My wife moved out this weekend

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Nope. The person with the best laywer loses the least. The only people who actually win are the lawyers. Am I right, Campion or Bricker?

I’m going to reserve all of the observations I’d like to make, and just say that prior experience on your part (assuming that your version of events is reasonably accurate) indicates that you are not a good judge of what is fair and equitable when it comes to your soon-to-be ex-wife, and nothing you’ve said here alters that opinion. You need someone to represent you legally to make certain that you are getting a fair agreement. It’s one thing to gnaw off your arm and abandon all furniture when it’s just you by yourself, but you have dependents who are relying on you to make good decisions for them, and you have an obligation to look out for their best interests. [ol][li]Get a lawyer.[/li][li]You don’t have to be nasty or vengeful about it, but establish what you expect, get it in writing, and stick to your guns.[/li][li]Establish and document an agreement regarding custody, residency, and responsibility for the children, pronto, that is in their best interests. (Do you seriously think that full-time residency with your ex-wife and her live-in boyfriend of “three to four weeks” is a good environment for your children? 'Cause that strikes me as fertile ground for years of emotional problems to me.)[/li][li]You’ve made every effort to reconcile with her, and she’s chosen to leave and has already hooked up with some guy who she’s living with. YOU…DO…NOT…OWE…HER…ANY…FINANCIAL…SUPPORT. Period. I predict that your lawyer will make this point to you within the first five minutes of discussing the situation.[/li][li]Get help. Seek counselling. No one in this type of situation is capable of making good decisions without an outside perspective, and your past behavior demonstrates an excessive willingness to be fleeced and immolated. You need someone–in real life, not on a message board–to give you in independent perspective on that.[/li][/ol]If for no other reason, do this for your children. Everything you describe about your wife indicates that she doesn’t have their best interests at stake; thus, it becomes your obligation. They’re what you should feel responsible for, not her.

End of sermon.

Stranger

22

What Stranger On A Train said.

~Tasha

23

Read what Stranger On A Train said several times. Every word of it is spot-on.

You are not the best judge of your wife’s intentions and motivations.

24

Only in the same sense the plumber “wins” when your sink breaks or the doctor “wins” when you get sick.

25

Thirded. You sound like a mature, reasonable, good person, Belrix, but for some reason, your soon-to-be-ex seems to just throw your good sense out the window.

26

I’ll add my sentiments to Stranger’s, and add that neglecting to follow his advice does your children a disservice. Your wife may not like you now, but that’s nothing compared to having your children hate you later for not being what they really needed – a father – when it counts.

27

Out of curiousity, how old are your kids? And I really think it is unfair, if she is the one who wants out of the marriage and if she is technically cheating on you (as you said, you are her legal husband), that she could get the kids 100% of the time along with your money. I understand that for financial reasons maybe it doesn’t make sense for the kids to live with her, but are your kids more likely to remember that Daddy always paid the child support on time or that Daddy left us here with Mommy shacking up with her boyfriend in the next room?

28

Listen to Jodi and Stranger on a Train. You seem to lack a self-preservation mode. I’m not advocating you being nasty, but helping your spouse’s new lover load up the moving van? Wow. Stop playing the martyr; it’s not becoming and it’s not healthy. She has “denounced” you getting custody? She lost her right to make sole decisions regarding the children when she left you. Fathers have rights, too, and you should exercise your rights, ESPECIALLY if it means that your children will be living in a house with a man whom you don’t know.

Kids don’t care if you have only a one-bedroom apartment. They want your attention and the stability that only you can offer.

Get yourself a lawyer. Preferably someone who is ballsy enough to hit you in the head with a 2 x 4 so that you come to your senses. You’ve given your wife everything you have and it wasn’t good enough. You’d better get some self-respect before you wake up out of the depression you’re in and realize you’ve been royally screwed and you helped her turn the screw.

29

Well, the situation is a little different–I’ll expand on that in a second–and despite the bumper-sticker brevity of the statement, I don’t intend it as a flippant remark.

When you call the plumber or doctor in, they’re fixing or repairing a problem. On the other hand, when you are engaging legal representation in a divorce (or the acrimonious dissolution of any partnership, romantic, business, or otherwise), the goal of your attorney should be to get you the most equitable settlement possible with the least harm done to your interests. There will be, barring a spontaneous manifestation of reasonableness, loss and damage, and so the goal shouldn’t be either to totally prevent it at any cost or respond with scorched earth tactics, but to minimize it as much as possible while extricating yourself from the relationship as expeditiously as possible.

With kids, this is seriously complicated, because short of obtaining full custody/no visitation, you still have to interact with this person, and try to do so in a manner that isn’t going to damage your children. I really don’t have any wisdom (nor, thankfullly, experience) on that, other than to throw it out there.

In short, the best metaphor for a divorce should be management and mitigation of harm, rather than winning a contest, because the harder you try to defeat the other party, the more it’s going to cost you. In the end, the lawyers are the only ones who walk away with more than they brought to the table.

Stranger

30

“In short, the best metaphor for a divorce should be management and mitigation of harm, rather than winning a contest, because the harder you try to defeat the other party, the more it’s going to cost you. In the end, the lawyers are the only ones who walk away with more than they brought to the table.”

Oh Stranger, that’s wonderful. I am going to try to remember that. Thanks.

31

I don’t want to pile on, but really, you gotta get a lawyer. Yes, obviously money is very tight for you right now- however, if there’s any way to borrow it or juggle something, you need to.

You may see your current course of action as making things easier on the kids, but it’s actually doing the opposite of that in the long run. There’s nothing quite like lawyers and court orders to protect your rights and your kids’ rights. I’m not saying your wife is a bad person or would ever deliberately harm the kids, but come on. Is she really an emotionally stable person? I don’t think so, from what you’ve said about her, and I don’t think that you think so, either. And the living with the boyfriend of 3 or 4 weeks with the children involved is a huge blinking neon sign and I can’t believe that you don’t see it. !!!

Get an attorney now.

32

It’s a tough decision. One of the things I learned from my Contracts professor in law school was that you really know something’s broken when they call in the lawyers. In my Negotiation class, which was joint-taught with the business school, during one exercise in which the law students were to act as the lawyers for the business students (who were masquerading as business owners), in something like a third of the negotiations, the business students kicked the lawyers out of the negotiation because the lawyers were counter-productive. In another third, the lawyers were sent out of the room “to negotiate”; but when the lawyers returned, the lawyers found that it had been a ploy by the business students to get them out of the way so a settlement could be reached.

The last third of the lawyers did what Stranger talked about: they put the interest of their client first, and found a way to maximize that interest while still permitting the client to maintain a relationship with his opponent. Because, see, in business, you generally get in fights with people that you still have to work with. The lawyers who figured out that the relationship was as or more important than the settlement, and who found a way to balance both, were the ones who were effective.

I don’t really have any basis to believe that lawyers in practice are much different than we were in law school. At the margins, there may be some improvement.

But the point (she finally gets to it!) is this, Belrix: if you shop around to find a lawyer who will work with you, who understands your goals, you will find things a whole lot better, even though it seems counterintuitive that a lawyer would improve the relationship. But there are a number of significant benefits to having a lawyer. First, the paperwork: anyone who’s gotten involved in a divorce, particularly involving kids, will tell you that there’s tons of paperwork. Lawyers thrive on paperwork.

Second, creativity: a lawyer who specializes in this kind of work may have creative solutions to your problems. That is, there may be ways to structure the deal that are legal, creative, benefit-maximizing, and that you wouldn’t have thought of.

Finally, farming out the heartbreak. I do feel for you; the emotions you go through when you break up with someone, or when your life changes as radically as it’s going to, they can make you a bit nutty. It helps if you have a professional who can help you through that. And I’m not just talking about Stranger’s point number 5, although I heartily endorse that as well. Lawyers are, in some respects, paid to help you sort through your feelings. When you’re feeling all vengeful, your lawyer can say, “Yeah, it probably would feel good to do that. But these are the adverse consequences to such actions: X, Y and Z. So maybe we should try something else.”

Anyway, good luck to you.

33

Belrix, I just wanted you to know that you’ve been in my thoughts lately. I know I was harsh with you, but it’s out of a genuince concern for you. If you were my friend IRL, my advice would be the same.

Hope you’re doing okay.