Am I being contradictory here? (ex-wife related)

In My Humble Opinion
21

Wow. I’ve confided in a few people about the financial arrangements my ex-to-be and I agreed to, and most of them have reacted with shock. One actually said, “You got screwed.”

But, I gotta tell you, I feel a lot better about my situation after reading about yours, Belrix. At least I’m confidant there aren’t things waiting to bite me on the ass. Best wishes, sorry I don’t have anything more to add. If I did, it would definitely be in the “Pay and get out” vein as above. That’s essentially what I’ve done.

22

Well, for what it’s worth, I just talked with the state department of revenue. The ones that want $1000 for back taxes.

They’re going to send a note to the ex-wife confirming with her that, in fact, she’s half-responsible for the past taxes. While it doesn’t insulate me from possible attempts to collect her half, it will confirm with her that the state considers her responsible, too. The state employee was very understanding of my situation and actually advised I not pay the full amount until after this step was completed.

In the meantime, they extended the deadline to pay and gave me enough info to follow through with my side of the transaction.

23

Belrix, I don’t know if these will help, but it’s worth a shot for getting your name off that credit card: Consumerist.com’s How to Be a Customer Service Ninja and How to Launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Do what you can, pay if you absolutely have to, and get done.

Good luck.

24

Something doesn’t sound right here. I think that you are still hanging on. Your financial affairs are never going to be yours, because you keep asking her permission, what she feels like doing, etc… Pray tell, why on earth did you call her to tell of your alleged refund? You didn’t waste any time handing over 1/2 of your 2007 refund either, did you, because “she felt entitled to it.” She called a lawyer, you called… her.

sigh… It looks terminal to me.

Just in case I’m wrong, If you really want to do what’s sensible, pay the taxes, and then take her to small claims court for her half.

25

If it makes you feel better, I have the same problem and I’m still married. Haha. Every year I have to come up with a bunch of money to pay our taxes. If there’s a shortage somewhere, I have to pay it.

At the same time, it’s likely that when our “rebate” check comes, she’ll probably put the touch on me for her share.

Still, it’s my choice to file jointly, and it’s generally advantageous for me to do so. Also, she has pointed out that I have a vested interest in her civil service pension benefit.

Being married to somebody is like . . . being married to them. Sometimes I have a hard time seeing why gays have been agitating so hard for marriage. Why would anyone volunteer to have more fighting and less sex?

26

[QUOTE=greatshakes]
Something doesn’t sound right here. I think that you are still hanging on. Your financial affairs are never going to be yours, because you keep asking her permission, what she feels like doing, etc… Pray tell, why on earth did you call her to tell of your alleged refund? You didn’t waste any time handing over 1/2 of your 2007 refund either, did you, because “she felt entitled to it.” She called a lawyer, you called… her.

sigh… It looks terminal to me.

Just in case I’m wrong, If you really want to do what’s sensible, pay the taxes, and then take her to small claims court for her half.
[/QUOTE]

I’m only hanging on as much as her yanking me around requires, IMO.

I saw the 2004 return problem as a joint problem - it was a joint return. That’s why I called her. For 2007, she was married to me legally for the entire year, we filed jointly (which makes sense from a $$ point of view) and split the return.

From her half of that return, I deducted almost $450 that she owed me, though, as payback for expenses we agreed to split (which she didn’t pay) and to reimburse me for property she pawned without my permission.

If fought in court, the judge would’ve given her half - that’s what judges do.

One thing that she had during the whole divorce process was the threat of alimony, something the lawyer told me was a strong possilbity. 10-years as a stay-at-home mom carries a lot of weight with the courts. Alimony for half that stay-at-home duration is common.

Keeping her happy while appearing to be giving up enough was a balancing act to avoid 5 years or more of alimony payments.

I still have to manage my relationship with her, she and I have to act jointly as parents to our children. Creating animosity by suing her, though I have stated the threat to her, is something I’d like to stay away from. An article I read suggests that nearly half of all women fight their ex-husbands by restricting access to their children and courts usually side with the women during these kinds of issues.

If there were no children, I could be a little more brutal but unfortunately, that’s quite the card she holds.

27

Pay the IRS and move on. It’s petty & stupid to be calling lawyers @ $ 200 an hour for a few hundred in dispute.

BTW was there an attorney involved structuring in your split, because you have more loose ends in your divorce settlement than anyone I’ve ever heard of.

28

[QUOTE=astro]
Pay the IRS and move on. It’s petty & stupid to be calling lawyers @ $ 200 an hour for a few hundred in dispute.

BTW was there an attorney involved structuring in your split, because you have more loose ends in your divorce settlement than anyone I’ve ever heard of.
[/QUOTE]

The only loose ends that I see is the problem with debts that aren’t spelled out in the papers: the back taxes and the cell-phone - both of which appeared after the gavel fell.

The credit card she won’t pay is spelled out clearly as her responsibility in the papers. The problem is that she’s not meeting that responsibility. My options are to nag and badger her until she does pay it or drag her back to court in an attempt find find her in contempt of court for violating the orders. After which she’d be ordered to pay the bill and I’d be right back to where I was before.

It’s one thing to spell out responsibilities, it’s another to make people meet them.

29

You have to get your name off that credit card. HAVE to. If you have to take out a loan, pay off the card, and take her to court for the money, get your name off that card. That stupid little credit card has the potential to ruin you and your new wife’s finances for a long, long time to come.

30

[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
Pay and get out.

Pay and get out.

Pay and get out.
It doesn’t matter if you have to eat ramen noodles for the next year. It doesn’t matter if you have to re-sole your own shoes with used bubble gum. It doesn’t matter if you have to tell the ladies that BO is all the rage.

It doesn’t matter if you’re over her or not. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It doesn’t matter how she paints the picture to the kids or her family or even your family.

It also doesn’t matter that, in my own opinion, you seem more than a little vindictive and past the time to move on.

What DOES matter is that she can spend money and leave you on the hook for it, regardless of her intentions or lack thereof.

What DOES matter is that who is “right” and “wrong” (and no one ever is, in these circumstances) is entirely secondary to the fact that the credit bureaus (much like George Thoroughgood’s landlady in “One Bourboun, Oned Scotch, ONe Beer”) don’t give a shit, long as they get their money next Friday.

So pay it off. If you want to use it as a passive-aggressive little club later on in what’s left of your relationship, go right ahead, but there’s no sense in paying interest on that club, which is what you’re doing right now.
[/QUOTE]

I hate to say this but “Quoted for the Truth”.

I was married twice. I have dealt with your situation but with two different people. One I had children with the other I had debt with.

I have two pieces of advice.

The first being that the debt is the easier animal to tackle and the above advice it good. Being rid of it basically means getting rid of her as a wife/ex-wife.

The second being that I know where you are coming from and I can hear it in your posts but try not to look at it as “having to deal with her”. That is what I did and let me tell you it has made it a very long twenty years. I should have let go of the resentment years ago. I know that is a lot easier said than done.

It does not matter how you felt about her as your wife, how you feel about her as an ex-wife or how you feel about her as a person. Your right to even care about those things are over. The faster you let that go the better off you will be.

The only thing that you have the right to care about now is how she is as a mother. That is the bottom line. If she is a good mother and a good parent than count your blessings and let go of all the rest. In the end that is the only thing that is going to matter for the next 15 years until the kids are raised to adults.

31

[QUOTE=featherlou]
You have to get your name off that credit card. HAVE to. If you have to take out a loan, pay off the card, and take her to court for the money, get your name off that card. That stupid little credit card has the potential to ruin you and your new wife’s finances for a long, long time to come.
[/QUOTE]

Boy, don’t I wish it was this easy. I don’t have a spare $2500 laying around to cover this and even if I did, what obligation does she have to pay me back? What’s my basis for taking her to court and recovering my “loss”.

I’m going to talk with her in the upcoming weeks and get some plans made. We have to start preparing for the change in custody that’s scheduled (I’m finally getting my kids 50% of the time. Yay!). I’m going to bring this CC up again, then. If I pay it and subtract it from her payments from me, which we already do with her auto, then I know it’s getting paid.

She’ll fight me on it but it’s the same money, right? Either way, it’s the sum is the same whether she sends the money or I do. Maybe I can convince her it’s all just the same.

As far as her mothering, I’m not sure she’s doing right there either. Since she left me in January '07, there’s been two live-in boyfriends. The first moved in after three weeks of dating, left three months later. He was a deadbeat and stole from my children, taking my son’s Nintendo DS and, most likely a few other objects. This new one seems dull but OK - they’re deeply committed, she says.

She’s hinting at a wedding in June but, last I heard, they’re not really engaged yet. At least she dated this one for two or three months or so before he moved in.

Ever since she’s moved in with this boyfriend, she’s stopped going to church (hard, I suppose, to stand there in church with the guy you’re shacking up with and pretend to Christian). Her language, I’ve noticed, has gone to pot and she’s swearing in front of the children all the time. She’s probably swearing at them, too.

32

[QUOTE= Belrix]
Boy, don’t I wish it was this easy. I don’t have a spare $2500 laying around to cover this and even if I did, what obligation does she have to pay me back? What’s my basis for taking her to court and recovering my “loss”.
[/QUOTE]

It is that easy. Get the money, from a friend or a bank or from working overtime or from WHEREVER. Anywhere you get the money from is going to be better than having both the credit bureaus and your wife in your life in this capacity.

For the other questions in this quote, since I am not your lawyer, the best I can do is to strongly advise you to GET A LAWYER.

And even if you don’t like lawyers, at least you have assurances that the job is done.

[QUOTE= Belrix]
I’m going to bring this CC up again, then. If I pay it and subtract it from her payments from me, which we already do with her auto, then I know it’s getting paid.
[/QUOTE]

Again, since I am not your lawyer, the best I can do is to strongly advise you to GET A LAWYER.

[QUOTE= Belrix]
She’ll fight me on it but it’s the same money, right? Either way, it’s the sum is the same whether she sends the money or I do. Maybe I can convince her it’s all just the same.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe you can and maybe you can’t- but again, your creditor’s don’t care whose money they get, as long as they get their money. They don’t care if you’re talking with your wife or not. They don’t care if she’s a solvent creditor as long as YOU ARE. They don’t care if she’s a good person or not, as long as they get paid.

[QUOTE= Belrix]
As far as her mothering, I’m not sure she’s doing right there either. Since she left me in January '07, there’s been two live-in boyfriends. The first moved in after three weeks of dating, left three months later. He was a deadbeat and stole from my children, taking my son’s Nintendo DS and, most likely a few other objects. This new one seems dull but OK - they’re deeply committed, she says.

She’s hinting at a wedding in June but, last I heard, they’re not really engaged yet. At least she dated this one for two or three months or so before he moved in.

Ever since she’s moved in with this boyfriend, she’s stopped going to church (hard, I suppose, to stand there in church with the guy you’re shacking up with and pretend to Christian). Her language, I’ve noticed, has gone to pot and she’s swearing in front of the children all the time. She’s probably swearing at them, too.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, dude, but NONE OF THIS IS IMPORTANT when it comes to the debt. And your continued bringing it back to this makes it look like you want sympathy, or to bury your head in the sand, or that you think there might be an out somewhere because you feel like she done you wrong. It doesn’t matter. In the immortal words of “Goodfellas,”

[QUOTE= Henry Hill]
He gets his money no matter what. You got no business? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning and World War Three started in the lounge? Fuck you, pay me.
[/QUOTE]

You don’t like your wife. We get that. Your creditors may even get that. “Fuck you, pay me.” It has nothing whatsoever to do with who the nicer person is.

Quit burying your head in the sand. Quit trying to get the moral high ground. Make some sacrifices and get yourself clear of this debt, then collect yourself if you’re so inclined. But as for right now, swallowing your pride and borrowing a couple thousand beats the hell out of any alternative that you’re pretending exists right now.

33

Borrow against your 401k to pay off the debts, including the car if at all possible. It’s not the best financial move you could make, but it sure beats the dings on your credit report - or having your wages garnished to pay off the debt.

Don’t be surprised if, a few years down the road, you get nailed by further creditors for debts you were unaware were racked up by your ex during your marriage.*

*I know this because of my jackass no-job-having deadbeat ex-husband. Gotta love debts I didn’t even know existed coming out of the woodwork because I’m gainfully employed… :frowning:

34

Sorry, I lost track of this thread. Happy Scrappy has it exactly right - I feel badly for you, Belrix, that this is a part of your life, but this is still your debt. Your ex-wife won’t go for you taking the money off her alimony, because she has no intention of paying it off. You can pay it now at $2500, or you can pay it later when it goes up from the interest. Never mind your name not coming off while the card is in arrears; your name is not coming off this card until the balance is paid in full and the card cancelled. That’s why I suggested Small Claims Court - you have a chance of getting some money back that way, but the debt is still your responsibility because she simply won’t take it.

Please, talk to lawyers/ financial advisors about this. This has the potential to affect your credit rating for many years to come - every time the payment is late, you get a note on your credit report. The thought of having a person like your ex affecting my finances would make me do whatever it took to get her the hell away from my credit rating.