going through a hard time

[mark clemson]

2 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

Sure sure, it makes total sense for the person with a full time job, part-ownership in several local businesses, serving on several non-profit boards, with multiple hobbies, who goes out multiple times most days, to have as much custody as a stay at home mom. He is just not moored in reality.

Wow, it sounds like he is the type who doesn't know how to draw sensible boundaries with his personal time. Oh well, I suppose it won't be something you need to worry about quite soon, except insofar as it impacts your kids (if it does).

No wonder he seems scatterbrained if he is stretched this thin.

 

[heartwhole2]

3 hours ago, mark clemson said:

Wow, it sounds like he is the type who doesn't know how to draw sensible boundaries with his personal time. Oh well, I suppose it won't be something you need to worry about quite soon, except insofar as it impacts your kids (if it does).

No wonder he seems scatterbrained if he is stretched this thin.

 

Yes, and I always tried to urge caution . . . "You're already on two boards, and this isn't your favorite cause. . . maybe pass on this one?" But no, he always believed he would have the time. I live by the adage, "If you couldn't do the thing today, then don't commit to doing it in the future."

But he never acted like my advice was worth anything. In many instances, he acted like I was trying to hold him back or not believing in him. He would whine, "But this is networking! It's important for my job!" Well yes, but there are still only 24 hours in a day.

Tomorrow is his first night of custody. He has to drive our kids to two different places but he has a board meeting. He said he'd "figure it out." OK then. I did not offer to help, of course. I don't want to leave my kids high and dry, but the first day of our new arrangement should set the tone. And he didn't ask, thankfully.

I think he imagined that divorce/split custody would give him so much more time, because in his mind he spent a lot more time with me and the kids than he really did. But running his own household is going to eat into the found time, and he never had to be on the hook for driving them all the places. 

[basil67]

18 minutes ago, heartwhole2 said:

I think he imagined that divorce/split custody would give him so much more time, because in his mind he spent a lot more time with me and the kids than he really did. But running his own household is going to eat into the found time, and he never had to be on the hook for driving them all the places. 

I think this will sort itself out very quickly

[Leihla_B]

3 hours ago, basil67 said:

I think this will sort itself out very quickly

Yep. I think your taken-for-granted days are over.

[brandonkothell]

I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through a hard time. It's important to acknowledge your feelings and give yourself the space to heal. Remember, seeking support from friends, family, or professionals can make a difference. You’re not alone in this, and brighter days will come.

[heartwhole2]

Your story is very similar to mine. My STBX blindsided me five weeks ago with a separation (well, technically he brought it up a month before, but I thought our efforts to reconnect were going well). I'm a SAHM with a chronic illness. Our 20th anniversary would have been in a couple of months.

Have you seen a lawyer yet? I didn't want to either. My STBX gets mad about stuff like that, and I realized I was walking on eggshells trying not to upset him. But is that a good reason to take his word for it that he's offering me a fair settlement? My family helped me set up a couple of consultations. They were both in the $400-$500 range. One lawyer wanted a $20k retainer, and the other a $5k retainer. Luckily I liked the less expensive one better. It's your money, and you are entitled to spend it on a lawyer, but if you don't want to cross that bridge yet, then maybe you can borrow it. I borrowed the retainer from my mom just so I could wait to play my hand. I did finally tell I have a lawyer after he was not getting me the documents I needed in a timely manner.

My lawyer is helping me figure out how to divide our assets and verifying everything my STBX put on his spreadsheet. I will be taken care of financially, and I can concentrate on living a simpler life and saving. He ran out and bought himself another expensive house close to here (as well as saying he wants to keep our second home, which we just rebuilt so it has a ton of debt), so he is not going to have any disposable income, but that's not my problem. I get to be free of his inability to save and tendency to rob Peter to pay Paul. 

He thought, on top of everything else that he chooses to do (multiple sports, hobbies, serving on non-profit boards, daily exercise and coffee with friends, happy hours/concerts/etc several nights a week), that he could manage 50/50 custody, but I asked for 4/3 and he conceded. (Well, really it's Sun/Mon/Tues nights with me, Wed/Thurs with him, and we alternate Fri/Sat). I also get them after school until he gets home, and in the summer during the day. Basically he wanted it to say 50/50 but I would be available for all this extra stuff. 🙄 I'm sure it will wind up being more 57/43 but at least it recognizes that I will have them more. It hardly impacts the child support, so it's not about that . . . I just want it to be recognized how much I have them.

If your wife has controlled the finances, then you need access to all of the accounts so you can verify what is in there. You also need to talk to a lawyer. I think you would be entitled to spousal support. I will also remain the beneficiary on the life insurance policies, so that I will be OK if he dies.

I know my STBX is offended that I got a lawyer, but he's also an idiot if he thinks I would just take his word for it that the arrangement he made up himself is fair and honest. It's time to start detaching yourself from your STBX and her moods and whims. It doesn't matter what she wants here . . . it matters what you are legally entitled to.

[tzorno]

22 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

. I will also remain the beneficiary on the life insurance policies, so that I will be OK if he dies.

How did you manage that?  I kicked my ex off of everything when she left.  I'm surprised and shocked he agreed to that.

[heartwhole2]

9 minutes ago, tzorno said:

How did you manage that?  I kicked my ex off of everything when she left.  I'm surprised and shocked he agreed to that.

Well the ink isn't dry yet so I shouldn't speak too soon. But the fact is that I paid off all his debts, out-earned him early in our marriage, bought our first condo, gave up my career to be a SAHM, and then got a chronic illness from having his kids that means I can't earn any meaningful money. So if he died and the lifetime alimony went away before I can draw from his social security and before the rental properties I'm getting are paid off so they generate real income, I'd be SOL. So my lawyer said we will have him keep me as the beneficiary. He doesn't have a lawyer, at least not yet, because in his head he's an expert at everything. So he's been agreeing to everything so far. We'll see when it comes time to sign.

ETA: I think he genuinely feels bad and wants to make sure I'm taken care of, but also . . . I have a pretty sympathetic story, right? He doesn't want to be the guy who cheated on his sick wife and then abandoned her ten years later, only to screw her financially. And he's really close with our girls and doesn't want to leave their mom high and dry. So he is offering me more than half of our assets, and a decent monthly payment. And then my lawyer pointed out, well what if he dies?

The thing I'm struggling with is appreciating that at least financially, he's trying to make this easy on me. He's being a completely incompetent idiot about setting up his own household and taking care of the girls' schedules and needs. He is someone who needs huge amounts of appreciation and I know he wants me to be all, "Oh wow, you didn't screw me, you are the best," but he fired me from the job of making him feel better all the time. And legally . . . I am entitled to maintain my lifestyle. So I don't see why I should have to thank him for doing what a judge would make him do anyway. 

This is all part of the process of detaching and figuring out boundaries, which is what I'm working on now.

Edited October 17 by heartwhole2

[tzorno]

4 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

And legally . . . I am entitled to maintain my lifestyle.

Are you though?  Your going to get alimony (in which the house and rental properties may need to be sold for him to pay it) and child support until you don't.  Also, what is this lifetime alimony your speaking of?  Your even talking about getting his social security,,,,,,,what?  If he eventually lawyers up, i'm afraid a lot of this isn't going to end up as said.  And there's no way you can be left as a beneficiary unless he continues to agree upon that which is crazy to me.  I dropped my ex immediately and appointed my daughter.

I know you were done wrong Heart and I feel awful for you and wish the best, but this is a classic example of why men are refusing to marry in this day and age.  He was at fault, make no mistake about that, but it's going to be near impossible to start a new and lucrative life now because he's going to be giving you the majority of whatever he makes and it's going to be for years and years.  Does he deserve that,,,,probably.  Is it fair,,,,,i'm not so sure it's reasonable. 

 

[heartwhole2]

8 hours ago, tzorno said:

Are you though?  Your going to get alimony (in which the house and rental properties may need to be sold for him to pay it) and child support until you don't.  Also, what is this lifetime alimony your speaking of?  Your even talking about getting his social security,,,,,,,what?  If he eventually lawyers up, i'm afraid a lot of this isn't going to end up as said.  And there's no way you can be left as a beneficiary unless he continues to agree upon that which is crazy to me.  I dropped my ex immediately and appointed my daughter.

I know you were done wrong Heart and I feel awful for you and wish the best, but this is a classic example of why men are refusing to marry in this day and age.  He was at fault, make no mistake about that, but it's going to be near impossible to start a new and lucrative life now because he's going to be giving you the majority of whatever he makes and it's going to be for years and years.  Does he deserve that,,,,probably.  Is it fair,,,,,i'm not so sure it's reasonable. 

 

I can see that my circumstances have triggered you. I'm not going to reply to your post any more. Be well.

[heartwhole2]

Well it's my first weekend without the kids, though one had a haircut today and the other is off of school tomorrow and getting a mani/pedi for homecoming. So it's not like I'm not seeing them. I'm happy about that, especially this first weekend, but also, I haven't had a break for over 5 weeks; they've been with me constantly. So I do want to set some boundaries around what I'll do. I shouldn't have been surprised - STBX did manage to get his responsibilities on their first night together confused, and I had to call him because he left our child hanging with no ride. I did resist the instinct to swoop in and drive her myself.

We had coparenting therapy today, which didn't feel as useful as last time. She just made us talk about every single holiday. It did get me when he talked about swapping who gets "the good part of Christmas," as the therapist called it. He also brought up taking time to vacation solo or with people other than our kids, which honestly had not even occurred to me. But of course, this is a guy who probably spends 20 nights a year on guys' trips so I shouldn't have been surprised. I did say, "Is there anything I can do to make the calendar easier for you to follow?" Hint hint. Perhaps try reading it, for a start.

My lawyer finally got all the financial info so I think we are close to a counter-proposal. In STBX's favor, she did say that his initial offer seemed pretty close to what is fair, and that's unusual. So I'll give him that. I do think he realizes that it's shitty to leave a chronically ill woman who was kind and loyal even after he had an affair, and being seen as a good father and person is really important to him. So I'm glad for that. I'm not willing to go too far, though, because "not being a jerk who tries to screw me over" is the bare minimum, not some kind of badge of honor.

I'm seeing just how terrible he was for my health. He exhausted me. He was never present, never satisfied, always convinced he was right about everything and that I was all these things I am not. It's been (not) amusing to see him tell me incorrect things, like he claimed that I could not qualify for a mortgage for two years based on alimony . . . a quick google search shows it's 6 months (confirmed by my lawyer). Or when he told me that an ex-spouse could not be the beneficiary of life insurance because of a law designed to prevent murders (there is no such law, obviously). This is something he is supposed to know for his job, btw. I said, "If I was going to murder you, I'd do it now, before we split our assets," because I am hilarious like that. When I asked him for the policy information, he told me it would be "impossible to get." Excuse me sir, we are still legally married and if you died today, I just . . . couldn't get the information? He did provide it to my lawyer, after finding it while cleaning out his nightstand. I never touched the horrible pile of papers. 

I gave my bedroom a mini make-over, and it feels so peaceful without STBX's clutter. The whole house does, really. He always acted like I was the messy one, but he left . . . hats on top of the piano, shoes on the dining room floor, etc. He took up half of the dining room table with his work stuff every day. In some kind of metaphor for our marriage, I gave him more and more of the hooks in the coat closet until he had 9 and the girls and I each had 3. I would always be like, "Here, I created a space for your hats/shoes/work stuff/hoodies" and he would never put his things there. And even if he did, there were 3x as many of those things as the space could hold. He had 3/4 of the closet space, 3/4 of the dresser space. I kept my off season clothes under the bed.

But you know, all of that could have just been the price of living with another human, if he'd been kind and present and invested in our relationship, if he'd seen me. He didn't, and that's really lonely. I'm glad he set me free.

[tzorno]

11 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

I can see that my circumstances have triggered you. I'm not going to reply to your post any more. Be well.

Not triggered, just confused by some of the things you've said.  Fair enough.  I wish you nothing but the best and well being in the future.

[BaileyB]

You obviously have a good lawyer, I’m sure that she will negotiate a good settlement for you.

In my case - my husband was married previously. He paid alimony and child support for several years as determined by the court. His ex-wife is most definitely not the beneficiary of his pension or life insurance. She is entitled to part of his pension and social security but only for the years they were married and I believe (as it relates to social security), only is she requests it. 

Edited October 18 by BaileyB

[Leihla_B]

14 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

I said, "If I was going to murder you, I'd do it now, before we split our assets," because I am hilarious like that.

Hah! You're also an excellent writer. And a good Mom. You've got this!

[heartwhole2]

Well, to nobody's shock, he's having an affair. I don't know if it physically started before he left. I'm mostly just angry that he wasn't honest. That after everything, he still chose to lie when I need the truth.

The OW's husband is a friend of mine and we have teamed up, like the protagonists in a sad revenge movie. We are sitting on the information for now (it was only confirmed by us sharing notes).