| Author | Message | ||
     Rick_a |
...I am divorced. A year plus in the making. Things were looking pretty grim until I got rid of my lawyer and hired someone that gives a damn. Things turned out about as well as can be expected. Best two grand I ever spent.  | ||
| Ourdee |
Real estate agents and lawyers need firing from time to time. | ||
| Rick_a |
Yeah, man. My original attorney was all about the numbers and I liked her game. She got sick and closed her practice. The one that took over for her had a good reputation, but pretty much fed me to the wolves. The one I then hired was sharp and persuasive. I can't believe what she pulled off with very little time to spare. She's truly a bad @$$. I can't say everyone is happy, but damn it feels good to be free. | ||
| Ourdee |
Remember, Cookies are for closers. Now, stay single! | ||
| Pwnzor |
Let's go drinking and shooting! Not necessarily in that order... | ||
| Rick_a |
Did my drinking last night. Might continue on the weekend. Shooting happens whenever around here. | ||
| Rick_a |
 | ||
| Tpehak |
Why did you divorce? | ||
| Ratbuell |
I doubt we really need to know those details... Congrats, Rick. I went through mine years ago and if you can get out relatively unscathed, you can survive and rebuild. Life goes on. Sounds like you did OK - now, leave that seat up, put the furniture where YOU want it, and enjoy life! | ||
| Rick_a |
Physical repulsion. That's a point there's no going back from, and something I cannot accept in a long term partnership. I have half my life ahead of me, and I'll be damned if it's with someone that accepts misery as normalcy. | ||
| Rick_a |
All we had between us monetarily was a house...and it meant nothing to me, but worked perfectly as leverage. I do have a girlfriend...and I'll do whatever the hell she wants as long as she treats me well. (Message edited by Rick_a on April 02, 2020) | ||
| Tpehak |
Interesting. | ||
| Tpehak |
Why did you hire the lawyer? You had no agreement with wife about the property? | ||
| Zacks |
Tpehak, you trying to turn this into a 'How-to' thread?  | ||
| Sifo |
How to? Consult with every good lawyer in town before you take any further steps. After that, all the good lawyer's can't take your spouse as a client. Not that's I've ever known anyone to do such a thing.  The house I just bought was from a divorce. Turned out that a friend of mine was seeing the ex-wife while I was working on the sale. I started to feel like I was getting sucked into their divorce. They can suck! | ||
| Zacks |
Sifo, My buddies wife did exactly that while we were out of town on a jobsite. And changed the locks. And emptied the joint account. AND had a girlfriend there when he came home in case she needed a witness to his response. Pretty sure the girlfriend was acting as coach as well. | ||
| Ourdee |
Why did you divorce?. | ||
| Rick_a |
Well, technically, until a judge signs off and both parties are in agreement, legally everything you've purchased together has equal ownership. I had to break into my own house a couple of times and hack back into my own accounts to restore my phone and internet service repeatedly. There's a voluminous amount of legal precedent, forms, guidelines, laws, and a few avenues that can be taken in a divorce. It's pretty much impossible to navigate without legal representation. Ideally one would seek an uncontested divorce, where a couple agrees on the terms and the party assuming the legal costs hires an attorney to put it all on paper in a divorce decree. Once everyone agrees and it is signed off by both parties it then gets sent before a judge where the parties swear in and it becomes legally binding. This is where I started, but once the paperwork was drawn up my ex hired her own attorney, despite basically drawing up her own terms, in order to "protect" herself. A parenting class also has to be taken, where you're instructed on how to not be a shite parent through it all, and tips on how to grin and bear your relationship with a freshly seething and loathing ex. Failing at an uncontested divorce, the parties will move into arbitration...where a (supposedly, in my case) neutral party helps find common ground and is supposed to settle at a compromise. Keep in mind at each step thousands of dollars are being thrown at attorneys, whether they're helping or hurting the case. Things stalled here and I had a pretty bad outlook for everything. Things were so far out from what my ex and I had spoken about to begin with, I felt utterly defeated, yet (luckily) rejected the terms when it came time to sign on the dotted line...and also told off my 2nd attorney (the first shut down her practice)...which effectively ended our relationship. I had a temporary needs hearing set up, for which I had a stay ordered so that I could secure new counsel. It was to set up temporary terms for visitation and child support, as at this point things had dragged on for a year, and I had not given my ex any support, and she only allowed me to see my son for a matter of weeks over that year. A magistrate makes recommendations to the judge for the upcoming trial, where again...a bunch of money is thrown towards legal representation and generally nobody is happy when a divorce gets to such a point. A judge basically sets up the terms based on legal precedent and state guidelines. My new lawyer had but a couple weeks to prepare for this, but after a couple phone calls and one intense night exchanging information, she pulled off the impossible...getting the opposing party to agree to completely new terms despite previously claiming their terms as set in arbitration unmodifiable. It ended up very close to the original terms my ex and I had laid out together...with some minor modification...which both tickled me and I found a bit absurd. Overall getting divorced cost me over 5k in legal fees and a year of headache. The thing that hurt most was not seeing my son's grumpy, groggy, morning face each day. That said, leaving my former home was a liberating, uplifting experience...as our relationship hadn't emphasized eachother for years and was particularly bad for the previous couple of years. My ex had become an oppressive spirit in my life...and it's no more evident than when you leave. At the end of it I just want to see my son on the regular...which hopefully being legally compelled to do so will change my ex's behavior in that regard. Marriage is fine if you can always remember that the reason you're together is eachother. If it ever becomes anything else...it's a sham. | ||
| Rick_a |
 IMG_20190221_073335 by Slick_Rick77, on Flickr Well, okay, then! | ||
| Brother_in_buells |
Maybe this is a good time to get the S1 back alive!? | ||
| Rick_a |
All in due time. I've gotta get back on my feet again. I'll probably fix the S1 and DR at the same time. |
