Guides
Plain-English guides to the financial side of divorce in Texas — what your options actually cost, what you may not know to ask, and how to decide before someone decides for you.
Written by Kyle Eaton, CFP®, CDFA®
Certified Divorce Financial Analyst · Denton, Texas
Most divorce guides you will find online are written by attorneys. That is useful, and you will need legal guidance. But a divorce is also the largest financial transaction of your life, and the legal process and the financial outcome are two different things.
These guides come from the money side. I work with women across Dallas–Fort Worth navigating divorces involving complex marital estates — multiple investment accounts, retirement plans, inheritances, and business interests. Everything here is written to be read before you make a decision, not after.
What’s Yours, What’s Shared
The rules that decide what you keep — and the quiet ways separate property disappears before anyone notices.
Start Here · 24 min read
Community vs. Separate Property in Texas: What’s Really Yours
What counts as yours alone, how the line between separate and shared money quietly disappears over a marriage, and what it takes to prove what’s still yours. Written in plain language for the spouse who didn’t handle the finances — with real examples, including one woman’s $60,000 inheritance followed from start to finish.
Part 2 · The complex assets
Retirement, Pensions & Stock Options: The Money Most Likely to Slip Away
The biggest separate-property claim you have is often the one that’s hardest to prove — the long-held retirement account, the pension, the stock and bonuses. Why these slip away, how Texas rules like the TRS pension formula actually work, and what to gather before it’s too late. The deeper companion to Part 1.
Understanding Your Divorce Options
How your divorce gets resolved shapes your financial outcome as much as the negotiation itself. What each path costs, and where each one can hurt you.
Start Here · 15 min read
The Five Ways to Resolve a Divorce in Texas
Kitchen table, mediation, litigation, arbitration, and collaborative divorce — compared on cost, timeline, privacy, and the two things that matter most: how much information you actually get, and how much time you get to respond. Includes what nobody tells you about mediation day, the costs of litigation that never appear on an invoice, and why collaborative divorce is harder than it looks.
Texas TRS, Retirement, and Divorce
If you or your spouse works in Texas public education or local government, your retirement benefits carry rules most financial professionals never encounter. Federal law changed here recently, and much of what people were told no longer applies.
Updated for 2026 Law Change
Divorce and Texas TRS: Social Security and Government Pensions
The Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset were repealed in 2025. What that means for divorcing educators, why divorced-spouse benefits may now be available to women who were told they would never qualify, and what the repeal did not fix.
Updated for 2026 Law Change
WEP and GPO Are Gone: What the Repeal Means in Divorce
A closer look at the Social Security Fairness Act, the ten-year marriage rule, and why the timing of when your divorce is finalized can determine whether you qualify for a lifetime benefit stream.
Texas TRS Divorce: Dividing the Benefits
How a TRS pension is characterized and divided in a Texas divorce, and what has to happen for the plan to actually accept the order.
What Is a QDRO? Five Things to Know About Divorce and 401(k)s
The court order required to divide most employer retirement plans, why errors in it are expensive, and what happens if the plan administrator rejects it.
In Progress
Guides currently being written:
- The assets your divorce might miss — a checklist for spouses who didn’t handle the money
- Divorce-year money traps: taxes, debt, and timing in the year you divorce
- How to audit your finances before a divorce
- Making financial decisions when guilt and regret are clouding your judgment
If there is a question you cannot find a straight answer to, tell me. The gaps people bring me are usually what I write next.