Lena Headey, star of the television show "Game of Thrones," has finally reached a divorce settlement with her now ex-husband Peter Loughran after two long years of fighting.
After only four years of marriage, the actress split from her musician husband in 2011. Headey and Loughran have been fighting over money and custody ever since. The pair has a three-year-old son together.
While filming the hit television series, Lena wants her son to come with her to the exotic shooting locations, such as Ireland and Croatia. As per their custody arrangement, for this to occur, she had to agree to pay for Peter to tag along. This includes financing his airfare and paying him $1,000.00 per month for expenses during the trip.
The ex-couple has also included an interesting element to their settlement: a texting app.
According to Lena, Peter has driving issues, and is concerned about Peter driving while their son is in the car with him. The app prohibits Peter from sending or receiving text messages while driving. He will also have to download another app that blocks the Internet. Lena has also agreed to download these apps.
In Ontario, custody, support, and travel expenses issues can be resolved either through a Separation Agreement or by court Order. Parties are encouraged to draft Separation Agreements, and a Separation Agreement would particularly suit Lena and Peter's texting app provision. This is because a Separation Agreement allows the parties to discuss their issues and reach an agreement that is customized to their precise situation as opposed to asking a judge to make a decision for them, who is a third party ultimately unaffected by the decisions.
As well, any amendments to a Separation Agreement can be arranged by the parties themselves and will take effect once the parties have signed the amendment, as opposed to bringing a court application, which may not achieve the parties' desired result and can be quite costly. Lena and Peter will want to remove the apps from their phone eventually, if not in the near future. A Separation Agreement will allow them to do this quickly and efficiently as long as they agree on the timing of its removal.