you're talking about. Go for it. There's no reason why you shouldn't. Yes, it is technically adultery, but no one is going to care, and it won't impact on how the children are cared for or how the assets will be divided, or on anything else, really.

You've already decided that your marriage is over, go ahead and get back in circulation!

This is a court form used in legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. It requires that the party receiving the Demand for Discovery of Documents prepare a List of Documents identifying all documents that are relevant to the matters at issue in the litigation, and send that list to the other party.

Easy. Take them to see When Harry Met Sally and watch them out of the corner of your eye.

The court fees will be $208. You can do this by filing a Petition for an order that the marriage be declared void. I don't know what the lawyer's fees will be, that'll depend on whether you hire one and what their hourly rate is.

Try Staples or Grand & Toy.

People who are married have attended a formal ceremony before a marriage commissioner or a religious official licenced by the province of British Columbia to perform marriages. People who are common-law for the purposes of the Family Relations Act have lived together in a "marriage-like relationship" for at least two years.

People who are married must separate and get a divorce to formally end their legal relationship; people who are common-law just break up.

If you mean the social and emotional differences, well that's a matter of opinion. In my view, both kinds of relationship are valid and important, and both have their place. If there is a real and substantive difference, it's that marriage connotes a greater sense of commitment and a willingness to stick with the relationship through thick and thin. People who marry are making a promise to be with each other until the end of time in a true partnership, and that's a serious and meaningful promise. Common-law relationships, on the other hand, are easy to get out of, and imply less of a commitment and less of a willingness to stick it out when things get difficult.

That being said, the divorce rate is sky high, and there's lots of folks who are in long-term common-law relationships and seem quite happy with the arrangement. I suppose it's a matter of personal opinion.

Yes, this website uses the word "sex." Yes, my initials are "jp," which is also the internet country code for Japan.

No, this website does not offer sex with Japanese people or any assistance in that regard.

In general, a dead person's estate is responsible for paying the dead person's bills. This means that the beneficiaries of the dead person's estate don't get their inheritance until the debts are paid, and if the debts are too high they might get nothing at all.

A spouse will only be personal responsible for their deceased husband's or wife's debts if the spouse is also responsible for that debt, by, for example, co-signing a loan, taking a secondary credit card on the dead person's account, or signing as a guarantor for a loan taken by the dead person.