I dont know what people think.
we have to focus on the positives, not the negatives.

Try this. I forgot...does WW have an attorney? There is no point going to mediation given the little assets you have. Your lawyer might simply ask her what it is she wants vs going back and forth...and point out the expense and time mediation and a court trail will take. He can also bring up that her adultery will be introduced in mediation and court so that will give her something to think about.

Ax, I was married almost 18 yrs, had children and a lot of property to divide...I never went to mediation or court. My exWH knew he would be signing up for an [censored] kicking if we went to court. He also didn't want to spend more money on legal fees. I would ask your attorney to contact her (or her attorney) and try to get her agreement on something ASAP.

x 2

If she wants an extra $2k and you will pay $4k to fight over $2k then just let it go. You aren't talking tens or hundreds of thousands here. Let her have her pots and pans... stuff like that is silly to fight over.

I am certainly not saying you should bend over and give her everything and anything she wants but if it's reasonable when you consider the time, headache and cost to keep dealing with her, don't fight over petty amounts. As you said, you make a lot more than her and you can rebuild. She will probably blow whatever she gets and stay broke.

Truer words were never spoken. I need to remember this as well. I think it's funny how so many of these waywards are so bad with money. It speaks to impulse control and thinking about the future.

I would outright reject going to mediation and have your lawyer tell WW that you are prepared to go to trial. Given your WW's behavior, mediation will be a waste of time/money and you will end up going to trial anyway if she doesn't voluntarily agree to something. Bring up that her adultery will be brought up in the trial and that you will subpeona POSOM to appear.

I even told my MIL that she might want to talk to her son if he had any ideas about fighting me because court would be very, very ugly and embarrassing for him. As concerned as your WW's parents have been about her "image" and her mom telling you to "let her go", her family may apply pressure that way too. You can tell your inlaws that you want as little drama as possible so it is up to WW how she wants to go about this. If you present it that way there is also no spin that you are just out to get her.

My two cents

WW does not have an attorney at this point, she is representing herself.

She already took all of her pots/pans/kitchen & culinary equipment. Ditto for the vast majority of our furniture, all of her clothing, all of our kitchen accessories and appliances, everything in her areas of interest that she might have wanted.

In the property division I specified with my filing, I gave her everything she had been asking me for in the months prior (other than a firearm which is an heirloom and isn't marital property) and even assumed full responsibility for a joint credit account that she technically should cover 50% of.

I agree, it's not much stuff overall, and I don't get squabbling over practically nothing. I also do not know why she wants mediation because she has been given everything she's communicated to me that she wants up to this point.

I think she wants a trial because it will not cost her anything and she knows a judge will give her half of my retirement and probably one of my cars. ETA: Those things considered, we ARE talking about tens of thousands of dollars. I'm generally a miser but I've been putting away 10% of every paycheck since 2007 (before I was married to WW) and so there's a good chunk of coin in there. My cars are both worth about $6k on paper too. Every lawyer I've talked to has told me that I'm going to lose a car and half my retirement when they've looked at our property, so I don't expect to keep these things. I just don't know how to proceed because she hasn't asked me for them and I don't want to just offer them to her. Also she refuses to have contact with me.

I don't know how practical it is for her to represent herself at trial.

She knows she's got the upper hand in a property division. One of her emails basically was a threat to give her what she's asking for because she knows she could "ask the judge" to give her a lot more.

Now I will say this:

Her last email (which I haven't responded to) was to ask me "how I was going to handle" her debt that I assumed in my property filing. I've already told her several times that I'm not going to just send her cash for these accounts (which is what she wants) and that I need a monthly statement from her if I'm going to send her any money at all (which she hasn't provided). Also I assumed the court would have some remedy for transferring these to my name.

I need to just talk to my lawyer about all of this. The mediation may only be her trying to get a legal assurance that she will receive the vehicle title for the car she wants, and me assuming the debt I've assumed of hers.

These are my thoughts exactly. I'm not going to be asking ANYTHING from her at mediation, and I really don't know what she will be asking from me.

I have very little hope of agreement at mediation because since she already has what she's been telling me all these months she has wanted, I imagine her motives are to get whatever she thinks she can intimidate me into getting by saying "I'll get it anyways if this goes to trial".

I don't really want to fight over anything at this point. My position is I hope that she doesn't realize she could get a lot more from me than she's been asking up to this point.

However, if she wants it, under the whole 50/50 concept she's going to get it, and I don't want to fight over it if that is her aim. I can just replace the lost savings and the car, and do it more rapidly now since I make more money than I did when we got married.

Strategically, I don't know how to get to that point other than offering those things to her and hoping that it's enough for her to drop the mediation and trial. That's where people who have more experience with divorce here could really help me.

They don't have any influence over her at this point, to be honest. She's going to do what she wants to do and she doesn't give a rip if they don't like it. Almost everyone in her family has said this to me.

I do like the idea of subpoena-ing the text and call records between her and OM, and then providing a copy to all of those people since they responded to exposure by questioning my credibility. But that's probably not worth the legal cost.

What state are you in?

MO

There is no 50/50 concept in your state, ax.

http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/stathtml/45200003301.HTML

These are your two biggest defenses:

2) The contribution of each spouse to the acquisition of the marital property, including the contribution of a spouse as homemaker;

(4) The conduct of the parties during the marriage;

Her adultery can affect the division of assets. I suggest your lawyer contact her to ask her what her issue is with the property since you do not have a large amount of assets and it would be beneficial for both of you to get an agreed upon decree and avoid the time and expense of mediation and court.

If she responds, you can decide if you will take it or leave it. If she doesn't respond then you can tell her no to mediation (unless it's required) and that you will prepare for trial...and then toss out that her adultery will be introduced under (4) above, etc.

She already went down in court once. If she has any sense left she will want to avoid standing before a judge with her AP being subpoenaed. The split could be 30/70 or 40/60...she does not automatically get half.

^A friend of mine who was divorced in my state a few years ago made these same points to me the other day. I hadn't bothered looking up the relevant statute, but thank you BR for taking the time to do so. I've been avoiding this topic and it's time to face it head on.

I'll be talking to my lawyer tomorrow.

What would you gain from this? You already know what the truth is. Deep in some remote areas there are probably some peoples who still believe that the earth is flat. If you show them a globe will it change their mind?

You are operating on the assumption that you need to prove a fact to them. But you don't. A rational person will know the facts and irrational persons don't accept facts.

axe,
Don't worry about the pots and pans.
When you move on you won't want to keep the same furniture and stuff anyways.
What I did was take everything my wife left behind (mostly clothing and some other things) and had a nice bon fire the evening of Divorce Day.

You are correct in that nothing would be gained of practical value. It would simply be satisfying to me to show them that because I'd see that as incontrovertible proof, even in their very biased view of the situation.

Any objective viewer of this situation sees it for what it is, but her family just buries their heads in the sand on the topic of her affair. Whatever was on that phone was damning enough that my wife left immediately as soon as she figured out I was onto her. She knows me well enough to know I didn't really need a password to the phone, I would have found an exploit for it and hacked my way in if I had set my mind on hacking it.

The only reason I even asked her for the password was because I thought it was the more honest thing to do rather than hack the phone, and while she successfully gaslighted me into giving it back to her, I'm certain she knew next time I got suspicious I wouldn't bother asking. I'd already caught her in several lies related to OM in the days leading up to the phone argument.

Something was on the phone that she didn't want anyone to see. I would guess sexting and coaching by OM to leave me. I already found several selfies on her old PC that I know came from her phone by examining the EXIF data. These weren't sent to me and weren't posted to any of her social media accounts, so I'm sure they went to OM.


Oh, I won't. Like I was telling BR, most of that stuff is gone, and the stuff she did leave will probably meet the same end as your WW's stuff. Even if by some miracle my WW comes out of the fog soon enough for me to care after the divorce is finalized, the relationship would be a total reset in my mind and not a continuation. I wouldn't want any of that stuff.

You're very welcome.

You have already taken on more debt than you needed. Your attorney should remind her of that. I don't know what the value of the car is but usually the last thing you want to touch is the retirement account. I'd part with the car before touching the retirement account. When splitting a retirement account/benefit, you have to draft a document called a QDRO and it's easier to divide other assets.

I'd still tell her family you hope she won't fight with you in court since her adultery will be a big issue. Plant seeds. It can't hurt.

Well, my lawyer received a proposed settlement agreement from WW today. WW put it together and had it notarized herself. Either being poor or resourceful, not sure which. Perhaps both.

Really, nothing to complain about in the settlement agreement. She lists all of our appliances and pieces in furniture on the settlement which is puzzling since most of them have no value. Only vehicle she listed was her own, which she added a note on to complain that I had overestimated its value in my filing since it no longer runs apparently. Didn't list any of my vehicles, or my retirement account. Splits the debt along the lines I suggested.

She wants basically all of the remaining house appliances and furniture (even what she left) and I don't mind giving that to her. It's puzzling that she wants it, because we were cheap and most of it is from Craigslist. But she can have it.

No reasons I shouldn't sign this, it's just strange to me. I'm sure I'm over thinking it. All I can guess is she wants this over ASAP so she can get with her AP and not have to keep everything underground.

I'm grateful that there isn't going to be a trial. I just look at what's written on this settlement and like a lot of her writings since D-day she seems to have a loose grasp on reality. I don't know if it's the fog or what. I also wonder if the idea of a trial bothered her because she knew what was going to surface.

What do you all make of the no-contact thing in this situation? That's the strangest element of this story to me. I read other stories on here and it seems like the waywards are always hanging around trying to get support from both partners to some extent. It makes me wonder how shaky the foundation is with her AP since our split was so polar. Or maybe it's the other way for her, a clean break.

My WW won't talk to me, either. In fact, she contacted me regarding the divorce last week. I invited her to church, and she said she didn't want to see me anywhere. In fact, her proposed agreement includes a restraining provision that prohibits us from communicating. I'm trying to get it amended to allow for necessary communications, but I'm not sure how that's going to go. I say all this to say I don't think it's strange that your WW doesn't want to talk to you. I think they feel guilty and we remind them of their guilt. Eventually she probably won't be able to escape it.

Ax and NM,

Some waywards will go no contact, especially ones who "don't want to be cheating." I had a friend who had a similar situation. Her husband was totally out and basically would never communicate with her unless it was totally necessary.

What I think is interesting with both of you though is that your wives won't talk to you, but then are also causing unnecessary drama with unwarranted restraining orders and lawsuits and such. It's sexually a way to keep contact indirectly.