Intro/disclaimer- I've been lurking here for a while, finally decided to post, so Im sorry if I am breaching any forum etiquette- I'm sure my question has been addressed in some form already but I can't spend half a day searching post history. Sorry if this is too long, feel free to skip if you don't like long reads, of course.
In Alberta. My wife decided to leave for greener pastures, no significant fault (adultery, addiction, violence, ec) on either side, she came to Canada from Europe 10 years ago and we got married real quickly (silly, I know), so English is her second language and she never officially worked during the marriage. (I offer this info not to slag her but to establish her ability to find employment after divorce). We have two children, 4 and 8. She'll get CS of course by the table, and at least $50K as her share in equity for our home, plus the nicer of our two vehicles, anything she wants from the house, etc. There is about $50K in retirement investments that I had been trying to negotiate keeping but lately I don't really care about it. I'm more worried about now then the future, though I really can't fathom how she deserves any of it. During our marriage it was like I earned income, we split the money 50/50, she spent her half on herself, and I managed to squirrel a little away for the future (OK, now I'm slaggin')...
I am essentially self-employed in the eyes of revenue canada, but what I do is I work as an independant salesperson and consultant for an American .com equipment dealer. I am purely commission paid and my income can fluctuate wildy from month to month, year to year. I've had some pretty good years up around $100K, but we weren't able to save much other than me putting aside the aforementioned retirement savings, as my STBX is a compulsive shopper/ borderline hoarder.
The last few years, since the US economy tanked, and also due to more similar websites popping up to compete with us, the income has been pretty bad. I think around $48K in 2010 and $65K in 2011.
We qualified for provincial sponsored mediation, we went to a couple meetings and one DRO session. Overall I found the process, that I believed was supposed to be impartial, not impartial at all. I felt like I was surrounded by women who just wanted to see how far they could push me to make sure she is well taken care of. I could provide some examples, but I know this is already way long. The one thing that really bothered me was we asked for help with spousal support, and the DRO "lawyer" went to a computer and introduced us to their CS/SS calculator. She did say that it was only a guideline as there is no table for SS in Alberta. But what made my blood boil (it didn't sink in until later) was that she basically admitted that this calculation was inflated- her exact words were something like, when cases go to court, the court usually decides on an amount that is lower and shorter in duration. I asked her to repeat that statement just to make sure I heard her correctly.
Okay, so what is going on? If these people and the process are supposed to be neutral, then why produce an artificially inflated number for support payments? Which number do you think is going to stick in my opponent's head throughout our negotiations. But it gets even better.... I started doing some rough calculations. At the time we had the DRO I hadn't done my 2011 taxes yet so I wasn't sure what my income was. I guessed at $70K. So they put that into their calculator and came up with roughly $2400 total monthly child support and spousal support (By the way they recommended from 5 to 14 years duration). So if my avg tax rate is 24% it leaves me about $53K net. CS & SS works out to almost $29000 not including section 7 expenses and other things which my come up. This leaves me $24000. This is barely $2000 per month! I need to rent a 3 bedroom home or apartment because I need a home office, and at least a spare bedroom for the kids when they visit. That could be $1200 per month easily. Plus food, heat/electricity, internet, cable, phone, gas for car, insurance, etc etc. If I have any health issues preventing me from working or if I simply have another bad patch of sales... I'm living in poverty!
How does this process work? Do the courts really not care about me since the mother almost automatically gets primary care of kids (we can't really share because she wants to move to the big city, and they are school age. I on the other hand certainly can't afford big city rent and have no desire to leave the smaller town we're in now, about 45 minute drive from the city limits)? What am I just supposed to go get another job flippin' burgers in the evening because she decided I wasn't good enough for her anymore? Any suggestions on my best case/worst case scenarios or on how I should approach this? I offered her $800/month SS for 3 years and she freaked out.
Mediation isn't giving us any realistic numbers- that's a big fail. If she doesn't back off I feel like I'll have to just tell her to lawyer up 'cause she's in for a reality check, then hope for the best in court. But maybe I'll end up a 2x loser after all the dust settles and legal fees paid.
Sorry again for a long first post...
In Alberta. My wife decided to leave for greener pastures, no significant fault (adultery, addiction, violence, ec) on either side, she came to Canada from Europe 10 years ago and we got married real quickly (silly, I know), so English is her second language and she never officially worked during the marriage. (I offer this info not to slag her but to establish her ability to find employment after divorce). We have two children, 4 and 8. She'll get CS of course by the table, and at least $50K as her share in equity for our home, plus the nicer of our two vehicles, anything she wants from the house, etc. There is about $50K in retirement investments that I had been trying to negotiate keeping but lately I don't really care about it. I'm more worried about now then the future, though I really can't fathom how she deserves any of it. During our marriage it was like I earned income, we split the money 50/50, she spent her half on herself, and I managed to squirrel a little away for the future (OK, now I'm slaggin')...
I am essentially self-employed in the eyes of revenue canada, but what I do is I work as an independant salesperson and consultant for an American .com equipment dealer. I am purely commission paid and my income can fluctuate wildy from month to month, year to year. I've had some pretty good years up around $100K, but we weren't able to save much other than me putting aside the aforementioned retirement savings, as my STBX is a compulsive shopper/ borderline hoarder.
The last few years, since the US economy tanked, and also due to more similar websites popping up to compete with us, the income has been pretty bad. I think around $48K in 2010 and $65K in 2011.
We qualified for provincial sponsored mediation, we went to a couple meetings and one DRO session. Overall I found the process, that I believed was supposed to be impartial, not impartial at all. I felt like I was surrounded by women who just wanted to see how far they could push me to make sure she is well taken care of. I could provide some examples, but I know this is already way long. The one thing that really bothered me was we asked for help with spousal support, and the DRO "lawyer" went to a computer and introduced us to their CS/SS calculator. She did say that it was only a guideline as there is no table for SS in Alberta. But what made my blood boil (it didn't sink in until later) was that she basically admitted that this calculation was inflated- her exact words were something like, when cases go to court, the court usually decides on an amount that is lower and shorter in duration. I asked her to repeat that statement just to make sure I heard her correctly.
Okay, so what is going on? If these people and the process are supposed to be neutral, then why produce an artificially inflated number for support payments? Which number do you think is going to stick in my opponent's head throughout our negotiations. But it gets even better.... I started doing some rough calculations. At the time we had the DRO I hadn't done my 2011 taxes yet so I wasn't sure what my income was. I guessed at $70K. So they put that into their calculator and came up with roughly $2400 total monthly child support and spousal support (By the way they recommended from 5 to 14 years duration). So if my avg tax rate is 24% it leaves me about $53K net. CS & SS works out to almost $29000 not including section 7 expenses and other things which my come up. This leaves me $24000. This is barely $2000 per month! I need to rent a 3 bedroom home or apartment because I need a home office, and at least a spare bedroom for the kids when they visit. That could be $1200 per month easily. Plus food, heat/electricity, internet, cable, phone, gas for car, insurance, etc etc. If I have any health issues preventing me from working or if I simply have another bad patch of sales... I'm living in poverty!
How does this process work? Do the courts really not care about me since the mother almost automatically gets primary care of kids (we can't really share because she wants to move to the big city, and they are school age. I on the other hand certainly can't afford big city rent and have no desire to leave the smaller town we're in now, about 45 minute drive from the city limits)? What am I just supposed to go get another job flippin' burgers in the evening because she decided I wasn't good enough for her anymore? Any suggestions on my best case/worst case scenarios or on how I should approach this? I offered her $800/month SS for 3 years and she freaked out.
Mediation isn't giving us any realistic numbers- that's a big fail. If she doesn't back off I feel like I'll have to just tell her to lawyer up 'cause she's in for a reality check, then hope for the best in court. But maybe I'll end up a 2x loser after all the dust settles and legal fees paid.
Sorry again for a long first post...
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