Whenever you have a stipulation or a final agreement or anything that you and your ex have to agree on, always keep track of your copies and what you specifically want or don't want in there.
For instance, say you are comming up with a final stipulation and your attorneys are emailing each other back and forth with updated proposals. Have a list of things that you want. Say you want 1.Equal splitting of the bank Account, 2. For your spouse to have to have a life-insurance policy with your child(ren) as the beneficiary, and 3. for you to get the car and them to get the snow mobile. I don't know, your list could have anything on it. I never owned a snowmobile to know what that is like, but hey, your list is your list.
I also had a list of everything that my ex wanted that I thought would be very bad to include. There were many things that I gave into and let him have, but there were also things that he wanted that would not have been good in the short and long terms.
So here is what I would do: Everytime I got a final stipulation proposal from my ex I would compare the lists to the document he sent AND I would compare his proposal to the one that I had sent him before. To see what he changed, what wording he wanted, if things had slipped in that I didn't want, if things had gotten taken out that I did want, etc.
You can't just assume that you will remember everything you had in there or that your EX was nice enough to leave it all alone. Always do this. Always compare, read, re-read, and re-read.
What is worse: Being tired of reading your proposal or finding later that you had missed something?
And then when you get your proposal or stipulation all done, what should you do? That's right. Read it again. Have someone you trust read it too. Obviously our lawyer should be reading it, but don't rely on anyone else to do your reading for you.
Read, Compare, Read, Compare. BEFORE you sign.
