Family History Not a Concern, According to Gift-Giving Christmas Charity

The Christmas season can be a magical time, especially for children. Every child deserves to have a fun and happy Christmas, and if The Spirit of Giving Foundation has any say, they will have one. The non-profit organization specializes in giving kids a good Christmas, and has done so for more than 15 years. How […]

Marriage Trends

Many remember the old playground song, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Mary (or any child’s name) with a baby carriage.”  Though in days gone by, this adage may have been true, in recent years the sequence of steps to marriage has been quite different. Recent research has shown that for many Americans, […]

Married Couples’ Retirement Issues

Many times those couples who have enjoyed a long, happy marriage, find discord in their marriage once they retire.  Instead of enjoying their “golden years” these couples are experiencing serious marital problems that can actually threaten their marriage.  According to a 2013 Fidelity Investment Couples Retirement Study, one of the reasons marital satisfaction drops and […]

Living Together Before Marriage No Longer Predicts Divorce

Researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a marriage survey last year in which they interviewed 22,000 men and women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four.  Forty percent of those interviewed  in the study were married.  In their study, researchers found that the growing trend of living together before marriage no […]

Sharing Finances in a Marriage

When two people are united in marriage, they simplify their lives by combining financial assets such as checking and saving accounts, a move which, according to one marriage therapist, Beth Erickson,  brings “greater intimacy.”  Erickson’s view is shared by the majority of Americans as showed by a recent survey conducted by  Merrill Lynch in February.  […]

The Cost of a Wedding Increasing

With June, the most popular month to get married, just around the corner, many couples are planning to tie the knot.  According to two wedding sites, the cost of tying the knot has been inching upward and is now close to an all-time high. An annual survey by TheKnot.com and the WeddingChannel.com discovered the average […]

Wedding Trends: ‘Just Us’

A recent wedding trend that is occurring more often is weddings for two.  A wedding for two involves just the bride and groom, and according to Kelly Karli the owner of Frosted Pink Weddings, these type of weddings are popping up more and more. Regardless of the fragile state of the economy, two people in […]

Which Divorced Parent Can Claim a Child as a Dependent for Tax Purposes

When a couple has divorced and tax time rolls around, the question may arise as to who will be able to claim the child as a dependent on their tax return?  This question needs to be answered before the divorced parents file their returns to avoid running into problems with the IRS.  For tax purposes, […]

Parental Alienation

The divorce process is a particularly emotional and stressful time for all involved.  A parent’s divorce can be a very damaging process for a child, one that is made even more so when one or both parent(s) do not take the child’s emotional well-being into consideration by attempting to cause a deliberate rift between the […]

Marriage Fraud Scheme: Operation Knot So Fast

When two individuals marry to circumvent U.S. immigration laws, this is considered a fake or sham marriage.  For a marriage to valid under the law, even though a couple may have gone through a marriage ceremony and received the proper government stamps on their marriage certificate, this may not be enough to constitute a “real […]