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  • Interm spousal support agreement living Seperated under the same roof

    We are seperated living under the same roof with my wife making and changing her own rules as she sees fit at the time. We had a verbal agreement which has proven to be no agreement at all. We do not have any formal interm seperation agreement (do not know how or what or....... anything about what is required to get an official rulling on something like that. I just think I would have a ton of less stress knowing she HAD to follow some set of rules in the interm - the kids too). By all rights I am getting short ended financially no matter how I look at it. However I do respect that at least for now I have benefits, a roof over my head - I suppose food if raw is ok! After the doctor told me I had to cut back (I used to do all the grocery shopping, cooking and some of the housework - now i am lucky if I can get thru a grocery store) Stbx cooks supper maybe once every two weeks.

    So what would it take to get an interm seperation agreement while we live under the same roof seperated until the final agreement is put into place?
    Assuming the case is finally settled by a judge, which I now understand can take years, do rulings ever get backdated to the original date of seperation? Would this backdating happen if there was no formal interm agreement in place or would backdating only happen with properly worded interm agreements that deals specifically with this issue?

    I know my future will be heavily hinged on recieving the support from my wife so although the normal intent is to try and get the spouses divided financially I have been told my being 50 with a 24 year marriage on CPP disability entitlement is there. If I am lucky maybe a provision is made for my being able to save a bit for my retirement during the post seperation date years. Retirement savings and health benefits are two important issues for me with very low prospects for retirement as i will only be ellegiable for about 40% max CPP retirement at 65 (even after CPP retirement credit splitting) - the rest must come from other avenues.My question would be based on the fact that over the last 8 years my wife has been forced into the breadwinner position and i into what might be termed as the not paid homesquatter in her eyes. My CPP disability pension is definatly not enough to carry my wieght or pay my personal and medical bills unless i draw on my rrsp's now. (the bad thing about drawing on the rrsp's is that i will never again have the income to replace it.)

    How have others managed to get thru what I have heard to be years of this living in limbo???? Any ideas that might work? - I shall take with open arms!! (90% certain I will be there in front of a judge as my wife does not accept reality, any of the laws regarding the exclusion of certain disability money and even the inheritance that my wife moved into our TFSA accounts (at least there is a trail of that money and it was still there at seperation). Her version of negotiating is telling me to get out of HER house! Although I learned after the fact, early mediation failed last Friday - well I did learn where she is at - she wants to know when am i getting out of HER house!!

    The rest below is detail (may or may not help) with the above questions:
    So I have gone thru the first four months of seperation where the decision was to live status Quo under the same roof. Main rational was live as we were, buy things that are required even to the point if my wife needed some new work clothes or me a pair of shoes - who cares. Any item that was not an ordinary everyday purchase then it would need to be discussed as to the reason and the item bought using the common funds (we both have our money deposited in that account before and after seperation - her pay from work $1250 every two weeks and me my ccp disability of $900 every month. Been that way for the last 8 years - I figured it could last a little while longer. At the end all these "extra" purchases would have the rrecipts and what not and put onto the "mediation table" and we could resolve the fairness of who pays for what in the end.

    This worked for about a week or two - as my wife continues to bring home little things, and bigger things from her lunch time shopping runs. She decided that this was all her money and she wasn't going to bother accounting for HER money. This rational has not stopped although I did my part - I have a personal file folder with the few items i bought (even the shoes i bought when the old pair fell off my feet). Then came her unilateral choice to tell my daughter not to purchase the meds my dog has been on for years - then her refusal to file her credit card bills to match her money withdrawn - and there is more much more but the last straw was taking $1900 without telling me, a huge for her mastercard bill of $1500 then another mastercard payment on Saturday bringing our chequing account down to below $100 and the electrical bill was due yesterday. (to her credit, $900 showed up from the kids RESP - I know the two $1900 hits are school payments but this is also the first time in three years school money came from our personal "pay the bills" account when the money to cover school is in the kids school accounts from our lifetime saving)

    I know the principle of leaving her behind, she is now the stbx. This has turned out to be a lot tougher as my wife has chosen to live by her rules unknown to me and i am sort of stuck in the right thing to do - I still depend on her to pay the bills have for years and with her pulling the strings she makes me feel in a position of being a nothing person - a good for nothing, drain on HER money! I went to the bank today and froze our line of credit and overdraft protection and she can't touch the $8,000 in my TFSA account (which is now ear marked for a lawyer - that and a chuck of my RRSP's will go towards the "lawyer if needed" "or should I think down payment!).

    I wish i had the physical stamina to do the self rep route - I have done the hard work - I know my financials - just need to know the rules as it pertains to my situation and that I am sure is the real challenge as one stands before the bench - for me I would probably at best have a mental breakdown right then and there - I just can't take on any level of stress very well..... the chest pains can at times bring me to my knees........

  • #2
    I wasn't kidding when I said to close or freeze bank accounts and credit card and lines of credit in both your names.

    She is acting typically. I don't even want to imply she is "evil", people get angry and go over the top when divorce happens, we all deal with it differently and she may reget this behaviour in the future when she looks back.

    That doesn't help you now.

    You should contact the Law Society of Upper Canada, get a free 1 hour consultation with a divorce lawyer, don't waste the hour talking about your emotional life, write out ahead of time the point form of your FINANCIAL issues and a list of specific legal questions and stick to that.

    You wont' get interim support without filing for a divorce first and suing her. You need to spell out an offer to settle detailing what you expect BEFORE you sue in court. You need to distentangle your financials and at least estimate assets and house worth beforehand or you can't make a reasonable offer to settle.

    In other words, you won't get interim support next week. You might get through this process to the point of a motion order in 6 months if you are lucky. If she is smart and has a smart lawyer there are many ways she can delay the process.

    You need your own bank account. You need to have your disability income (are you on CPP? ODSP? Worker's Comp?) deposited into your own account and you need to take care of your own expenses.

    You may not be able to care for your dog. Work it out mathematically and come to terms with it.

    You can no longer depend on her. You need to have a plan, a budget and you need to act before she starves you out.

    Comment


    • #3
      I have some final choices......

      Hi Mess I spent some time looking thru everything that I have, as we both know, been struggling with and by far you have been right on even if I didn't believe it then. In the last 24 hours the STBX has done nothing but say obsenities, orders, threats and more - up to now I have basically said nothing in return. In the end, I realize decisions are mine to make - When you have the time had I just hoped to get an opinion of someone who is there, understands the dynamics and although we have not met someone who has gained the respect of not only myself but many. I want to be reasonable and fair if nothing else to get through this for the time it will take.

      In a very short period, the chain reaction of events has got us (stbx and myself) where??? Then I read the bulk of today- well now yesterday's posts all about the kids - and if i think my issues are difficult the horror of a six year old who has a parent that 1. can even do that and 2. Dad with all his legal might that he could muster well - simply was not enough. 3. Then seperated and divorced parents using kids for pawns over and over

      To me right now I admit to still having the issues with my memory - as recent events with my kids...... and our discussing the issues. Here when I came across your straight message and this came back - perhaps I was not ready to accept the information you gracefully offered, to truely accept that which i didn't want to believe to be coming true.

      I still have issues and in very simplistic terms have hit a personal wall if nothing to compared to the above. Yesterday was a day of education on how "low" we as a couple as my stbx lost it, my 20 year old son who came into the house - he was or did the most mature thing I have witnessed in a long time as he got mom into a side bedroom and stayed with her until - she settled.

      Admittedly the communication is non existant and what has been said is well perhaps as far apart as can be. Using your advice would definately mean removing my responsability to the house utilities to protect my credit - as time moves on I am willing to help out the amount I can. But for me it is to keep up the car insurance, eat what is around and prepare to take on the full cost of my meds (the ontario program for help with the meds is called Trillium but it is very much dependant on family income - this is a call on Monday to confirm if my status can be converted to "seperated on my sole income" from CPP Disability at the $900 - not a whole lot).

      We have evolved from the idea of doing this seperation status quo - keep paying the bills and splitting the remaining cash left over at the end. I really did think that was doable, the kids would live "normally" and the stress would well - it didn't work. So if I get the utilities switched from all in my name to in hers instead of now where she is just co-responsable or just has access authority - the utilities is the biggest issue (she either agrees to the switch or I would have to ask the reamaining utilities to create the final bill). I will be able to swing the insurance, the dog food even if she is the family dog who happens to be within 10 feet of me 23 hours a day. Finally a little bit of misc spending and my monthly meds. The kids will have to pay for their own gas.

      I respect the fact that she works so she can keep the bedroom - I have two spots - one is split the basement with my son "on the other side" - me by the fireplace and my spine should be able to handle that. The only other free spot is well the front livingroom. That will be decided in the next couple of days.....

      Comment

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