Before the first meeting
Nobody tells you how much of this is homework.
A separation is not one conversation. It is a few hundred decisions, a sworn financial statement, and a series of professionals who cannot help you until you have gathered things only the two of you can gather. Here is the whole list, in the order it usually comes up.
What you have to decide
The questions a plan and a settlement have to answer.
Not all of them apply to everyone. All of them surprise somebody.
Decision-making11
Who decides about school. What happens when you cannot agree. Whether one of you has the final call in a medical emergency.
The regular schedule16
Which nights, whose weekends, who does the school run, what time is a handoff, where it happens.
Holidays15
Every holiday, every year, plus the ones your family cares about that no template lists.
Summer & travel8
Camp, weeks away, passports, who books flights, how much notice before a trip.
Right of first refusal3
If one of you cannot cover your own time, whether the other gets asked before a sitter does.
Communication25
Which app, how fast is a reply, what counts as an emergency, how you speak about each other.
New partners12
When someone new meets your child, how much notice, what they are called.
Moving3
How far either of you may move, and what happens if someone wants to.
Pets8
Who keeps them, who pays the vet, whether they travel between houses.
Growing up25
Phones, social media, driving, dating, religion, a first job.
Health & daily life38
Insurance, the pediatrician, allergies, therapy, screen time, bedtimes, homework.
The house12
Sell, buy out, or stay. Who pays the mortgage in the meantime, and what the renovation was worth.
Child support14
The statutory number, add-ons, childcare, medical costs, how it gets paid.
Maintenance & assets7
Whether there is spousal support, for how long, and how everything gets divided.
Money mechanics13
Which accounts close, who is on what card, how the joint bills get untangled.
The path2
A single question with large consequences, including for Social Security.
College & insurance16
Who pays for what, when, and what happens to life insurance.
Wrap-up11
The loose ends that turn a draft into a signable document.
Right now34
The interim arrangement: who sleeps where, who pays what, starting this week.
Emergencies15
The hospital, the school's first call, and where everyone goes if a house cannot be lived in.
Life insurance trust14
Where the life insurance goes if either of you dies while your child is still a minor, who holds it, and at what age it becomes hers.
302 questions · 21 areas
You will not answer all of these. You will be surprised by more of them than you expect.
What you have to gather
The sworn statement most people underestimate.
New York calls it a Statement of Net Worth. It is long, it is sworn, and an incomplete one is the single most common reason an amicable process stalls for months.
- Income and pay stubs
- Tax returns
- Bank and brokerage statements
- Retirement and pension statements
- The mortgage and any home equity line
- Credit cards and loans
- Vehicles
- Business interests and valuations
- Life and health insurance
- Monthly expenses
- Anything either of you owned before the marriage
- Anything either of you inherited during it
The one most people miss
Balances on the date you married and on the date you separated, not just today's balance. Tracing what was premarital is most of what a financial neutral does, and it is far easier to find those statements now than in eleven months.
Who needs what from you
Most people picture one mediator.
Depending on what you own and how complicated things are, a separation can involve up to eight professionals, and each one is blocked until somebody hands them specific facts. Every one of these bills for the time they spend waiting.
Mediator
Both people's positions on every open decision, and a complete financial picture. Sessions stall here more than anywhere else.
Each person's review attorney
The term sheet of what you agreed, the open items, and the disclosure. They are reviewing a deal, not building one.
Real estate appraiser
The property, its condition, and what was spent on it. The equity math cannot be finished without a value.
Financial neutral or CDFA
Every account with balances at the marriage, at separation, and today. What was premarital, what was inherited, what was mixed.
QDRO preparer
The exact plan name and administrator, the balance at the date of marriage, and the precise division language from the signed agreement. This is a separate, later step that people forget until a plan rejects their order.
Business valuator
Books, returns, and any prior valuation, if either of you owns a business or holds private shares.
Pension actuary
Plan documents and service dates, if either of you has a defined benefit pension.
Accountant
Filing status for the year you separate, who claims the child, and the tax consequences of how you split things.
Not everyone needs all eight. Everyone needs more than one, and everyone underestimates how much of their own homework each of them is waiting on.
What the app already holds
Evenly was built around that list.
The decisions
All 302 of them, with which ones the two of you have settled, which you differ on, and which neither of you has answered yet.
The documents
The gathering checklist and the sworn-disclosure catalogue, per person, private until you exchange them.
The arithmetic
Support and property math with every step shown and its citation named, so anyone can check it by hand.
The handoff
The QDRO information sheet, the asset schedule, the term sheet, and the open-items agenda.
The record
Who entered every number and when, so nobody has to relitigate where a figure came from.
You could do all of this with a shoebox and a legal pad. People do. This is the same work, organized, and split evenly between the two of you.
See how it works.
Four phases, from the first question to the packet you hand a professional.