Silly question maybe.....

My H is away in another country in vet school with the OW. He has been there since last April. We have had our D-day and he has left and cut all communication. I have done Plan A and am now in plan B. I am in the process of trying to find a lawyer and move on.

My question is.. My H gets so much mail delivered to our house. A lot of it has to do with his student loans and appplications he has to fill out. What do i do with it all? I have not heard from my H since May. We are in Plan B so I do not want to contact him. I certainly do not want him contacting me either at this point. And I do not want him to think I am trying to make an excuse to contact him, no way, i am done.

I can not call since i am not allowed to have his number- it is an unlisted number. His mother said he wanted his mail sent here and not to her house. What am I suppossed to do with it? She said when he comes home for Christmas he will get it. But I do not want him here (hopefully i will have served him with papers by then).

Also- he needs to fill out these applications for financial aid. I do not want to enable him so I have thrown alot of his mail out (mostly junk mail) anyhting else I set aside. Can I have his mail foewarded to his parents house by filling out a change of address form? It irks me to get his mail everyday.
Thanks for your input.
Forgiver

I cannot say if I am right or not but my gut instinct is to say send what mail you have to his mother and fill out that change of address card.

If you really intend on being done and filling for a D, then why should it be your problem to deal with. I say let his momma deal with his stuff.

Forgiver,
I think the "change of address" form from the post office requires a signature. If so, you might be asking for trouble by forging his name to it. I know it's the easiest solution but I would hate for it to come back and bite you later.

My husband was also gone w/OW all summer working on PhD out of state, and I just held everything. Each day, I would put his mail in a big manilla envelope. That way, it was out of my sight yet kept for him and there was no way he could accuse me of doing anything with it. I even saved the junk mail, cuz what I may consider junk, he may consider "his" just because it has HIS name on it. Legally I think that's the right thing to do, too.

If you don't want to see him when it's time for the big mail delivery at Christmas, then give THAT envelope (which has all of his letters in it) to his mother or other family member just before he gets back in town.

Forgiver,

Another problem with forwarding mail is that sometimes the post office forwards all the mail for a particular address. They don't always sort by the person's name on the envelope. I have had problems with this in the past.

So instead of facing the possibility of your mail being forwarded too I agree with the other posters that you should just keep it in an envelope and when it's convenient for you...take it to his mother.

I don't feel he deserves the courtesy of you delivering urgent mail any sooner than is convenient for you. It's part of the natural consequences of his actions. Hope you're doing well!! You've been an inspiration to me since I started reading/posting here.

CSue

Forgiver !!!

I had been wondering about you ~~~~

So glad to see you are moving along in YOUR recovery .... with or without the WS.

You are really a <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" /> woman.

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

I think you should "return to sender", as the "addressee no longer resides at this address". You can give his mum one last chance to take his mail, but either way, you can just return it. If there's no return addy on the envelope, then toss it out.

I'm not sure where you are... but I'm in Ontario, Canada, and I had a heck of a time with this issue during the separation between my H and I. H refused to change his address with, well, EVERYWHERE, including the government (for taxes, etc). And I did not have that 'power' to do so for him (just like that 'signature issue' with the post office to redirect mail). Anyways... after talking to some nice people at Revenue Canada, they suggested to me that the only way I could prove that he was not living with me was to continuously send all information back to the original sender.

I know that doesn't keep the mail from arriving at your house... but the only option to avoid that would be to move!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> And I don't imagine that's part of your equation <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> .

But before you do anything with the mail... I would talk to a lawyer first, to see if there is anything you have a legal right to keep (and view of course), such as his student loans, etc. I'm not sure of the ramifications... but I do believe that for some expenses, if they occurred during a M, are the responsibility of BOTH H and W to pay... no matter who incurred the original expense.

Just continue to protecdt yourself, while staying within the law... and you'll be just fine! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Good luck!

Karen

I wonder what you would want done if things were reversed. I really think he needs some kind of warning so he can send change of address to all of them.

I know that you are going to file, and that it is his fault. I believe common courtesy would require that you notify him that you intend to file, and that after a cutoff date, you will throw away his mail. If you don't want to tip him about the pending D, just say it a different way.

1. You have shown you don't want me, so I am moving on with my life.

2. Part of the changes that will take place is that I will no longer accept mail for you here after Oct 30th ( or whatever.)

3. Every thing I get before that date I will put in an envelope and give to your Mother.

4. Everthing I get after that date will be thrown away.

Continue to show a more noble side of you. If you can't get the warning to him in person, give it to his mother, that would also give her a hint about what is happening without telling her directly. Another thing to consider is that if you make him mad, he could send a change of address to people you need to get mail from.
Also, as was brought up above, as long as you get it, you can monitor what his is doing. It may be best just to wait until D is final. Where he is out of the country, you can perhaps claim abondonment and never notify him ( and not give him a chance to contest it) Your lawyer(s) can advise you about that much better than we can.

Part of plan B is to communicate through a third party when there is important business to take care of, I think this fits into that catagory.

SS

<small>[ August 28, 2002, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: still seeking ]</small>

The post office has specific verbage to signal a change in status.

Discarding mail that is addressed to him can get you in legal hot water. The best option is to take it all to the post office and tell them that this specific person no longer lives at your house, however you do. Ask them how to handle it, since he left without a forwarding address, so to speak.

They will probably return it to sender marked "addressee unknown" - then the student loan problem will be his to deal with. As it should be.

You're not his mother or his secretary. Thus, you shouldn't have to take care of him since you are also not planning on staying his wife for much longer.

KaylaAndy, the problem I see with this, is that unless she changes her name, some things that she needs may be sent back. Like utilities and other bills that may affect her credit rating. Also, mistakes are often made as was said above, and they mistakenly foreward everytning with that address on it, and don't even look at the name. This has happened to me before and it took weeks to fix it.

As I understand it, the laws that affect stealing mail have to do with intercepting mail before it gets to it's intended address. Once it gets there, there is not a problem with disposal, only misuse (that is, fraud, for instance if you pretended to be him to get money out of someone.)

( However, I just asked our postman, and he and I are not the same as legal advice)

It is true that she is not his mother or secetary but she is his wife, and has not signaled any change in status. ( I know he has, but lets not get into that discussion.) In other words, he has no reason to believe that she would not continue to handle it as she has in the past. Shouldn't she tell him that his status has changed and she won't do it any longer before she does anything with the mail itself?

I think having his mail forewarded or returned would cause her more problems than it would solve.

Any postal workers care to comment?

SS

<small>[ August 28, 2002, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: still seeking ]</small>

Forgiver,
SS is right...having mail forwarded or RTS would cause you more problems;we all know that postal employees deal with a LOT of mail and don't always look at specific first names when sorting. You may be hurting yourself, by having YOUR important stuff accidently forwarded or RTS, if you go that route.

But I still think throwing away mail is wrong because it's an act YOU did, regardless of if it's technically stealing or not. Why not take the "high road" in this instance? Just dump everything in a bag each day and keep it in a closet until he gets back and then give it to his relative.

He can deal with all his student loans and other business stuff when he gets back. It's not like you're paying his bills or anything. It's HIS responsibility to act upon those things he surely is aware are coming. Since he hasn't asked about them, you should just hang onto them and let him deal with the messes his negligence caused when he gets back. He'll have his hands full, I'm sure! And your conscience will be clear <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />