That's because she's fogged out. If/when the affair ends, she'll change largely back to the person you know. It's up to you to decide if you're willing and can wait that long.

Good idea. I hired a criminal defense attorney that does a large side business in family law, especially protective orders, and particularly defending against them. I'm not sure where you live, and you might not find one of those in your area, Phoenix (where POSOM's filing is) is a fairly large city. His service was a flat fee $1000 + a few other expenses like subpeona filings.

I've found him very helpful (and very polite too).

That's probably the line I will seek to ride.

It won't hurt my feelings if she didn't contest, I'll be honest. I'm tired of the cloud over my head that this whole situation is and I'm only a couple months short of my Plan A goal of 6 months. I realized yesterday when I opened that email how much I still get triggered by all of this any time I hear from her. It turns my stomach any time I get an email from her. I guess it's PTSD, I don't understand it. I don't know what she can do to me now to hurt me that she hasn't already done, so it's sort of irrational, but it's there.

We don't have kids, so I don't have the family concern, and while I'll miss several of my inlaws, they honestly are part of the problem here. They don't want D, but they don't want to take a firm line against WW's behavior either. I get that they are scared of losing her, but I can't relate. My own family has had situations like this happen and it was handled much differently with better results because people weren't scared to tell the truth to someone who was misbehaving.

My filing will probably be terms that I think she might agree to if she wants to make this all go away (which will still be far from 50/50), and I think she might go for it if she's feeling more hopeless than vindictive.

The night she asked to separate (before D-day) we had a very long discussion about things, and before I got her to agree to counseling, she went back and forth with me on property, so I have a good idea of what she wanted from me at least at that point, and it was far less than 50/50. Basically the vehicle she has, the furniture she ended up taking when she left, and equipment for her culinary business (which she also ended up taking). Maybe she was lying or is too angry to agree to that now, but I'm not so sure. She might go for it. Wouldn't bother me.

I told MIL shortly before the holidays that WW was still pursuing an RO and that this bothered me and made me skeptical about our ability to recover. I haven't said anything to them about "hey, I'm going to file D if your daughter doesn't withdraw the RO" because I think it would be foolish to do so. They've already broken confidence with me on the snooping and would expect them to do so on the D filing, I would have no way of trusting them if they came back and said "she said she'll cancel RO" and she's comfortable lying to them anyways, and I frankly don't think they exert much influence over her at this point.

When they say something to her she doesn't like (e.g. "your relationship with OM is wrong"), she decides to start ignoring them or refusing to see them, and so they get scared and decide not to talk to her about it again. She knows what she is doing there. According to them, she's mostly had nothing to do with them the last 3 months other than visiting briefly for the holidays.

What the attorney I talked to today said is that a divorce filing shows the judge in an RO hearing that I am actively trying to disassociate with WW, and so it challenges her claims that she has a reasonable fear of being stalked or harassed in a way that the court would find very credible.

Agree that would be a bad idea.

I don't have time to look through it but there may be info in here that you haven't seen and/or others may want to take a look so for what it's worth:

http://www.mobar.org/uploadedFiles/...andle%20an%20Order%20of%20Protection.pdf

Got it but the dismissal is not guaranteed, correct? Is there statute that says it will be dismissed or it's still up to a judge?

Correct. It's still up to a judge. It's simply thought to better my odds.

Another way of looking it at is even if I didn't fight the RO, I was planning on filing D in March if no turnaround was happening. That was the 6 month mark.

So I could either:

- Pay to fight this RO and likely lose, and then have to pay a bunch of additional money to file D if things don't change in 60 days.

or

- Pay the cost of the D filing now and have a better chance of dismissing the RO without having a separate expense to do so.

And a 3rd possibility is that WW might file D anyways after getting an RO against me (as that might be her motivation for pursing the RO), in which case I'd have to pay for RO defense + D filing without having a choice about when to file.

Then I would proceed with filing for D

Would you use this latest lawyer for divorce and do you have to have WW served before court or just the Petition filed? I would think you'd want her served.

Yes, I'm going to use this latest firm for the divorce filing. I don't know yet if I can get her served before the hearing next week.

One possibility I discussed with the attorney today was having them contact the court and request a continuance which would push the RO hearing back (either 14 or 30 days), and then going over my documentation with them in the mean time and putting our strategy together. I'd imagine if they're still firm on needing to file D after seeing all of my documentation, we could get her served in that period of time.

The attorney thought it was likely I could get a continuance granted if they contacted the clerk on my behalf.

I'd definitely ask for the continuance. You want to be as prepared and well informed as you can.

Get the continuance. There's no reason not to request one.

Do not trust the wayward or her family to do anything on their honor. It is not going to happen, you have already been burned.

Talked to the family law attorney from the same firm today (this last one that I like, where I spoke to a criminal defense attorney yesterday).

Her thoughts were that she thinks my wife's case for an RO is weak, but thinks it's really a toss up. She doesn't think WWs complaints match up with the statute definition of stalking and that my motivations for doing them are valid. But like every attorney there's the whole "but I can't tell you what a judge will do, they do irrational things with ROs" disclaimer. Maybe I'm looking for too much certainty here.

In any case, here's what's going to happen.

They want a full retainer up front to file. I may not be able to afford that, looking into it now. If I can afford it, I will file Monday and get her served Tuesday before the hearing. Then at the hearing I will tell the judge I've filed and he will do whatever he will do.

If I can't afford it, I will go to the hearing and request a continuance. This may or may not be granted. If it is, I will file when I can afford it.

If it is not, I will defend myself at the hearing. The attorney today was generous enough to take the time to go over my situation and basically explain to me exactly how she'd approach the judge. She thinks I need to compare my own actions with what's on the statute definition of stalking (since they don't match up), explain my motivations for taking the actions I did and the context of why I took them, and then provide the emails WW has sent to demonstrate that my wife has taken actions inconsistent with her claims of being fearful for her safety. Made an excellent point of saying "who willfully contacts someone they claim is stalking them to ask for favors?" This attorney was much less concerned about snooping than the criminal defense attorney, for what it's worth. Her general feeling was that this RO was not going to be granted if I explained myself but she's seen enough ridiculous ones go through that she didn't want me to bet on anything.

She thought I was capable of defending myself as well as she could as long as I could do those things, and that it would be fairly pointless to hire her for the RO and the divorce.

I don't feel certain of anything I guess but I feel like I've gotten a good variety of advice and enough is out of my control here that I can't really know how this will play out. I might just end up in a hearing defending myself if I can't afford the retainer and the judge denies a continuance. Going to prepare myself for that possibility with documents and such.

As someone who has been in and out of family court (8 times? I've lost count) over the past 3 years and spent thousands and thousands of dollars on attys fees, I know how stressful it is and how much it sucks. It seems like you are doing very well.

Hang in there!

When I was dealing with an RO I got a lot of the same info. It seems like flipping a coin. The judge may not care about your side and may just want to play it safe. It sounds like you have a good case though.

Even if you do retain an attorney, you should probably be as prepared to defend yourself as you want your attorney to be. From what I've read and experienced, most of them aren't going to work much harder than they have to.

Thanks guys. Just checked, there's no way I can afford to file before Tuesday. Or afford RO representation for that matter. $1500 for either type of representation with this firm. Did some traveling over Christmas to see some old friends (instead of staying home alone) and it's come back to bite me, but it was worth it. I'd have to do this WW-style and not pay any of my bills next week to swing $1500.

So I will ask for a continuance and be prepared to defend myself if it is denied. Wish me luck!

Good luck, ax. I'm praying for you.

I read all your previous posts... has taken me a while to catch up how things moved and how the events went on. Very sorry for all that has happened to you. Best of luck and may God bless you.

Find a way to get an attorney, going into court without one is unfortunately not good. Let her be without one.
I am pretty sure every state has do it yourself forms for divorce on their county/district court websites. There is usually a small filing fee. Then you would have to get it served. If the attorneys are recommending filing now, then do that yourself.