<p>Billy, you have a lot on your plate and I admire you for trying to handle it all. You are facing stress from all directions and you don’t yet have a lot of life experience or perspective from which to deal with all of it.</p>
<p>My advice?</p>
<p>Don’t get too involved on either side of your parent’s mess. There is probably enough “blame” to go all around. The good thing for you is that, at your age, you will likely escape a lot of the mess that is likely to follow in the next few years… Please try to be there for your siblings, they will need a voice of reason and a rock of security while everything else around them is changing.</p>
<p>As far as the divorce proceedings? </p>
<p>Dates in late December often get changed, so your mom shouldn’t count on the date quite yet. It’s common for the judge or lawyers in the case to ask for a continuance of the proceedings at any time of year, and unless it’s a matter of life and death, they are often granted even just as a courtesy–especially around holiday times. This is true whether it is a true court hearing, or a session with a magistrate, or a deposition.</p>
<p>Assuming that this is an actual court date, it is also quite common for a judge not to issue an immediate ruling, and to take matters under advisement, especially if the parties are not in agreement on the matters before the court that day. For example, unless a financial settlement presented to the court is agreed to by all parties, a judge is unlikely to decide at the time he is presented with a financial plan–especially if objected to by an opposing party. The judge will instead give the other side time to present their written objections and their own proposals.</p>
<p>Also, as another poster noted, the judge can’t issue an order saying the father doesn’t fill out FAFSA. I have heard of a judge ordering a parent to fill out FAFSA if supported by other terms in a divorce decree, but never the other way around. The judge doesn’t have the power to forbid him to fill out a FAFSA…it is up to the schools to require or not require FAFSA or other financial documentation. Your mom’s wishes won’t change that.</p>
<p>Is there some real, other underlying reason that finalizing the divorce before the end of the year is so important to your mother? This one just doesn’t make any sense at all.</p>