Getting divorced is a ton of work. The emotional energy, the therapy sessions, managing uncertainty. Then you’ve got to interview divorce lawyers. If you’re lucky, you can avoid a big trial, but there’s still the question of how much to let your spouse know and when. It can feel like information warfare, which gets exhausting. If you breathed a sigh of relief after signing the paperwork, enjoy the moment. Because there’s still a lot to do.
Some of these things are obvious, like changing your marital status on social media. But there’s a lot of things people tend to overlook. If you’re getting divorced, don’t forget these key tasks.
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Emergency contacts at work
No one ever expects to need an emergency contact, it’s one of those things you fill out on your first day and forget about. Whether it’s for your safety or sanity, change that and then promptly forget about it again. -
Refinancing loans
The divorce decree may spell out who gets what and who pays for what. But your ex’s name doesn’t magically disappear from the assets. You have to refinance and get quit claim deeds for properties (even divorce attorneys get this one wrong sometimes!). -
Beneficiaries on…well…everything
Most people know they need to update their estate planning, but you also need to log into your life insurance and retirement policies through work portals and update everything. -
Copyright and trademark licensing agreements
If you’re a creative person receiving any money from your work, get a post-nup before you tip your hand to your spouse. Imagine building a successful career as an author or actor and then losing out of your earnings after the fact. -
Microchips on pets
The shelters can only use the contact info listed on the microchip. If that’s not you, you won’t get a call if your pet escapes and turns up at the shelter. Have your vet scan the chip and tell you which microchip registry they’re on and prevent an additional layer of heartbreak. -
Library cards
You don’t want the librarians calling you by the wrong name. Ruins the happy mood all those library books worked to create. I would change my name on everything. I’m petty. I haven’t completely ruled out a trip to Bend, Oregon to fix my name at the last Blockbuster. -
Change social media and email passwords
You just don’t know how someone’s going to react and they might have a shady lawyer or co-worker or even friend telling them to dig up dirt or try to figure out if you’re hiding something. While you’re at it, make sure your Amazon and streaming sites are secured, too. -
New personal property tax account
If you kept the house, you may still need to set up a whole new personal property tax account, even if your name is exactly the same. In the county I live in, they didn’t know what to do so they made an account for my house, not me. I wasn’t able to pay and it took an afternoon to sort out. -
The URL on your LinkedIn profile (if you’ve changed your name)
This one caught me off guard, a supportive supervisor helped me spot this. If you change your last name on LinkedIn, the URL to your profile stays the same. -
Phone’s ID
I changed my contact to my new name and then realized way later that my phone has a name that was First Name Last Name’s Phone. I changed that in settings. -
Gun registrations
Make sure all guns are registered to the appropriate person. Do NOT mess around with this one. Same goes for drones. -
Stop mail delivery at the post office
Even if things are amicable, you don’t need their mail. The post office allows you to stop delivering mail. It’s a step further than writing “Addressee no longer lives here.” This comes in handy in your ex ends up without a legitimate address and thinks they can just force you to take their mail.
And to do anything meaningful you need a certified copy of your divorce decree, so consider getting an entire stack of them. They always keep it at places like the DMV, too.
If someone you know is mucking through all this, consider sending them one of our humorous, optimistic, or sentimental divorce greeting cards.