Getting Divorced - It is officially over! Done! Fini!

[KK]

Originally posted by: SaigonK
I have asked my soon to be ex not to talk to me about our divorce. It doesnt work for either one of us when we do.
We start talking about what we agree on, then it goes right into what we dont agree on and then it is a bickering match.

My lawyer is sending hers a letter to state our intentions.

Basically says that I am offering / asking for the following:

1. 50% time with my kids.
2, Shared residency
3. I will pay her $65 per week even though i have them 50% of the time and dont really need to pay any support.
4. I will keep the heath insurance, life insurance on them since mine is better.
5. I will pay for half of all "extra stuff" meaning sports, music, art classes, etc.
6. She can have half of my 401k.
7. She can have half of my stock options (if we can legally do that since I dont really own them until they mature in a year.)

I thought this was reasonable....we shall see what her attorney tells her or if she agrees.

Do you get any half of her stuff? Does she pay you 65 dollars for the time that you'll have your kids? I wouldn't go for this personally, but I have no idea if the courts are more slanted to the mothers, which I would be pissed if that was the case, which I believe it is unfortunately. Does she have a job? If she doesn't then I could see half of the 401k and options.

KK

 

[SaigonK]

[/quote] Do you get any half of her stuff? Does she pay you 65 dollars for the time that you'll have your kids? I wouldn't go for this personally, but I have no idea if the courts are more slanted to the mothers, which I would be pissed if that was the case, which I believe it is unfortunately. Does she have a job? If she doesn't then I could see half of the 401k and options. KK[/quote]


I wont get any half of her stuff, i dont want it. She wont have to pay me at all when I have the kids.
You wouldnt go for it as the woman or as me? I thought it was q hell of a deal, more than about 90% of the ex husbands offer to their wives. Fairness is the key, she needs to be fair in the same way. She may use catch phrases like "the best interest of the children" and "what is best for the girls", but I dont think she really means it more than "I have the controla nd you do not hubby!".

It is sad to see this, but each day it becomes more and more obvious that she is unwilling to budge and that she really feels that seeing my kids 48 days a year is fair to them and me.
She feels that i should get them every other weekend and then once during the week...thats insane..her arguement is that she doesnt want them to bounce around form house to house, but this would be exactly what she is facilitating. Go figure eh?

 

[SaigonK]

Well, I think it is now a battle of wills. She seems to be doing more and more stuff to change things in the house for my "inevitable leave" the one she thinks I will be doing soon enough.
Unfortunately for her, we go to our first meeting before the court on the 9th of February, at that time we state what we do and do not agree upon.

I honestly think she believes that that is when we will get a decision or something, that is really when they tell us we have to go to mediation, which wont be for at least another month or so after that date, probably sometime in March! All that time I will still be living here in the house. I can hold out for as long as it takes.

She is also getting DSL instead of using the cable modem we have. To quote her "it is free for 30 days and then if it works, I can turn off the cable modem to save money", my response is no you cannot.
I need it for work, and I am not using DSL, since it sucks here, the last time we tried it it would not work but 50% of the time, too far from the colo if I remember correctly.

Anywho...i tried to explain to her that DSL from Verizon is $30 a month, and that if she drops to the basic cable (you can do that if you dont want Inet access here) then that is still $22 a month.
For a total of: $52 per month. Right now we split the cable bill....50/50 so I pay $45 and she pays $45...hell i even told her I would pay for the whol thing until we work out the divorce...but DSL and VPn form work dont go well togethor and she knows I need to use it.

I think it is a way for her to try and "move on" with her life as it were, a way to get one more thing changed from the way our lives were to her new life as she sees it...go figure..why be thrifty right?
She has even moved the TV and Entertainment center and packed them away in the shed so that she can put in the TV she bought in place of it, I asked her why and she said because its my TV, and I told her to stop moving stuff around, and that i would be putting things back that she packaged up of mine, she thinks that she is going to get the apartment and that I will be out soon, but she may get the apartmentin the end, but that isnt now and so I still have rghts to do what i want as well.


Plus she thinks that at mediation she can ask for someone to be appointed custody of the kids so that I can move out without giving up my rights...I calmly informed her that mediation in this state is completely voluntary and that I would have to agree to what she wanted..and I told her unless she agrees to what i asked for she can forget it.

Sorry for the rant, just didnt make sense to me..

 

[ProUser]

Reason to never, ever get married or to get an iron-clad pre-nup:

"
6. She can have half of my 401k.
7. She can have half of my stock options (if we can legally do that since I dont really own them until they mature in a year.)
"

What a tough world it must be, where you can marry someone - decide you don't want to be with them anymore, and walk away with half of THEIR savings.

 

[StageLeft]

I've not read much on this but your wife seems like a bitch of a woman, to be rubbing it in like this and packing up your stuff. Your kids can't possibly enjoy watching their parents like this.

 

[SaigonK]

We dont really argue in front of them, which is good.
We tend to have our "discussions" at night when they are in bed, then we are in another part of the apartment.

I know it isnt like they wouldnt hear us if they tried, but it is the best that can be in such a situation.

Tonight we had another arguement, she is being overbearing and wont let me do anything with the girls during the week. So I told her that I would like to start setting up a schedule, that i could pick them up and get them ready two night and she could do twonights. Her response is always the same..."No that isnt best for the girls...I wont do it....." So now I am going to have to play the covert plan. I am going to leave work early every dayand pick up my daughters each night before she gets out of work.
My job allows me all kinds of leeway in this manner, so I can do it anytime I want. I will just get up a little bit earlier each day and then work on getting the kids of to school with her, she cannot say no so she is out of luck. She also cannot tell me that i cant pick up the girls and bring them home each night.

She also thinks that we wont be living togethor in a month, but she is wrong there, I am not agreeing to move out and she can kiss my ass now that she fought with me tonight. Shea always throws out that "it is about the money for me" but sure enough she says she will be asking for a financial review of my income for the last three years, since I did jobs on the side. Of course she also throws out there that i sols stock and that money never went to the family, and that I took a loan against my 401k and that the family never saw that money. She forgets that we had bills to pay, that I was paying her car loan, the rent. al lthe groceries, the daycare, all the phone, electric, cable, my credit cards, my car loan, any money she wanted to buy things, all the Xmas gifts and birthday gifts, etc. She was unemployed...no job at all, waiting for the pefect workplace to come along...

I supported her sorry behind while she was in college as well..she can go on dreaming that she can prove I had some extra income out there...she wont find a dime of it...it was spent on keeping our selve above water. How soon she forgets that she broke down and had a meltdown because she couldnt pay the bills, I had to take everythign over because she couldnt even figure out how to pay the damn cable bill on time....what an ass she is during this time.

Maybe i should have my lawyer send her lawyer legal requests every other day of the week so that she has to respond and get charged..see how she likes that sh!t, paying her lawyer $100 an hour to answer a letter.

 

[kenshorin]

Man that ish blows man... she's being an unreasonable bizatch who, like you said earlier, is using the buzzwords "its not in the best interest of the girls" when what she really is saying is "its not in MY best interest".

If you come down to Boston, I'll buy you a :beer:... best of luck, hope the lawyers straighten this shiz out.

 

[Ciber]

You know i always saw those stories on the news about men that flip out and kill their wives and always wondered why they didn't just leave instead.


After reading all the divorce/wife threads this week i completely understand why those guys whacked them. Hell, i'm surprised half the guys that started these divorce/wife threads haven't killed the crazy bitches they married. I mean wow... Seems some of the guys on these forums married the biggest bitches on the face of the earth.

I give you guys credit, if i had a wife like the ones you guys do, i would of probably killed her already and then killed myself, of course. Sure my life would be over, but i'd go out with a big smile from the pleasure of getting rid of such a evil bitch.

 

[StageLeft]

After reading all the divorce/wife threads this week i completely understand why those guys whacked them.

Man I was thinking the exact same thing! To be with somebody for so long and then have them turn on you in such a way...so vindictive, and just beating while you're down. It's not right!

 

[Armitage]

"It's all about the money for you"
Yea, I've heard that sh|t before also. My situation was/is suprisingly similar to yours ... paid all the bills, supported her through school, through paying off her huge credit card debt, etc. Never said a thing about it or did anything to make her feel indebted to me in any way, even as she still racked up debt even though she didn't pay the bills. Now that she's decided she doesn't want to be married anymore, if I ever dare mention money or property, then it's "all about the money for you". No it's not, but I'll damn well do what I can to not take the shaft completely in this deal.

God luck to you Saigon. Keep your cool
Armitage

 

[Balthazar]

Man, its crap like this that makes me not in the least hurried to find someone.

They have their benefits yeah, but, man, I can think of few things and emotionally wrenching as a women in your life.
Last girl I went out with seriously, was just, totally off. I was young so was she, but....man, that stops being an excuse at a certain point.

I cannot imagine how it feels to have someone thats close to you just turn on you. I mean after a year or so it was bad enough, and it wasn't intentional in our case. She's intentionally trying to hurt you, that just SUCKS.

 

[Adul]

wow.

:beer:


hang in there and dont bug an inch.

 

[dirtboy]

Originally posted by: SaigonK

2. She came to me tonight to discuss life insurance and how we should both put our children on as beneficiaries. I agree with her, she was my beneficiary but I will change it to my kids.

Dumb idea. Unless your children are 18 years old they CANNOT legally take reception of the money. It will be up to the courts to decide. It is always best to make the person taking care of your children the beneficiary and then when they are 18 you can make them the beneficiaries. Just something to consider...

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: dirtboy

Originally posted by: SaigonK

2. She came to me tonight to discuss life insurance and how we should both put our children on as beneficiaries. I agree with her, she was my beneficiary but I will change it to my kids.

Dumb idea. Unless your children are 18 years old they CANNOT legally take reception of the money. It will be up to the courts to decide. It is always best to make the person taking care of your children the beneficiary and then when they are 18 you can make them the beneficiaries. Just something to consider...

no,it's best to name a person to have actual physical custody of the children and to name another person to have control over the money.This protects the children's fiscal interests and it also protects their caregiver from accusations of using the children's funds to feather their own nests.

It is important when choosing people to try to get a caregiver and fiscal executer who's viewpoints are as close to your own as possible.It's also important to try to pick two folks who will work well with each other in meeting the best interests of your children.

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: ergeorge
"It's all about the money for you"
Yea, I've heard that sh|t before also. My situation was/is suprisingly similar to yours ... paid all the bills, supported her through school, through paying off her huge credit card debt, etc. Never said a thing about it or did anything to make her feel indebted to me in any way, even as she still racked up debt even though she didn't pay the bills. Now that she's decided she doesn't want to be married anymore, if I ever dare mention money or property, then it's "all about the money for you". No it's not, but I'll damn well do what I can to not take the shaft completely in this deal.

God luck to you Saigon. Keep your cool
Armitage

I've heard that line but from the other end with a husband who conviently forgot come divorce time that each of our children were discussed and planned,that difficult pregnancies and a disabled child would negatively impact my earning power for life.

Why should the lifelong negative earnings hit caused by pregancy and child rearing occuring within a marriage be born solely by the woman come divorce time?

My ex has not seen our son in about 1 yr,his choice,his total fiscal contribution to the boy's welfare
is under $500 for the year(he does not provide health insurance or any other benefits).His idea of active parenting involves occasionally showing up at IEP meetings wagging his fingers in the faces of the professionals and announcing that our son will not be medicated and that long range planning for assisted living won't be needed because "we" will take care of it.


Who is this "we" of which you speak Willis? Lol,I thought he was going to punch me in the face when I asked that question

I can appreciate the pain of getting screwed in a divorce,I do want to mention though that it's not just men on the receiving end of a bend over,it can and does happen to women and even worse it happens to the kids,the people most lacking in any kind of power in these situations.

 

[Medea]

This is not meant to criticize, but look at the 50-50 custodial arrangement carefully. It makes the parents feel good, but not necessarily the kids. I don't know how old your kids are, but examine the time period you'll be splitting.

For example, say you'll be splitting a week. It can be hectic with a 4-day period with Mom and a 3-day period with Dad or vice-versa. Who will have the kids on the weekends? Are you willing to live very close to your ex? You'll have to live relatively close so the both of you will be in the same school district. If they take a school bus, you would have to plan to live pretty close to your ex so you can arrange for them to take the same bus everyday so they can be with their friends. Obviously, issues regarding their peer socialization development is a totally separate area to consider.

Don't forget to cover the holidays as well as everyone's birthdays and Mother's/Father's Day. Usually, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve/Day are split, i.e., Mom has the kids on Thanksgiving this year while Dad has them for Christmas - next year, it rotates.

Someone mentioned life insurance. It is essential that each parent gets life insurance on his/her life with the children as sole beneficiaries with a trustworthy person as the trustee.

Make sure that the parent (with whom the child is staying with at the time) has full decision-making authority in cases of emergencies. Figure out how you're going to handle non-emergency medical issues. If something happens to one of the parents, then obviously the arrangement will change from a joint custodial to a visitation and needs to be addressed.

If it's important, it needs to be decided what religion the kids will be. You may want to consider inserting a grandparental visitation clause in the stipulation/agreement, especially if something happens - e.g., if Parent A dies, then a clause might be inserted so that Parent A's parents will get visitation.

You've got a lot of issues to consider. I wish you luck.

 

[Balthazar]

Originally posted by: Geekbabe

Originally posted by: dirtboy

Originally posted by: SaigonK

2. She came to me tonight to discuss life insurance and how we should both put our children on as beneficiaries. I agree with her, she was my beneficiary but I will change it to my kids.

Dumb idea. Unless your children are 18 years old they CANNOT legally take reception of the money. It will be up to the courts to decide. It is always best to make the person taking care of your children the beneficiary and then when they are 18 you can make them the beneficiaries. Just something to consider...

no,it's best to name a person to have actual physical custody of the children and to name another person to have control over the money.This protects the children's fiscal interests and it also protects their caregiver from accusations of using the children's funds to feather their own nests.

It is important when choosing people to try to get a caregiver and fiscal executer who's viewpoints are as close to your own as possible.It's also important to try to pick two folks who will work well with each other in meeting the best interests of your children.

Thats not very likely to happen in real life though.
Unless I mistook what your saying, your suggesting that he select two different people to be responsible for his children in the event that he passes away.
One to handle the children, one to handle the money.

The problem is, he can pick who gets the money. He has no say in who gets the kids. Assuming his soon-to-be-ex is still alive, she gets them, period. And there seems to be little to no chance in hell that he would ever see eye to eye with her viewpoint. And short of his parents or another family member theres probably not a whole lot of people you can trust with that kind of fiscal responsibility. Anyone else is likely to either be manipulated by his ex, or to be untrustworthy of such a monetary sum.

Incedentally inserting a "grandparents clause" into the agreement usually holds pretty low merit in court, so long as she doesnt protest it it would hold, but if she decided she didnt want it that way anymore, it wouldnt be hard to undo....at least out here.

If his ex was gone too then the odds of what your saying becoming a reality are alot greater, but, I just don't see what you mean otherwise.

Also, and this might just be out here, wasn't there a few cases of a deceased parents life insurance beneficiary being sued by the surviving parent for a portion of the insurance money? I can't site any specific cases, but I could have sworn I've read about a few instances where people sucessfully won a percentage of the life insurance benefits on the ground that they constituted wages the deceased would have otherwise earned, and therefore paid a percentage of to child-support.

 

[Medea]

I suggested a grandparental clause specifically within a hypothetical of one parent's death. Obviously, it's not necessary if both parents are alive and well. BTW, since this would be an agreement/stipulation of settlement, the parties can, for the most part, draft it to reflect their entire agreement.

Make sure your attorney is experienced in divorce law. By way of an example - in NY, if the parties do not address an issue that is deemed to be "foreseeable", it will later be deemed to be waived. I believe that Maine is similar.

 

[SaigonK]

Thanks for the tips, it is a pain in the ass to see this happen around me, but that islife and you have to deal with it as you can.

The insurance part will be going to a trust, that wold work best for all of us, that way thekids get the money and we dont have to argue about who is best to handle it all, we pick someone togethor and it is done.
I am for paying ofr insurance, I am paying for support, and I am paying for the things that they need in whatever for they need them. It just bewilders me to think that she feels i only care about the money.

A statement of hers tonight was that, and I quote, "you dont realize that i dont want your money, that all i want is the kids and you can just go away and not come back".
My response was that "I dont want the oney either, i want to see my daughters, and if you tink its baout the money, then you are wrong..I would have left by now and been done with it."

Her aguement for me at times has been that she has done all the work rearing the children, that she gets them up for school, takes them to art class, etc. That i wouldnt do it all the time, and that she has had to be self sufficient. My rebuttal is that she is an over bearing soul, that if you dont do things exactly the way she wants them, then she just takes over and pushes you out of the picture. I am the one who has the better job and income, she has NEVER been asked to get a beter job other than when she says she wants a house from me. I accept that i am the bread winner, and that she is the one who has more time to tie up the other end of the house.

She feels my change is just to get out of the support, and I have let her know that I may not have been all that she wanted me to be, but for my kids I will do whatever it takes, and she doesnt have to agree or believe it, thats just how it is for me. That she can do whatever she wants, but when it comes to the kids I am not giving up simply because she wants me to. I just hate the fact that she throws out the money all the time, that she is going to ask for an audit of my bank records, that I must have made more money than she knew about...she forgets all the bills and what not that we have incurred that HAD to be paid.

I think that now I am calling my lawyer in the morning and we are going to get down to some serious fighting, I am through being nice to her, she can drop dead for all i care.

I sent her anoffer letter about 1 week ago, it stated that if she agrees to my terms then I will move out, but not a day sooner ot a day later.
I want 50% custody of the kids, shared residency, and I will pay the neccesary support, etc. When i told her that she was going to have to live with me being her for up to years on end, she stated that "you wont be living here, you said in your paperwork that you would move out" I said read it again, if you are agreeing to my terms then yes I will move out tomorrow, but nothing else...so I will be staying in the house , no exceptions, that she can move out if she wants to.

 

[Buttzilla]

just wanted to say stay strong man. you have alot of support here and take advantage of whatever support you can get cause you can never get enough.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

After reading all the divorce/wife threads this week i completely understand why those guys whacked them.

Man I was thinking the exact same thing! To be with somebody for so long and then have them turn on you in such a way...so vindictive, and just beating while you're down. It's not right!

I've learned that a woman can completely change overnight. Its like they become a completely different person. And here we see another classic example. They can be completely loving and supportive and then they just snap and go off the deep end.

 

[Zombie]

What is the point of all this nonsense? Just move out and be done with it.

 

[maziwanka]

interesting read.

 

[conjur]

You are keeping a journal, right, of the things she says and does? Esp. when it concerns limiting your time with your children? Her psychotic behaviour will not be looking nicely upon by a judge.

And, either kick your lawyer to get moving or dump her. Maybe cuz she's a woman she's being sympathetic to your ex? This is your life and your relationship with your kids. It's not worth screwing around with a lame-ass lawyer!

 

[boomer6447]

I'm going through the same thing...Be warned...even if she agrees to joint physical custody in writing, she can at anytime petition the courts for full custody.....Child custody is never written in stone and is always contestable...
I have already worked out the child custody in my ongoing divorce-from-hell, and it's already been filed with the courts, but either one of us can go back and re-argue that..

Also, don't settle for joint legal custody...that is bullshit, and only the most pathetic of people DON'T get joint legal custody...it basically doesn't mean a thing when it comes to spending time with your children...

Good luck...