The primary purpose of filing for a divorce is to find the happiness that you are not getting from your marriage. However, you cannot expect to be much happier if you are stuck in your same marital routines. Change takes effort and can be frightening when compared to what you are familiar with. You have already made a major change by divorcing your spouse. Once you feel settled into that change, there are other changes you can make to your lifestyle, from minor tweaks to reinventing yourself:

1. Socialize: Up to this point, your marriage has largely defined your social circles. While there is no need to abandon your friends, you should try to expand your social circles by meeting new people. The easiest way to do so is to participate in a group activity, which you can find through local organizations and online meetup groups. Some groups may be geared towards recently divorced people, though you should not feel that you are limited to those groups.
2. Find What You Enjoy: Were there hobbies or activities that you felt like you could not do while you were married? Now is your chance to try them without worrying about whether your spouse will also enjoy them. It is possible that you will not like some of these activities as much as you thought, while you may be surprised by how much you enjoy other activities. Either way, this is your opportunity to find out.
3. Consider Uprooting Yourself: For some people, the best way to find happiness after divorce is by redefining themselves. You could look for a new job, start a new career or move to another part of the country. However, drastic changes may be impractical if you have children or are worried about financially supporting yourself. You can still find more subtle or gradual ways to change your lifestyle.
4. Ease Into Dating: Most people are not ready to start another serious relationship immediately after their divorce, but you will eventually feel more comfortable dating. There is not a timetable for how long this will take. Once you do start dating, it is important that you are honest with yourself and the other person about what you want. It may be that you need a more casual dating experience than looking for someone you may want to eventually marry.

Contact a Crystal Lake, Illinois, Divorce Attorney

Finding the courage to change yourself after divorce starts with creating a successful divorce agreement. A McHenry County divorce lawyer at Botto Gilbert Lancaster, PC, will make sure that you finish your divorce feeling financially secure and emotionally satisfied. Schedule a free consultation by calling 815-338-3838.

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The threat of workplace injuries can sometimes come from intentional actions by other people. Acts of violence against workers are not uncommon in jobs that require people to work overnight and frequently interact with the public. Employees at 24-hour fast food and convenience stores are often at risk of being attacked or threatened by robbers or irate customers. As with any work-related injury, you can file a workers’ compensation claim in order to pay for healthcare expenses and reimburse you for lost wages due to time missed at work.

How to Qualify

Workers’ compensation benefits can cover your injuries from a physical attack as long as:

• You were put in the position to be attacked because of your work
• You were not the aggressor in the incident

For instance, being attacked while walking from your vehicle to the building where you work would qualify because you would not have been there if not for your job. As for being the aggressor, you are allowed to defend yourself against attack, but the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission has denied claims when the worker was injured because they decided to pursue and engage the attacker after the attacker had already withdrawn. In other words, you risk losing your claim if you continue the fight after your attacker has stopped, even though you were not the one who started the fight.

E-cigarettes were introduced to consumers more than a decade ago as a safer alternative to smoking tobacco products. Vaping has caught on with younger smokers, partly due to its cleaner image and the variety of flavors. However, it has become clear that e-cigarettes are not as safe as their manufacturers claimed. There are hundreds of cases of e-cigarette users developing lung diseases, with several patients dying as a result. If you have developed a lung disease due to vaping, the manufacturer may be liable for your personal injury if the product did not warn you about the risk.

Dangers of Vaping

While e-cigarettes may contain fewer toxins than normal cigarettes, that does not make them safe to use, particularly for teens and pregnant women. Most e-cigarettes still contain nicotine and chemicals that can cause cancer and lung disease. Long-term vaping is believed to lead to several diseases, including:

• Pneumonia
• Asthma
• Lung cancer
• Heart disease
• Emphysema
• Bronchitis

The device itself has also been dangerous to consumers because of numerous incidents in which the battery exploded. Because e-cigarette users often carry the device in their pocket, an explosion can cause serious burn and shrapnel injuries.

Despite the controversy over Illinois’ felony murder law, the state does not seem to be close to amending the criminal law that allows prosecutors to charge certain defendants with first-degree murder despite them not causing the death or intending to kill the victim. The law states that a person who participates in a forcible felony may be charged with murder if someone dies during the incident, including an accomplice in the crime. An Illinois defendant recently appealed his felony murder conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Illinois Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the law. However, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Examples

In the recently appealed case, two men were convicted of murder because they were involved in a burglary incident in which police had killed a third suspect. The three men were burglarizing an electronics store when police officers surrounded the building. The men attempted to flee in a vehicle, and the officers shot at them 77 times. One of the men was killed, and the other two were injured. Illinois’ felony murder law allowed the defendants to be charged with murder even though it was the police officers who shot and killed the third man. One defendant was sentenced to 25 years in prison, while the other was sentenced to 20 years.

In a recent high-profile Illinois case, five teens were initially charged with murder when a property owner shot and killed a sixth teen when they were attempting to burglarize his vehicle. The state’s attorney later dropped the murder charges after public pressure.

Illinois law has presumptions of paternity that help men establish their rights as fathers. If a child was conceived or born during a marriage, the husband of the mother is presumed to be the biological father of the child. If the parents are unmarried, the father can sign a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage (VAP) form that will list him as the biological father on the child’s birth certificate. However, these same laws can become an obstacle if a man believes that he is not the biological father of a child and does not want to be responsible for the child.

Paternity and Marriage

Most husbands have no reason to believe that they are not the biological father to their wife’s child unless they used a sperm donor to conceive the child. If you learn that your wife conceived the child through infidelity, you may understandably be upset and wish to have nothing to do with your wife or the child. However, you cannot sever your financial obligation to the child by divorcing your wife and proving that you are not the biological father. You would still be responsible for paying child support until the child becomes an adult. To deny paternity in Illinois, you must:

• Sign a denial of parentage form
• Identify the biological father of the child
• Have the biological father sign a VAP form

Illinois wants a child to have two legal parents to ensure that they are financially supported by more than one parent. If you cannot identify the biological father, you will still be the legal father of the child, even if a DNA test proves that you are not the biological father. If the biological father refuses to sign the VAP form, you will have to challenge your paternity in court if you want to transfer parental obligations to the biological father.