When a marriage comes to an end, it is always a tragedy. Of course the rending of the family unit and the emotional hardship for the children is the most difficult at the time of divorce. But the difficulty of separating one home into two can be difficult and tedious to say the least. You have to go from one checking account to two, two homes instead of one and separate accounts for everything from credit cards to utilities.

In addition to this the management of the divorce, credit card debt, that was once a shared part of the family financial picture, must also be divided. To the credit card company, that family credit card is the property of that shared entity which was the marriage. So when the union splits up, the transition, from a financial point of view of your accounts separating, is not over night.

So one of the many issues to be discussed and is a plan made on how to separate that credit card debt. Whoever continues to hold the family accounts will continue to get those bills and be expected to pay them. Now the least preferable way to handle the debt is to build the payments into any forced settlement agreement such as child support. So at the time the divorce is final, the amount of the debt and the payments that must be made could be calculated and half of that put into the amount that the income-generating partner must provide. That leaves the management of those credit card debts to one partner and the other paying a set amount. Should the credit cards get used by either partner, that legal amount would have to constantly be changed and would prove to be a constant administrative headache.

If the divorce is a shared responsibility, each spouse can work with the other to adjust the financial picture in an advantageous way and how to separate the credit card debt should be part of that planning. Part of that planning should also include how to use shared assets to pay down that debt. You may have a home that will be sold, retirement accounts or other assets that were put aside for the future of the marriage. Before selling those things, close those accounts and distribute the funds. Look at using the outcome from these closed accounts to retire that shared debt.

It is likely that some of that debt load will live on past the divorce. In those cases splitting into two individual accounts may be the best solution. If the family was carrying 10,000 in debt, each marriage partner walks away with $5000 of the debt, which is fair and equitable. It is up to each individual on the how this remaining debt is handled.

There are two ways you can divide this credit card debt. If it were with a carrier that you are able to negotiate and conduct a dialog, arranging a meeting or a conference call with the managers would be very productive.

The credit card company would far rather negotiate with you to handle this debt load than deal with it chaotically after the fact. Having stated this, the credit card company may be willing to set up separate individual accounts and split the debt for you.

You can always use the method many of us have used to manage credit card debt up until now. Each can set up some new separate credit card accounts. You no doubt have dozens of credit card offers coming in that you can use to kick off this process. Almost always part of the set up offers for these accounts are balance transfers. If you set up individual accounts and use balance transfers to move each partner’s shared part of the those accounts, that would be a clean way to split the debt.

There may be adjustments to be made to the 50-50 split idea based on who is the primary wage earner, or who ran up the largest amount of debt. By negotiating the terms on how this credit card debt will be separated during the dissolution of the marriage, which is a critical issue in itself, it is therefore handled in a mature and responsible manner.

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