Best Practice when two constituents divorce

Beth Dunning · July 2020

Because of our membership model, we often have husband and wife as separate constituents with a spousal relationship. But when they divorce, is it considered best practice to delete the relationship altogether? Even though I end-dated the relationship, she was still soft credited for his most recent donation. Clearly I don't want that, so the only option I see is to delete the relationship. Our previous database would store that historical (i.e. deleted) relationship information in a log that I could access, but I'm not aware of RE having that capability. So my concern in deleting the relationship is losing the documentation that it ever existed - outside of adding a note to both records.

Dariel Dixon · July 2020

You don't need to delete the relationship, however you can change it from a spousal to a non-spousal relationship. I would consider deleting the relationship, unless you find it to be very helpful to have that knowledge documented. Even still, you would need to uncheck the spouse box and uncheck the soft credit box on the second tab. Unchecking the spouse box may uncheck the second box, but I'm not sure offhand.

Rachel Cavalier · July 2020

Further to Dariel's answer, I always check the relationship going "both ways" to make sure that they won't be automatically soft crediting each other in future i.e. start from one record and make sure the relationship no longer soft credits, save that and then go to the other person's record and check that the relationship there doesn't soft credit anymore also.

Keri Barnhart · July 2020

Yes - chiming in with my experience!

Unchecking the "Spouse" box does NOT remove soft credits. You need to go to the Relationship 2 tab where the birthday and Addressee/Salutation show up and uncheck "automatically soft credit", and you need to do that from both relationships. Soft credits are one-way, not reciprocal!

Chrissy Haskell · July 2020

To add to this conversation, don't forget about Marital Status. The Marital Status field on Bio 1 functions independently from Relationships. This is a manual change. For example, even if I delete or change the relationship records, I will still need to visit Bio 1 and update the drop down in the Marital Status field.

Beth Dunning · July 2020

I'm profoundly grateful for everyone's input. To summarize what I've gathered from the various responses, these are the steps that need to be taken when two constituents divorce:

Change marital status to "Divorced"
Change relationship to something other than "spouse"
End Date relationship
Uncheck "This individual is the spouse"
Uncheck "Automatically soft credit this individual for gifts"

And each of these steps is to be completed on both records (his and hers).

Did I miss anything or misunderstand any portion of this?

Keri Barnhart · July 2020

It looks like you're only missing the addressee/salutation (if you have combined spouse types). In my documentation, I divide the list according to what must be done on both records and what can be done from either record. (Reciprocal or one-way fields.) I did this because sometimes it was confusing to go into the 2nd spouse's record and already see the changes having been made, especially if I had been interrupted and lost track of where I was in the process. Also, you won't need to change the Soft Credit on non-constituent relationships, but the other points still apply!

FWIW, I always do the Addressee/Salutations BEFORE removing the "is spouse" checkbox, so that I know for sure that I'm changing the name type to one that formats correctly without the spouse's name.

When Removing a "Spouse" Relationship, Due to Divorce or Death
On Both Constituent Records:

Change Marital Status on Bio 1
Uncheck "Automatically soft credit" on the Relationship 2 tab
Update Addressee/Salutations

On Either Constituent Record:

Change relationship record's reciprocal/relationship to something other than "spouse"
Add an end date to the relationship record
Uncheck "This individual is the spouse"

Beth Dunning · July 2020

Keri Barnhart‍, that is super helpful. Thank you!

Michelle Wallenberg · October 2020

Hi. How do uncheck "the individul is a spouse"? Mine is grayed out and I can't uncheck that box.

Alan French · October 2020

Are you accessing the spouse details from the button on Bio 1? Try going to the Relationships screen and opening the spouse relationship from there instead.

Best Practice when two constituents divorce

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