Ex was sent letter from my lawyer

[blindsided]

Hi its been a while just thought i would update. Well hired my lawyer he sent a letter to ex yesterday (at work) cause i dont know his address, stating that he should retain a lawyer and contact mine by June 30 to settle ss cs and property.

Well of course that went over just as i suspected. My older son works with ex so he got my sons cell and called me on mine. and all he did was yell and scream asking what i wanted and i told him just what i was entitled to, what was stated in letter.

So he's yelling he doesnt have money, hmm well he makes 30+ thousand working part time.

I make 10 thousand trying to keep up with mortgage pay line of credit of 30 thousand and house and feed his two teen age kids one works parttime with ex and the other one in full time college,with no help from ex.

So he's yelling and saying that im getting nothing and i better find money cause he's going to drag this out in court.

I just started working, getting my life back on track relizing im alot better without him, after him having 3 affairs and he's still not giving me any respect.

Now i believe he also lives with the one he left me for (call her the one because i cant call someone like that a woman). So they have a good combined income.

So what im wondering is how should i deal with this cause i dont have the money to fight him if should say he will drag this out.

How will the judge look at this as him not being reasonable?
Can i ask that he pay for my cost if he drags it out?

He hasnt helped out with nothing since he left a year ago May. Not a dime.
We were together for 22 year total married 14 years.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

[billm]

You stated your incomes and your child situation. What did you ask for with respect to SS and CS? Do you work full time?

Congratulations on the emitional side, it is not easy to get to that place that feels like a better place.

[blindsided]

My lawyer said table says 280.for child and 400. for ss yes i just started full time job only $10hr but i have been on disability for past 10years. so its all new to me but its a start.

Yes now i see im better off without hm it took a year to see it but i can tell im doing better without him, not worried of what mood he's going to be in, getting more confidence in myself. not nervous. Now i can see how much he bullied me, just like when he phoned yesterday but i have to stand my ground and stick with it. Even his mother said it was about time i did something.

[Leila]

Seems to me like many men live in fear of paying spousal support ~ it's like their worst nightmare. Like how on Earth would they have to keep paying their cold hard cash on someone they have just tossed out like yesterday's trash? The mother of their children no less. Maybe they shoulda thought of those implications beforehand. It's emotional blackmail, believe me I just went thru it myself. I'm pretty convinced my Peach of an Ex is going to be moving his little 2nd reality bimbo in here as soon as my daughter and I leave. Like he is going to live with NO COUCH, NO TV, etc. etc.? And he's 'broke' but is going to renovate the house....it's just not adding up. Stick to your guns~ married for 14 years!! You can probably take half his pension for the duration of the time you were married. My stepfather's ex did just that! You wanna play you gotta pay!

[lawchanger]

Enough already Leila, not all stories are like your's. How about the men making these payments when their wives left with outout a word and now expect to be paid SS for the rest of their lives because they feel in their minds they are entitled to it.

[DADCANTWIN]

Sorry Leila about your situation and I understand you are angry! However, sometimes the marriage ends. Its the angry woman like you that give the divorce lawyers fuel to continue the fight. I offered my ex what i believed to be a "fair" deal. She thought otherwise and we fought for 3 yrs. After $30,000 in legal her NET gain is a $5000 loss. Women play all the crying games and Im just sick of the rules always working for women. My ex is a dental hygienist that makes (or could ) $79,000 a yr. She claimed she couldnt find work and only claimed $40,000. Yet I found out she WAS indeed working and not reporting the income. The judge didnt even want to hear it. Furthermore, I almost lost shared custody because according to "time" I have the kids 47% of the time. BUT in a 2week period it works out to be 6/14 nights. Then it would have been full child support and spousal. So if that isnt wrong , I dont know what is. Can anyone please define "TIME"?????
PS: adults should all take responsibility and work for a leaving not look for the handouts.

[Leila]

Just so you know I've been a mostly stay at home mother for the duration of our short 5 year marriage and he is getting the house AND I AM NOT GOING FOR SPOUSAL SUPPORT at all. If I had invested 22 years of my life with a person and raised several children with a person you can bet I'd be reaping what the law entitles me too.

[Leila]

....and another thing.... this is exactly my point ~ WHY is it that there are these specific laws in place regarding SS and CS and yet certain people still think of it as handouts? Why do people even bother getting married anymore? I guess I shouldn't have been so naive when I got married. I should have just assumed that my husband would walk out one day and hook up with another married woman that he met at a bar. So now I am a single parent of a small child that I have taken care of 95% of the time, but that's not a 'real' job anymore either in the eyes of many. I agree, adults need to assume responsibility. Such as assuming responsibility for the vows that they took when they decided to put rings on fingers and pro create. But again, that is my recently shattered idealsim talking. In view of those ideals being an apparently moot point (except to my own jilted heart and several close friends) the future looks bright anyways.

[About_Time]

I think the problem is that - for spousal support anyhow - there AREN'T specific laws in place. I don't begrudge CS because even though I may disagree with the figures on the chart, there is a chart. There are specific rules about amounts to be paid and duration. I know when it starts, I know when it ends and I know how much I'll have to pay.

The problem with spousal is that there are no such guidelines. If I had gone to court to settle the matter, I would have no idea how much they'd zing me for. I'd have no clue how long it would last. I'd have no clue what criteria would need to be met in order for it to end. I'd have no idea what situations could cause my ex to be granted an increase. These are all widely variable and inconsistantly applied by judges.

Because of this, SS payers can get bitter about the whole thing. My ex refused to work while we were married despite our financial woes. Family Law states that I have to pay her support as compensation for the lost income and work experience she purposefully avoided for the entirety of our relationship. If she refuses to be self-supporting in the future, Family Law will ensure that I continue to support her laziness for an indeterminate amount of time. That's the law, but that's not fair.

Now there are many times where SS is justified and used appropriately for the mutual benefit of the children. For every story of fairness and reason, however, there are usually two more stories of greed and injustice. SS is viewed by some payors as a handout because that's precisely how it's used by some payees.

[billm]

Originally Posted by About_Time

...
The problem with spousal is that there are no such guidelines. ...

Because of this, SS payers can get bitter about the whole thing.

If she refuses to be self-supporting in the future, Family Law will ensure that I continue to support her laziness for an indeterminate amount of time. That's the law, but that's not fair.

If you are suggesting that enforced guildelines for SS similar to CS would be different than what you state above, then I think you are wrong.

SSAG is a lead into an enforced SS formula and it ties the two together in their future financially giving the receiver less incentive to work hard than a single person - that is what I don't like about SSAG - it treats your incomes (and the work that goes into it) as a shared thing, which to me is marriage and is the opposite of divorce!

When you divorce you should be completely done with the other person in all ways, including financial. This is not to say that SS is not warranted or a fair thing, but that SS should be based on what happened in the marriage, NOT what happens after.

And a one size fits all formula for what happened in the marriage is perhaps very hard to come up with - so I would be wary about formulized SS (though in my case it works, and I am not talking about SSAG (NDI splitting = yuck))