In July 2015, a Bexar County district judge gave the green light for a same-sex divorce to proceed through the system. The case has enormous implications for high asset divorce cases in Travis County and elsewhere in Central Texas.

The women legally married in Washington in 2010, and subsequently settled in the San Antonio area. One partner was artificially inseminated in February 2013, and the couple separated later that year. The child's non-biological mother had not been allowed visitation, until Judge Renée Yanta entered temporary orders in the divorce case. The woman's attorney applauded Judge Yanta for "follow[ing] the law," adding that "in San Antonio and Bexar County we take the lead on these issues."

In June 2015, just a few days before the United States Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges was announced, the Texas Supreme Court allowed a Travis County same-sex divorce to stand, although that ruling came on a technicality.

Divorces can quickly turn into stressful battles. Ending a marriage is an emotional hurdle, and spouses may have to adjust to new social circles. Additionally, some couples must deal with the complications of property division, child custody, alimony, and other areas of divorce law.

Although no divorce is easy, understanding how the laws relate to your case can make the process more simple. For many divorcing spouses, hiring an attorney to review a case and offer advice is helpful. A family law attorney can address your concerns and answer the tough questions such as those concerning digital property division.

How is Digital Property Different from Physical Property?

According to a recent study, the more money a couple makes, the less likely they are to divorce. However, when couples who do have a lot of assets decide to divorce, the result often involves complex litigation regarding child custody and support, spousal support, and asset and property division.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Department of Economics at Emory University in Atlanta, took data that was collected for a different study. In the Emory University study, there were 3,000 participants. All of the participants had been married at least once, after 2008. Participants were asked dozens of questions about their marriages, including the length of time they dated their spouse, age of marriage, engagement ring, wedding and honeymoon expenses, and the duration of the marriage.

In the new study, Randy Olson, a fourth-year computer science graduate research assistant at Michigan State University, took all of the data from the Emory University study and crunched it. He discovered, among other findings, a direct relationship between the divorce rate and a couple's income. According to the numbers, couples who earn over $125K per year are 50 percent less likely to divorce than couples who earn under $25K per year.

In Texas, there are two ways to file for a high-asset divorce—either via fault or no-fault. A no-fault divorce is one in which neither party is being cited for causing the breakup of a marriage. However, if a spouse files for a divorce based on the "fault" of the other spouse, he or she may use one of the following as grounds:

• Cruelty;
• Adultery;
• Conviction of a felony (with a minimum one-year prison sentence); abandonment (for at least one year); living apart (for at least three years); or,
• A spouse has been committed to a mental institution with no hope of recovery.

In many high-asset divorces, adultery is often the grounds for which a spouse will file for divorce. In order to claim adultery, however, there must be proof of infidelity. Moreover, there are several methods available to track an untrustworthy spouse, including hiring a private investigator and using computer software to monitor a spouse's emails, social media accounts, and other computer use.

Additionally, one may monitor a spouse's whereabouts via smart phone. Both iPhones and Android phones with Google have hidden settings that actually track a person's locations. This setting is not an app, but is actually on the phone itself. The phone manufacturers say they use this information only to learn about locations that may be significant to their users, and it is kept exclusively on the device itself.

When a person goes through a high-asset divorce, there are always adjustments that will need to be made—both personally and financially. This can be particularly true if one spouse was the primary or sole breadwinner in the family and the majority of the couple's income came from that spouse's earnings.

Traditionally, it is the wife who may be hardest hit financially after a high-asset divorce. Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that women only earn 77 cents to every dollar that is earned by men. After divorce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a woman's income decreases by almost 40 percent. This can exacerbate an already stressful economic situation.

Women also traditionally have less money in their retirement accounts. Men, on average, have at least 60 percent more funds in their contributed funds than women do. This fact again stresses the need for a skilled legal negotiator during a high-asset divorce.