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Don't Think I Can Do This Story Justice

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  • Don't Think I Can Do This Story Justice

    As someone who attempts to follow the rules and keep themselves out of trouble I have seen way too much of a courthouse in the last few years.

    Let me start at the beginning. My ex and I had been married for 24 years but had drifted apart. However, we had remained friendly with each other, and she was not in a financial position to leave, so we continued to live together under a rough separation agreement (not legal, mainly just some rules which we were to follow as regarded each other) This worked for about a year then things started getting a little tense in the house. I should also add at this point that my daughter, who is in her 20's, moved back home at about this point as well.

    Finally things came to a head in Oct 2010 when we were having an argument while she was preparing supper. While chopping some food with a 10" surgical steel butchers knife she suddenly turned to me, held it to my throat and told me how much she would "like to stick it in me". When she set the knife down I grabbed her wrists and yelled in her face about never doing that again. When I let go she immediately launched at me, pummeling my face and when I tried to stop her she grabbed for my crotch. I finally managed to push her out the doorway and get the kitchen island between us. Unbeknownst to both of us, my daughter, upon hearing me yelling had called the police. My ex, based on her admission of the events during the 911 call, was charged with assault with a weapon and assault.

    This was only the beginning of the nightmare.

    I agreed to move out of the house so she would have some place to live, and my daughter depended on her to get to university, and I had some place to go. However, what I didn't know at the time was that 3 days after she was charged she went to a woman's shelter and changed her story to being that I had attacked her and she acted in self defense. Two weeks after that she changed the locks on the house and barred me access even though I was still legally allowed to go into the house. I had to get a police escort to get access just to get some of my clothes and, even though she was breaking the law, the police refused to do anything.

    Since then she has first laid 7 criminal charges against me through a private prosecution (6 were dropped, conditional discharge on the 7th for reading her emails), cost me 2 jobs with the federal government by accusing me of breach of privacy, tried to get me fired as a reserve member of the Armed Forces by accusing me of being a pedophile, wrote blogs about me linking me to a convicted rapist and murderer, had me investigated by Children's Aid and laid 7 more private criminal charges including copyright infringement (a civil NOT criminal matter), all of which were eventually dropped.

    Now, here I am 3 1/2 years later and the only thing that has been settled is the division of the contents of the house. I am refusing to pay the extra costs involved in moving my possessions and preparing the house for sale based on the loss of income. To further complicate matters I signed a peace bond to not go near the house for a year so I would have to hire someone to pick up my stuff.

    So, just working on a counter-offer for settlement which will make her responsible for costs. In exchange I will agree not to take her to court for lost wages, interference, etc. To top it all off, I only recently discovered that she had admitted to the assault during the 911 making her sworn statement that I did it perjury and proving malicious prosecution and abuse of process. Her copyright accusations list damages against her personal business, a business which is not listed on the financial statement she filed with the court and I have copies of the letters she wrote to my employer.

    I found this site while looking for an official form to submit my counter-offer on (if one exists, please let me know) and to see if anyone has suggestions for next steps since this crosses so many legal lines.

    Other than that, it is my personal tail of woe

  • #2
    What a mess.

    I came through a very upsetting separation. One thing I learned is that all the "crap" becomes totally irrelevant in family court. Best to focus on the present - you are separated and want to move forward with equalization.

    It has been my experience that judges in family court could care less about someone lying. They just want to see the numbers. So you'd be best to try to get past all of the drama and do the number-crunching.

    My ex has kept me in court for the past 4 years with total nonsense. He lied. His lawyer(s) misled the court. Judges really could care less and rarely do anything about this. I was successful in all applicationsin court. I was awarded the grand total of just under 4k in costs for the 4 years of what I consider to be veracious litigation. Yes I had proof of everything. Judge could have cared less.

    Judge's job is to get your case settled as soon as possible. Neither party will be pleased with the outcome. In the end it doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. It's just the numbers.

    Sounds like the peace bond is a good thing in your situation. You can likely get your peace bond modified to allow you limited access regarding disposal of home. Usually peace bonds are for someone to stay away from the other person, rather than a jointly-owned property. Perhaps you can modify peace bond?

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    • #3
      I have attempted to take the high road through all this. My big hope is some of her actions will now come back to bite her.

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      • #4
        Unless you go to trial, probably not. Division of matrimonial property/equalization is the only thing left.

        Sometimes people keep "the war" going as an aggressive form of therapy IMO. Often people who can't accept the demise of the marriage simply have a difficult time letting go and moving on so they continue on in post-separation litigation. Sometimes the parties are merely looking for validation from a 3rd party - "Mr/Mrs XXX - you were wrong." Therapy is much less expensive than court.

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