I am certainly not an expert, but it seems to me that if she has papers already drawn up, and has told you that it’s over, period. end, with no kind of prior discussion or warning, something (other man, other woman, she’s running a secret PCP lab, but SOMETHING) has got to be up, more than a simple growing apart or just general unhappiness…
I am truly sorry for you, and I wish nothing but the best future for both you and your children—I am sure you will be the world’s finest single father, and who knows, in a couple of years, this all may seem like a blessing in disguise.
Ed. The best piece of advice I can give you is to only take advice from someone that knows you very well. No one on the SDMB qualifies. This isn’t the type of situation where help from random strangers on a message board will actually do you any good.
I went through this about 18 months ago and we have two very young daughters. I was terrified beyond belief because I love them more than life itself and didn’t want to be a away from them and that is all that mattered. As a man and father, you have to realize that the tendency of the legal system and society in general is to make you pay dearly for this no matter who did what. It is just plain fucked up and backwards in that way and you have to get ready for it.
The best decision I made to was state upfront my most important terms to make the divorce go easily. The biggest one of those was child custody arrangements and that was a good decision. Those are hard to amend in most states once they are put into place so make that your first strike and primary tool. Insist on some type of joint custody up front and don’t even go into details if she is ignorant about future legal implications in your state. You can decide what is best for you but there are different types of joint custody with different rights and responsibilities. The mother usually gets physical custody if she wants it unless she shows up in court smoking two (probably not only one) crack pipes and can’t come up with a good lie about why she has them on her but you can put yourself in a much better advantage if you focus on what is important and use what you have.
She is your adversary now no matter what feelings the two of you still have for each other. It is a very serious legal game and you have to set the precedent early on if you want to end up with something fair to you and the children. Many men told the same thing to me that I said to you and I didn’t listen well enough because I trust my ex-wife and know she is a great person. Big mistake. Nver trust anyone, especially a mamma bear and her cubs when it comes to such matters. You will get fucked in ways that are banned from showing on the internet. It is an age-old tale.
The good news is that I did get it to work eventually because of some things I put in place early on. I wish I saw my kids every night but I have them parts of every weekend and can have them 3 week nights a week if schedules permit and sometimes more. She mainly takes care of the physical care and I get to have fun with them. Sounds like a winner to me.
Not all of us are total strangers. Many of us know him well in real life.
I have no advice, sadly. My divorce was really easy and amicable and mutual and we’re still close friends… but we had a weird situation, and not one that would translate here.
I’ll echo what others have said. Get it right early, the first time. Don’t try to be nice and make concessions to make things go easier. It will come back to haunt you. My boyfriend has been going through 6+ years of HELL with his ex-wife over custody issues for their 3 kids. During his plight, I have done a lot of research to try to help him and in my observation, the system is STACKED against fathers. It’s very not fair. That’s why you should start out seeking full custody, and go from there. Don’t just let your wife assume that the kids are going to automatically go with her. For example, does she take the kids with her when she goes to her parents’ house on the weekend?
The best scenario is that the two of you keep living in the same town, so you really can have the kids 50/50. The worst will be if she decides to move away. Good luck to you.
What he said. In fact, I suggest you stop reading this thread altogether. Although everyone means well, you don’t need to be hearing a lot of this right now. Forget this thread and go talk to a lawyer.
So how does one choose a lawyer? I’ve called my help line twice now and so far no call backs. I’m giving them until the end of the day and then I’ll have to find one on my own. But how do I know a good one, or one that knows what they are doing. I went through this once before, 10 years ago, and my exes lawyer couldn’t even spell so I’d like to avoid someone like that.
It’s especially hard if your marriage trained you to be terrified of doing anything to displease your spouse. If this is the case with you, get yourself into therapy NOW. Giving into your spouse because you’re used to it or because you’re afraid of him/her is a really bad thing to do when negotiating a divorce.
Baloney. He’s not going to automatically take the advice in this thread. He wants to hear what people have to say. It’s always good to hear about people’s perspectives and experiences, and I’m sure he’ll take everything that’s said with a grain of salt. I wish I had started a similar thread when I started wtih my divorce.
I would suggest finding an attorney who is AV Rated. Regardless of how things work out with your wife, you’ll need to figure out what your rights are and how the process is going to work. You really should meet with someone on your own even if you and your wife decide to do things in an amicable fashion.
I’m not certain about that. I would think that in this case, maybe advice from people who don’t know him and his wife might be better. Any close friends are going to be too close to the situation to be objective.
This is what I was thinking about, just wondering what people had gone through. Yes I’ve gone through a divorce before, but there were no kids and it was fairly easy. This one, not so much.
You can find family law practitioners in your area here. Bear in mind that M-H ratings are a bit, well, overrated - lots of excellent attorneys don’t have them, and lots of attorneys who were once good but are now practically senile are still AV rated.
Check to see how the Court situation is in your jurisdiction as far as how they handle matters of this type – is it totally adversarial, or are there such things as Collaborative Law and Case Management that one can take advantage of as well?
Both of these methods are being used in my jurisdiction. Collaborative Law is where the lawyers negotiate a settlement situation – you tell your lawyer what you want and what your fallback situation is on the issues and he and the other lawyer negotiate on behalf of the clients to try to get as many issues off the table before a Judge is involved. Once the Judge gets involved, they usually force a “down the middle” type of compromise, keeping the best interests of the children in mind.
In Case Management, a Judge is involved, and there are sessions with both individuals and their counsel. The Judge is there to facilitate compromise and to keep the parties informed of what the law states in regard to certain issues and what the latest jurisprudence in use is. The idea of the judge-moderated settlement is to finalize a settlement, so that if divorce is involved, all issues can be presented for a no-fault-type divorce to occur. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be used under this system because of the presence of a Family Court Judge, so it is often cheaper and the parties do get a document at the end that governs all the aspects associated with a breakup.
Re. Custody/Access: make sure that you are not taking on more than you can handle adequately. Getting “more time with the kids” should not be used as a weapon and viewed as a prize to be gained. I remember hearing of a situation where a dad wanted more access, but only because it was a way of sticking it to his ex. Once he got it, he didn’t know what to do with it since he often worked overtime, and this was for expanded evening access.
Re. Your Ex: keep it civilized, because you will probably be dealing with them at least until the kids are 18, and maybe even longer, because of school events and extra-curicular events. Don’t dis your ex in front of the kids, and understand now that no matter what it is she may or may not be doing behind your back, it is unlikely that this will be enough to erase her parental rights. She would have to be a proverbial crack whore for that to happen.
Re Your Kids: All you can really do is continue to love them, be honest when they ask questions (and the oldest will, for sure) but do not use them as pawns or weapons ever. Consider their best interests always.
I’ll agree with the vast majority of the advice so far regarding getting a lawyer ASAP. Even if you want it to be a cooperative relationship finding out what is possible and also what is likely in your jurisdiction is a very valuable tool.
Should this deteriorate take the high road when it comes to the kids. It took over a decade for the vitriol that my ex spewed to the kids to come back and bite him in the butt, but it did. It was a long hard decade of biting my tongue til it bled and always assuring the kids that I loved them and that Daddy was wrong but never retaliating with stories of his transgressions. The payoff is now that I have a great relationship with both of them and he gets little attention from my son and none from my daughter. I wish I’d done a better job of choosing their father but they’re amazing despite that.
I went through a divorce from the other end, I guess, being the one who wanted a divorce --(although there was no question, in his mind or mine, why the divorce was happening–he was abusive and he knew/admitted it).
Anyway, I’ll tell you what I’d tell anyone going through similar circumstances:
Get an attorney, and make sure you get a good one. It’ll be money well spent.
Understand that there are two types of custody (at least here in Indiana there are): physical and legal. Physical has to do with living arrangements and overnights; legal has to do with schools, medical decisions, that sort of thing. Negotiate for what you want. I have full legal and physical custody of my children; what I say goes, always. In your situation, it may be more appropriate to have a more equitable split.
Start paying child support pronto if it’s appropriate to your incomes and living situation. You can probably find a child support calculator online for your state, or get it set up as soon as you get an attorney. Document all payments. My ex ended up 22K in arrears because he failed to pay support from the get-go.
Document EVERYTHING…every bill, every payment, every every everything.
Remember that you both love the kids and that this will eventually passs. My ex and I will never be friends, but we are very flexible in our arrangements and do whatever we can to help each other out. And we never, ever badmouthed each other to the kids, even during the worst of it. We still co-parent to a pretty fair degree, and have better communication than we did when we were married, I think.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. It’s not easy, but it’s survivable, and you will come out on the other side of it. Take it day by day, and hang in there.
Best, karol
Just because your parents didn’t make it work doesn’t mean that it’s like that for everyone. She came out of the blue with this not compatible stuff and she can’t even give definitive examples. With such a vague reason for leaving it seems like a possibility they could work it out. There’s no reason for EtH to just give up at this point.
If they are truly incompatible then she should be able to provide a long list of reasons. In that case divorce may be the best thing. But in this case it seems like something external is triggering this (e.g. an old boyfriend reconnects on facebook).
If the only two people involved here were EtH and his wife it would be no big deal if she wanted to walk out the door. But there are kids involved. Don’t you think it’s worth taking some time to find out what the issues are and try to work through them? A divorce will last the rest of their lives. Why not take a few months to see if this can be fixed?
Hot tempered arguing, by itself, will generally not finish off a marriage with young children. Arguing and her having found a new penis (or potential penis) will. Assuming you and she are not actually coming to blows, unless there’s some other problem or bad behavior you haven’t mentioned, blowing out a marriage with toddlers is pretty serious business. The vast majority of the time in these type of scenarios there’s another man (or woman) involved in the background.
Re the kids there’s not much you can do. In the end 90% of the terms of the settlement and custody will be dictated by state child support regulations and State law. Get an attorney. In adversarial divorces (and this sure sounds like one) you are a world class fool if you don’t.
Two main rules
1: DO NOT GET INTO ARGUMENTS WITH HER!
Anything you say or do in her presence from this point forward will be used against you. If you raise your voice she can say she feels “threatened”, and you will be removed from the house in a wink by the police. This is a well known tactic called “spouse out of the house” when the man refuses to leave. She will bait you. Resist the temptation.
2: DO NOT GET DISGUSTED AND TO BUY PEACE YOU GIVE UP
a. PROPERTY - Don’t agree to ANYTHING unit custody is worked out
b. CUSTODY RIGHTS. Insist on 50/50. Do not let her jerk you around. Do not agree to any diminution of custody rights. You will need to fight on this. Eventually you will get less than 50/50, but starting from a lower posture makes your bargaining position much weaker.
As a side note you need to find out ASAP if she and her new lover intend on leaving the area, and what your rights are in your state in that scenario.
Okay. In retrospect, I take back … um, let’s say … half of my original vitriol.
My point still stands, that plenty of damage can be caused by two otherwise totally incompatible people continuing to put each other through hell so that their offspring grow up in one and not two houses. However, that may or may not be the case here, so I shouldn’t have been so harsh.
I will allow that there is a nonzero possibility of the OP and his wife finding some sort of reconciliation where the marriage can be salvaged. Having never met either of them, and only getting one side of the story, I really can’t give more precise odds than that.
E. The Head, they’re right, one person’s story from years ago doesn’t change the terms of what’s happening to you today. Have you and your wife had a chance to talk? Not just chit-chatting while fixing the kids’ dinner. Like, really sit down somewhere quiet and private and talk?
Ask her what’s up. I would guess that IF she still doesn’t tell you what’s going on, then her reaction still should tell you something.
This may sound cynical but I really would not waste a lot of sweat, or emotional anguish trying or imploring to get her to “talk” and be reasonable (from your perspective). Most of the time when a woman (or man) drops a bomb like this there’s typically been a huge amount of pre-planning over some period of time of strategy and tactics. You need to understand that she does not love you any more. Not at all. You are a bad memory she wants to expunge.
She’s in hardcore war mode right now and intends to win. You begging for a parley will be (I guarantee you) seen as a weakness she can exploit, not an opportunity to reconcile. If you have a bank account(s) you need to move the cash to a secure location or it will not be seen again. You’ve been hit with a body blow and it’s understandable you’re reeling and hurt, but you need to come to your senses ASAP or you will skinned alive.