Hi Group, I'm new but I've been reading this forum for over a year. I finally signed up and I hope to pick your brains for some answers.
I've been separated for 8 years, divorced for 5. I am remarried. I left my ex wife the house, all household contents, vehicle and gave her half my pension, with very little arguement from me. I just wanted to be done and have a clean break from her. She did seek spousal support right from day one, but it was never really persued by her legal aid lawyer because when we originally separated I was making less than 30 k annually. She was left with everything plus child support for one child. She was 42 when we separated, yet had not really worked her entire life...always had some excuse not to and we struggled so much due to this. But I'm to blame as well, as I continued to stay with her despite her unilater excuse to stay at home to take care of one child. I often worked two jobs to make ends meet. Essentially I stayed for our son. Also, I will admit, I felt very little joy in life and have spent most of our marriage feeling low-grade depression and very little ability to see that I didn't have to live that way.
Fast forward 17 years and I broke. Literally my soul was broken from such an existance and I could no longer stand to come home each and every day to someone who had so little motivation to do better for herself and for ouir family. I couldn't even get this woman to go for a coffee with me as she was too busy watching home improvement shows and complaining about money troubles. Again, she did this all the while I was working two jobs and doing night courses...plus taking care of our child. If she washed the dishes, I dried them. I went to every doctor app. for my child, bathed him, did all of the things any father would do as his equal share of child rearing. I held up my end of things in the marriage, plus 100 percecnt of the duty all parents have which is to provide for their child financially. Double standard to say the least.
I finally left and as I said before, I walked out with a bag of clothes and never looked back; passed everything over to her. I have always paid child support on top of this, plus all extracurricular and medical. I've never had an issue with this.
I have been fortunate that I finally got my degree 6 years ago and was able to move up very quickly with my company, and making a decent salary. I also took on a second job, working about 80 hours per week, trying to rebuild having lost everything I had worked for, such as the house and car. This past year I was hauled back into court by her, seeking spousal support. I guess she saw how high her child support had gone up over the years, literally from 230 per month to what it is now, 980 per month. She has a legal aid lawyer as she still does not work, or at least she doesn't claim to work ( she babysits under the table and I have proof)
I hired a good attorney and we went to a case conference and eventuallly a settlement conference. The judge wasn't happy about her not working and make some snide comments about it, but did say that perhaps we should look at support based on how long it would take for her to get a 3 year diploma. As my lawyer said to me, she will never do that, but it gives us a time frame to look at. When my lawyer did the calculations up, taking into consideration all the assets the ex was left with, and proposing that it's not fair for my ex to benefit from my working two jobs, so essentially only using my day job income, 65k annually, we made an offer to settle. Her lawyer came back saying that they rejecte the offer and would be in touch with a counter offer. This was in May of this year. I have heard nothing since and there has been no counter offer.
My life is in limbo and I'm paying through the nose to a lawyer after all these years. How long can my ex drag this out? My lawyer is very kind and a family friend who wouldn't lead me astray. She assures me that by the time we fought this out and went to trial, I'd probably end up spending more than just paying out ss for the next three years.
How long it is reasonable to the other party to keep things going? She's not paying a dime to her lawyer, so she has nothing to lose. But legally, shouldn't there be some sort of due process for me? Also, we believe that perhaps she is stalling because upon last contact from my lawyer to hers, my lawyer asked for financials, including what she sold the matrimonial home for and how much debt she claims to have been left with, which I know is 0, yet she claims is much more. Also, she said that she only received 11k from the sale of the home when I am 99 percent sure it was more like 25k. Of course this would change the equalization for spousal support, yet she still hasn't brought forth any proof. As she is the one seeking ss doesn't she have to provide proof? Isn't the onus on her?
Sorry for the long ramble.
I've been separated for 8 years, divorced for 5. I am remarried. I left my ex wife the house, all household contents, vehicle and gave her half my pension, with very little arguement from me. I just wanted to be done and have a clean break from her. She did seek spousal support right from day one, but it was never really persued by her legal aid lawyer because when we originally separated I was making less than 30 k annually. She was left with everything plus child support for one child. She was 42 when we separated, yet had not really worked her entire life...always had some excuse not to and we struggled so much due to this. But I'm to blame as well, as I continued to stay with her despite her unilater excuse to stay at home to take care of one child. I often worked two jobs to make ends meet. Essentially I stayed for our son. Also, I will admit, I felt very little joy in life and have spent most of our marriage feeling low-grade depression and very little ability to see that I didn't have to live that way.
Fast forward 17 years and I broke. Literally my soul was broken from such an existance and I could no longer stand to come home each and every day to someone who had so little motivation to do better for herself and for ouir family. I couldn't even get this woman to go for a coffee with me as she was too busy watching home improvement shows and complaining about money troubles. Again, she did this all the while I was working two jobs and doing night courses...plus taking care of our child. If she washed the dishes, I dried them. I went to every doctor app. for my child, bathed him, did all of the things any father would do as his equal share of child rearing. I held up my end of things in the marriage, plus 100 percecnt of the duty all parents have which is to provide for their child financially. Double standard to say the least.
I finally left and as I said before, I walked out with a bag of clothes and never looked back; passed everything over to her. I have always paid child support on top of this, plus all extracurricular and medical. I've never had an issue with this.
I have been fortunate that I finally got my degree 6 years ago and was able to move up very quickly with my company, and making a decent salary. I also took on a second job, working about 80 hours per week, trying to rebuild having lost everything I had worked for, such as the house and car. This past year I was hauled back into court by her, seeking spousal support. I guess she saw how high her child support had gone up over the years, literally from 230 per month to what it is now, 980 per month. She has a legal aid lawyer as she still does not work, or at least she doesn't claim to work ( she babysits under the table and I have proof)
I hired a good attorney and we went to a case conference and eventuallly a settlement conference. The judge wasn't happy about her not working and make some snide comments about it, but did say that perhaps we should look at support based on how long it would take for her to get a 3 year diploma. As my lawyer said to me, she will never do that, but it gives us a time frame to look at. When my lawyer did the calculations up, taking into consideration all the assets the ex was left with, and proposing that it's not fair for my ex to benefit from my working two jobs, so essentially only using my day job income, 65k annually, we made an offer to settle. Her lawyer came back saying that they rejecte the offer and would be in touch with a counter offer. This was in May of this year. I have heard nothing since and there has been no counter offer.
My life is in limbo and I'm paying through the nose to a lawyer after all these years. How long can my ex drag this out? My lawyer is very kind and a family friend who wouldn't lead me astray. She assures me that by the time we fought this out and went to trial, I'd probably end up spending more than just paying out ss for the next three years.
How long it is reasonable to the other party to keep things going? She's not paying a dime to her lawyer, so she has nothing to lose. But legally, shouldn't there be some sort of due process for me? Also, we believe that perhaps she is stalling because upon last contact from my lawyer to hers, my lawyer asked for financials, including what she sold the matrimonial home for and how much debt she claims to have been left with, which I know is 0, yet she claims is much more. Also, she said that she only received 11k from the sale of the home when I am 99 percent sure it was more like 25k. Of course this would change the equalization for spousal support, yet she still hasn't brought forth any proof. As she is the one seeking ss doesn't she have to provide proof? Isn't the onus on her?
Sorry for the long ramble.
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