When someone gets injured and seeks compensation for that injury, they are often focused on how their circumstances affect them. For instance, maybe they are unable to work and they are seeking compensation for lost wages. Maybe they had expensive medical procedures and they need compensation for those bills.
But what if it was your spouse who was injured? How is that going to affect you, and is that going to have any impact on any potential compensation award that may affect your family’s finances?
The financial side
For one thing, there’s a clear financial connection between you and your spouse that affects both of you. If your spouse can’t work, then your family is losing income every day. In some cases, a spouse, who gets hurt was the main or the only breadwinner, so the family suddenly goes from having a stable income to one that is either unstable or nonexistent.
The emotional side
An injury to your spouse isn’t just about finances. Depending on the type of injury, it could also change your relationship and have a major emotional impact on your life.
For example, one thing that often happens after a traumatic brain injury is that someone’s personality can change. They may become more aggressive. They may act irritable. They may have trouble remembering who people are. They may just feel like a person that you barely know because their personality has shifted so significantly.
In fact, there are many cases in which a brain injury will eventually lead to divorce and the end of the marriage. As a result, an injury can clearly have an effect on you and your children, due to the ways in which your spouse’s life and personality may have changed in the wake of sustaining harm.
Exploring your options
As you can see, an injured spouse can have a massive impact on your future and your family life, not to mention your finances. As a result, you’ll want to make sure that you are well aware of all of your legal options if you aren’t already.