One of the hidden dangers in a divorce is the way it will more than likely affect your credit score. This is especially true of spouses who aren't the breadwinners in the family, and thus don't have an established credit history of their own. It's a tough road to go down, not only for securing credit cards, but to make sure you can rent a home or car to continue your life as easy as possible.
Huffington Post contributor Curtis Arnold put together a list of different things those spouses can do if they're about to divorce and need to make sure their life can go on.
Pull Your Credit Report Before doing anything, make sure you have a firm account of what credit lines are open in your name, and which you are a co-signer for and which are yours outright. You may think you're in the clear, but you forgot about a large store card you co-signed with your spouse a few years back and they've been (slowly) paying off.
Establish New Credit It seems like a no-brainer, but some people don't know where to even begin. First, cancel all joint credit cards. This will make your credit score take a hit because the amount of credit you have declines. But once you reestablish your credit history with new accounts that should pop back up in no time.
Let Credit Companies Know A Divorce Is Coming Talking to the representative from the credit card company about how you are getting divorced can guide you in the right direction about the steps to keep your credit score from getting dinged too badly.
For more:
How to Improve Your Credit Score After Divorce (Huffington Post)
Image: Flickr/@ Sean MacEntee