very confused

[iambren]

I wouldn't mess with the adultery thing. The courts really couldn't care less; it happens so much. It may be a factor if there was a LOT of money and you were suing him civilly for pain/suffering bla bla.

In my state of Ohio they have preset formulas using the last two tax years to arrive at child support. It's fairly dispassionate. Your lawyer should be able to show you what to expect and what is reasonable. The dissolution seems the best way to go when there is no rock-throwing. Wish you luck.

God DOES hate divorce, He sees ALL the hurt and financial loss it brings. The effects are wide and lifelong. But God does love the fatherless, and He is a great help in your time of need. He also sees YOU in this whirlwind to hold you up and He will be faithful to you where your husband wasn't. But being divorced does not mean he hates you. He knows men can be wicked. He is the restorer, bringing beauty out of ashes!

 

[Tropical Wilds]

He "came out?" Like, he said he was gay? I guess I'm misreading, but that's what I thought you meant.

Either way, if you make the divorce hard, you'll create stress for yourself and the kids... The kids don't need that and you won't save the marriage. It'll make your life needlessly miserable. Look for a job to support yourself, downsize where you have to, and just move on with your life. Energy spent with the intent of making things hard for him, and the resulting aftermath of how it impacts you and the kids, is better spent trying move on and support yourself and the kids.

 

[grafton25]

Just talked with my lawyer. It is too late for us to get the paper work ready for a legal seperation by our court date. My husband was not very happy about this. Turns out by not settling before our court date will cost him a lot of money with his lawyer. If he would drop the divorce before we go to court he wouldn't be out any more money and this would show me if he truely wants to work on our marriage. We go to court Tuesday. I will let you know what happens. Please pray for us.

 

[Hetta]

Just talked with my lawyer. It is too late for us to get the paper work ready for a legal seperation by our court date. My husband was not very happy about this. Turns out by not settling before our court date will cost him a lot of money with his lawyer. If he would drop the divorce before we go to court he wouldn't be out any more money and this would show me if he truely wants to work on our marriage. We go to court Tuesday. I will let you know what happens. Please pray for us.

Praying. I am kind of confused by what you posted here, because I don't know much about divorce, but I am SO glad you have a lawyer.

 

[renewed21]

I wouldn't mess with the adultery thing. The courts really couldn't care less; it happens so much. It may be a factor if there was a LOT of money and you were suing him civilly for pain/suffering bla bla.

In my state of Ohio they have preset formulas using the last two tax years to arrive at child support. It's fairly dispassionate. Your lawyer should be able to show you what to expect and what is reasonable. The dissolution seems the best way to go when there is no rock-throwing. Wish you luck.

God DOES hate divorce, He sees ALL the hurt and financial loss it brings. The effects are wide and lifelong. But God does love the fatherless, and He is a great help in your time of need. He also sees YOU in this whirlwind to hold you up and He will be faithful to you where your husband wasn't. But being divorced does not mean he hates you. He knows men can be wicked. He is the restorer, bringing beauty out of ashes!

In my state proof of infidelity is huge in court, so lets all agree that it is state specific.

 

[renewed21]

Just talked with my lawyer. It is too late for us to get the paper work ready for a legal seperation by our court date. My husband was not very happy about this. Turns out by not settling before our court date will cost him a lot of money with his lawyer. If he would drop the divorce before we go to court he wouldn't be out any more money and this would show me if he truely wants to work on our marriage. We go to court Tuesday. I will let you know what happens. Please pray for us.

He doesnt want to work on your marriage . I am sorry grafton, but you need to play hardball with him.

 

[saturnnights]

He doesnt want to work on your marriage . I am sorry grafton, but you need to play hardball with him.

I'll second that opinion... Don't let him play you - remember that he knows how you think and will use that to your disadvantage...

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Just talked with my lawyer. It is too late for us to get the paper work ready for a legal seperation by our court date. My husband was not very happy about this. Turns out by not settling before our court date will cost him a lot of money with his lawyer. If he would drop the divorce before we go to court he wouldn't be out any more money and this would show me if he truely wants to work on our marriage. We go to court Tuesday. I will let you know what happens. Please pray for us.

Looks like he's made pretty clear he's made no intention of stopping the divorce. Now is the time to start looking for work, setting up your finances, and preparing for the changes that are about to come. Very shortly he most likely won't be footing the bills where you live and you need to have your own steady income. Have you thought about moving back where your job was or if that was an option? Getting a Masters, that's all well and good, but you've got to focus on the basics before you start trying to figure out things like your degree.

And again, don't make it hard for the sake of making it hard. It'll only stress you out and impact the kids negatively. You can still be assertive but amicable.

 

[renewed21]

make it hard for the sake of him taking care of his spousal and paternal obligations, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

make it hard for the sake of him taking care of his spousal and paternal obligations, nothing more, nothing less.

She shouldn't make it hard for him to be a father, nor should she use this as an opportunity to make a buck or require him to support her and treat her like his wife financially if he's getting a divorce. She can make sure the kids are taken care of, but fleecing him financially to prove a point just makes her another angry, bitter ex who's using money to exact revenge. That will, in turn, stress both of them out, make him bitter towards her and possibly the children, and make any sort of reasonable co-parenting difficult.

Keep in mind, we're hearing only her side of the story, which has only found fault with him and his behavior. The dissolution of a marriage requires two people, not one, and who's to say he's not somewhere else complaining about her behavior and how that impacted his choice.

Both parties should just be big about it, keep it in the courts, and try to be as civil as possible, without both using the courts as a means to attack each other and prove points about how miserable they were or are.

 

[renewed21]

She shouldn't make it hard for him to be a father, nor should she use this as an opportunity to make a buck or require him to support her and treat her like his wife financially if he's getting a divorce. She can make sure the kids are taken care of, but fleecing him financially to prove a point just makes her another angry, bitter ex who's using money to exact revenge. That will, in turn, stress both of them out, make him bitter towards her and possibly the children, and make any sort of reasonable co-parenting difficult.

Keep in mind, we're hearing only her side of the story, which has only found fault with him and his behavior. The dissolution of a marriage requires two people, not one, and who's to say he's not somewhere else complaining about her behavior and how that impacted his choice.

Both parties should just be big about it, keep it in the courts, and try to be as civil as possible, without both using the courts as a means to attack each other and prove points about how miserable they were or are.

you are wrong. He has financial obligations to her an his kids. He needs to be a man and fulfill them. And you are also wrong about dual dissolution.

and no one said anything about being uncivil. Not sure why you brought that up.

Bottom line is he made a solemn commitment before God, he needs to honor it not add to the modern, relativistic fallicy that justifies divorce.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

you are wrong. He has financial obligations to her an his kids. He needs to be a man and fulfill them. And you are also wrong about dual dissolution.

and no one said anything about being uncivil. Not sure why you brought that up.

Bottom line is he made a solemn commitment before God, he needs to honor it not add to the modern, relativistic fallicy that justifies divorce.

Nobody is saying he shouldn't, but the advice to go to the mats and make him pay by ruining him financially is not particularly helpful advice. And it does turn uncivil when she takes this advice and uses it to prolong the divorce in the hopes of getting a few more dollars out of him, which translates to the same lack of respect extended to her by him, which means there are kids caught in the crossfire of a parent who's trying to get money out of the other, and the other who's angry because of it. The court does a fine enough job determining who should get what, with heavy, heavy favor going to the woman anyway.

And no, they're getting divorced. It means he has an obligation to the kids, not to supporting her for the rest of forever. She needs to do just as much to support herself as he is. Honestly, who wants an ex-husband to be their primary source of income? Why wouldn't somebody want to take pride in who they are and support themselves?

What he does and doesn't honor in front of God is an entirely different matter when it comes to ending a legal marriage. Especially since, as I said, this whole series of posts paints him as the bad buy for leaving and doesn't examine at all what she did to contribute to the demise of the marriage, other than they argued a lot. If it weren't even for that post where she said that one little blip, it would sound like they were married, they were fine, then suddenly her husband said "I want a divorce." I'm pretty sure that's not at all what happened... It rarely ever is.

 

[grafton25]

Tropical Wilds,
True you have only heard my side of the story. And yes it does take two to get were we have ended up. I do not keep him from the children or talk bad about him around the children. He is welcome to see them whenever he would like. When we both go to the childrens activities we act like the family we should be. We are agreeing to most everything in the divorce aside from the allimony. It is not that I feel like he owes me this or that. It is the fact that I had a job and didn't want to move. I moved thinking we wold be a family here having no idea he would leave. I have been trying very hard to find a job. The area we live in does not have many jobs to offer. I would like nothing more than to be able to support myself and not have to ask him for money. I think if I didn't need his money that may actually help us to repair our marriage. I believe my marriage can be saved. I think it will take time and patience from both him and I. I have issues to work on to fix the marraige I realize that. I would just like for him to give us a chance. That is why I would prefer the legal sepreation over the divorce.

 

[renewed21]

Nobody is saying he shouldn't, but the advice to go to the mats and make him pay by ruining him financially is not particularly helpful advice. And it does turn uncivil when she takes this advice and uses it to prolong the divorce in the hopes of getting a few more dollars out of him, which translates to the same lack of respect extended to her by him, which means there are kids caught in the crossfire of a parent who's trying to get money out of the other, and the other who's angry because of it. The court does a fine enough job determining who should get what, with heavy, heavy favor going to the woman anyway.

And no, they're getting divorced. It means he has an obligation to the kids, not to supporting her for the rest of forever. She needs to do just as much to support herself as he is. Honestly, who wants an ex-husband to be their primary source of income? Why wouldn't somebody want to take pride in who they are and support themselves?

What he does and doesn't honor in front of God is an entirely different matter when it comes to ending a legal marriage. Especially since, as I said, this whole series of posts paints him as the bad buy for leaving and doesn't examine at all what she did to contribute to the demise of the marriage, other than they argued a lot. If it weren't even for that post where she said that one little blip, it would sound like they were married, they were fine, then suddenly her husband said "I want a divorce." I'm pretty sure that's not at all what happened... It rarely ever is.

nobody is wanting to ruin him. He has and will make his own choices. Again, I'm not understanding why you are making these unfounded assumptions.

He qwas responsible for moving the family away from her source of income , therefore he is responsible. It is very simple and the courts will definately take that into consideration. We all need to be responsible for our actions and he will be forced to since he is not man enough to do so.

And what you describe in your final paragraph is irrelevant in terms of choosing to end a marriage. Yes most likly two peolple contribute to marital stresses, but he is choosing to end the marriage.

Since this is a Christian Forum Christ's rules apply not man's. Christ was very clear on how to handle relationship problems and also on divorce. Makes me wonder why you are trying to defend his actions.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Tropical Wilds,
True you have only heard my side of the story. And yes it does take two to get were we have ended up. I do not keep him from the children or talk bad about him around the children. He is welcome to see them whenever he would like. When we both go to the childrens activities we act like the family we should be. We are agreeing to most everything in the divorce aside from the allimony. It is not that I feel like he owes me this or that. It is the fact that I had a job and didn't want to move. I moved thinking we wold be a family here having no idea he would leave. I have been trying very hard to find a job. The area we live in does not have many jobs to offer. I would like nothing more than to be able to support myself and not have to ask him for money. I think if I didn't need his money that may actually help us to repair our marriage. I believe my marriage can be saved. I think it will take time and patience from both him and I. I have issues to work on to fix the marraige I realize that. I would just like for him to give us a chance. That is why I would prefer the legal sepreation over the divorce.

You needing or not needing alimony has nothing to do with repairing your marriage, it has to do with settling a divorce. His stating that if you didn't need alimony, he'd come back is, honestly, from the sounds of it, just something he's saying since people don't settle alimony if they are going to get back together.

Like I said, if you moved and didn't want to, then you should move back, especially if the job opportunities are more prevalent or you had a good job there and there's a chance you could be rehired back into the company. There's no point in staying where you don't want to be at this point if opportunity awaits you elsewhere.

Honestly, I think it'd be good for you because the fact is that if you feel the marriage could be saved really is beside the point... He feels it can't and is acting accordingly. So your feelings that it could be salvaged are, quite frankly, wrong. You can't save a marriage when he's filing divorce papers and has no interest in getting back together. The fact that you still think you could means that you're not even acknowledging what he's saying or doing, you're still operating under your own assumptions over what could happen, if it weren't for the massive sticking point that he doesn't want it to happen, he has no interest in saving it, and has told you this directly, through his actions, and legally.

You need to focus on you, setting yourself up so that you can support yourself and the kids, and stop conforming yourself to impress somebody who just wants to leave. He won't notice, you won't do anything to change his mind, the marriage will still be over, and you'll just be more drained emotionally for no good reason.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

nobody is wanting to ruin him. He has and will make his own choices. Again, I'm not understanding why you are making these unfounded assumptions.

He qwas responsible for moving the family away from her source of income , therefore he is responsible. It is very simple and the courts will definately take that into consideration. We all need to be responsible for our actions and he will be forced to since he is not man enough to do so.

And what you describe in your final paragraph is irrelevant in terms of choosing to end a marriage. Yes most likly two peolple contribute to marital stresses, but he is choosing to end the marriage.

Since this is a Christian Forum Christ's rules apply not man's. Christ was very clear on how to handle relationship problems and also on divorce. Makes me wonder why you are trying to defend his actions.

Let's allow the court to decide what they do and don't take into consideration... In my state, they don't care if you've lived in the same place your whole marital life, or if one partner got a job on Mars and the other came with. In my state, they'd say that you should move back to where you were most successful if that's what you need to do, develop a parenting plan that takes this into account, and move on with your separate lives. If her state works like ours, saying that an ex needs to support you because he moved and you came with and you didn't want to, you'd be laughed at. Quite literally. So perhaps it's best for the theorizing as to what will or won't happen in court be up to her, her ex, and their two lawyers.

Should he be responsible for supporting the kids financially? Yes. Should she also be responsible for supporting herself and the kids financially? Yes. And she's going to court, so she's ensuring that something will be set up so that she gets child support. So making him responsible? She's doing that... But I think at least some people aren't reading what's written here... Repeatedly through this thread it has been brought up that he should be made to pay and the assumption is that he's not paying enough... When she's stated he's paying child support, the house, all the bills, and now alimony, and she doesn't work. So as it stands right now, he IS being responsible. But unless the guy is a millionaire, the state will decide, based off of his income what he should be paying, and it most likely won't include her house, all the bills, and alimony and child support. They will set what he should be paying, and almost certainly it won't include nearly as much as she's getting now, and from there the rest is up to her. Fighting for more will get you not very far once the court weighs in. At that point, things being hard (if they are hard) are that way not because he left, but because she chooses to do nothing else.

The assumption that he needs to be "made responsible?" Totally unfounded since, as of right now, all of her bills are paid for and she's stressing over the limiting of the kids extra curricular activities as the result of her financial hardship. And after they've finished court, she won't have her household bills covered by him anymore... So unless she does something now, her biggest worries won't be the kids sports fees, it'll be a mortgage, electricity, and so on.

The rules of Christ are all well and good, but walking into a court and saying "Christ says divorce isn't desirable and he's supposed to take care of me because he's the one who filed for divorce" will, in the end, get you an odd stare and the same judgement as before. In the legal world, your personal faith and how it commands divorce be settled means very little. But that said, even in the process of divorce illustrated in the Bible said that man was merely to provide a certificate to his wife and send her on her way, not that he was required to support her. Alimony and child support is an invention of man's rule, so you can't demand God's law as the only way on one hand, but demand the maximum benefit of man's law on the other.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say "don't get divorced and don't allow him to make it easy to divorce you... But if he does, make sure you get all the money you're entitled to because he left and he deserves to part with for disobeying God."

 

[mjmcmillan]

What state is it, and what are the divorce laws there???

My ex-wife tried it with me. She really thought the court would make me pay three hundred a week plus pay her rent, the utilities and so on. No child support because her three kids are already grown and not mine in the first place. She thought the judge would do this because she is a woman and had quit her job as a security guard a year before the divorce (her choice).

Problem: Illinois law doesn't quite read that way. It allows the minimum amount of support for the least amount of time possible. The judge decreed $250.00 a month for six months, and Illinois law being what it is the decision once entered is final. I wrote the last check in April of 2010.

State laws vary. All states will award child support, typically not to exceed a third of the man's adjusted gross income. Some states allow some form of alimony, but don't count on that as a blanket guarantee.

My ex-wife had been watching too much court-TV where people go to court, sue for millions and retire for life on someone else's labors. Real life is quite a bit different. In real life, what she was asking would have totally destroyed me (which is what she was going for-- using the court to further her abusive ideas) and left me working three jobs, sleeping in an abandoned car and eating out of dumpsters. This was a thought that seemed to give her great pleasure. The court didn't see it quite the way she did, however.


Your mileage may vary.

 

[grafton25]

At this point I am just trying to decide if I should keep fighting for my marriage. When do you give up and just let go? And if I decide to move on and let go do I give into his offer in order to keep the peace or do I fight to protect myself?

 

[grafton25]

mjmcmillan, I live in Illinois also. I am aware that I could get less than what he is offering. It is a chance I would have to take. The child support is set. He would have to pay 28% of his income since we have two minor children together. The law also states that we would each have to give the other half of our retirement. I have a very small retirement versus his larger retirement. He is refusing to give me any even though it is the law. I am not asking for half I am just asking for about 1/3 which would not put me anywhere near half of his even with my own. I realize I could go to court and get no alimony or I could be better off then the year he is offering. My hope would be that the judge would take into account that I didn't want to leave my job and now I am in a area with few jobs. I apply for jobs on a daily basis with no luck. I am don't asking for more than he can afford to pay. I am asking for way less than what I need to support myself even after I would get a job. I am not trying to ruin my husband. I love him and would still like to work on our marriage.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

At this point I am just trying to decide if I should keep fighting for my marriage. When do you give up and just let go? And if I decide to move on and let go do I give into his offer in order to keep the peace or do I fight to protect myself?

Worry about getting yourself squared away and the kids squared away financially first. You don't want to find that you've put every ounce of yourself into saving a marriage that he's said all along he has no interest in staying in, now you're divorced, you're broke, and you have no way to provide your half of support to the kids.

mjmcmillan, I live in Illinois also. I am aware that I could get less than what he is offering. It is a chance I would have to take. The child support is set. He would have to pay 28% of his income since we have two minor children together. The law also states that we would each have to give the other half of our retirement. I have a very small retirement versus his larger retirement. He is refusing to give me any even though it is the law. I am not asking for half I am just asking for about 1/3 which would not put me anywhere near half of his even with my own. I realize I could go to court and get no alimony or I could be better off then the year he is offering. My hope would be that the judge would take into account that I didn't want to leave my job and now I am in a area with few jobs. I apply for jobs on a daily basis with no luck. I am don't asking for more than he can afford to pay. I am asking for way less than what I need to support myself even after I would get a job. I am not trying to ruin my husband. I love him and would still like to work on our marriage.

The judge will not care that you moved. He really won't. In the end, they will say you didn't have to go, or that now you're divorcing, you can move back. They don't award alimony based off of stuff like that. And if even with support, alimony, and a job you still wouldn't be bringing enough in, you really need to get in gear look for jobs, even if it's at WalMart. Otherwise, literally, I'm quite scared for your finances. I truly am.