Not at all!

Ok - my dad said he'll support me in trying to restore my marriage...but he won't support me allowing my things accessible to a blinded psychopath.

Smart man!

Sorry but this is laughable. It has been my experience that divorce attorneys will tell you what you want to hear and then basically not follow through after you have given them a retainer. They LOVE to talk/email/conference to the other spouse's atty (for no good reason) and run up your bill.

I am on my THIRD atty and they all came high recommended to me, and they have all been pretty terrible (ML and Mr W can vouch for me).

A one year divorce with a nasty wayward can get VERY expensive. I DOUBT very much that it will cost 1k. Prepare yourself.

Great post.

Glad I made you laugh. I am sure if you have kids and assets a lawyer is important and expensive... If you need a lawyer to tell you when to sign and when not to sign in sure its cheaper. If he told me he was going to only need four hours and his rate is $250/HR... That's $1000.

All I need is a person to tell me when to sign stuff and when to ignore stuff. I am not pursuing assets... Because all I have is 1/30th of a house, 1/10th of two cars, and two dogs.

I only went to this lawyer to establish a line of communication. I'm not meeting him frequently. In fact I haven't and probably am not going to schedule another visit for awhile. He said to call when I get the paperwork and he will walk me through disagreement with the grounds she's filing on.

Huh? I did not say you made me laugh. I said it is laughable that dragging a divorce out for ONE YEAR with a nasty wayward will only cost 1k.


You are missing the point of my post (and Mr W's for that matter) - one of them being that divorce lawyers are SHADY and to proceed with caution regarding any estimate that he gave you.

I have also seen many people here on the forums without children and assets divorcing and it can and probably will get NASTY and costly. And you are talking about dragging it out a year.

Don't be so quick to dismiss our warning. I would have a backup plan in place for how you are going to afford this if it ends up costing you more like 3-5k (or more).

Thanks for the advice SuzieQ I will prepare and budget accordingly.

You have more assets than you think, i would guess.
Do you have a 401k, do you have a pension, social security, other tax write-offs, firearms, precious metals, stock options, a judgement in your favor, tax refund, upcoming bonus, inheritance clauses, beneficiary considerations?
On the opposite side, marital debt is also shared, credit cards, loans of all types, tax debt, fees.

The financial side of divorce can be as devastating as the emotional side. Make sure you consider this carefully and to your attorney.
Many people develop gambling habits and suddenly mysteriously lose a bunch at the craps table (wink, wink).

Its really funny you said that NebDane because I actually got talked into it by a friend to go to the casino when this first started and I lost some dollars.

Got my seperate bank account set up today and sent my HR rep my new routing information.

Just trying to remain patient in this all and stay calm... (Advice from HPB)

If anyone drops in the thread that is battling the same fight I am - a friend of mine just sent me this video, encouraging me to keep fighting for my wife.

Watch if you are interested... It gave me a little extra push today. Hope everyone is having a good day.

Sorry if that violates any rules about posting - I didn't think about it until just now.

So I just heard from my wife for the first time in a pretty long time via email. Unfortunately it was quite cold and very "business oriented."

So she was talking about our finances. She demanded that I pay for half of several things then also demanded that I find my own phone service as well as insurance on the vehicle I drive.

She cleaned out the savings account but luckily I have my own checking account so I have so money. She demanded I replenish the shared checking account with half of the requested bills before the automatic bill payments and send her scans of all the bills.

Anyone been through something like this before? I have not replied to the email yet.

I am trying to stay Plan A, but at the the same time I am tempted to say, " I am not renewing any insurance on this vehicle (which is in her name). It will be in this parking lot with the key in it uninsured when next bill comes."

A second thought I had is make her watch our dogs for some nights of the week, to pressure her living situation. The only fear I have is that she will harm them. I know they aren't kids, so not exactly any useful leverage.

Any advice is useful thanks guys!

I also wanted to say something like "I cannot pay these bills as well as the renovations we scheduled on the basement without our savings."

There is also ~$400 in the shared checking account should I just take that out for myself, similar to how she took the savings? Or is that "counter-PlanA" ?

I've been down this fun road. All of this is fairly normal from what I've seen here with wayward wives.

On her demands to pay things:

You need to sit down and look at your budget to figure out what is yours and what is hers. It sucks but until things improve you have to look at things as no longer joint, since she is fogged. What I would not do is send her ANY money and expect that she will put it towards something. She's fogged and will lie, cheat and otherwise try to destroy you since you just rained on her affair parade by exposing it. I would put not one red cent into your joint bank account until she has committed to the MB plan to recover your marriage.

Car insurance: Unless it will just break your bank, I would pay for car insurance (pay them DIRECTLY). Yes, you don't want to enable her but if she has a wreck without insurance you might lose the car outright and unless she brought this vehicle into the marriage it is marital property. In this case I'd protect this asset until a divorce settlement and if you recover your marriage it works itself out. Change your coverage levels or increase your deductibles if you must to afford it.

Health/life/renters/etc insurance: The same as above.

Rent/House payment: Don't get yourself kicked out of your home, pay this on your own and don't expect help from her. You can politely ask, but don't expect help. If you can't afford to do this, explain why and we can help you think of good options.

Credit cards/lines of credit/loans/other bills: Figure out who's head the responsibility falls on for payment. If it's her CC/loan/etc and not a joint account, let her worry about it. Pay what you are responsible for. Things like renovations to your house are discretionary and have to be put on hold for now given your marital situation. I'd put the brakes on anything like that rather than asking for money she has already taken from you.

Document (with something that would stand up in a court room, like a bank statement) what was removed from your savings account. If that was a joint bank account, you are entitled to 50% of that and it will be very relevant to a settlement or property division.

On scans for bills...what does she claim to need them for?

Dogs: Overthinking it here. The pressure on her living situation will come from the fact that she just made her life incredibly complicated by having an affair which was discovered and well exposed by her husband. She could probably care less about the dogs right now.

How much was her legal fee on your CC? It may have only been a consult fee. If she's asking you for copies of the bills and for financial aid, she didn't make many actual preparations to file for divorce.

You need to be very careful with how you respond to her. If my read on this is right, by cold in her emails you mean "ice cold" like you've never meant anything to her. Not the sort of thing anyone enjoys reading. It will be easy to lovebust her if you are not careful.

Plan A is exposing (which you have done) and offering/trying to meet the wayward spouse's emotional needs. Finances don't have much to do with it. Financially, your job right now is to protect your marital assets until you either recover your marriage or reach a divorce settlement. It doesn't really factor into Plan A.

In your reply, if you MUST discuss finances to do that job of protecting marital assets, then do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't, to be honest. Tell her you love her, miss her and want to build a romantic and passionate marriage with her, but that her affair is the most painful thing that has ever happened to you and that you cannot do that until she ends her affair and returns home.

Try to meet her emotional needs where possible and be thoughtful and kind to her (no lovebusters), but remember this is a self-imposed exile on her part that you have no obligation to support with money, copies of the bills, etc. The type of things she is asking for here are not the type of things anyone gets from anyone else via email impromptu like this. Would you expect to successfully get someone else to send you money and copies of their bills the way she is expecting that of you?

She's just trying to compartmentalize you by refusing to talk to you otherwise and hoping that she can threaten you into going along with this.

Do some serious budgeting on your end to make sure your ends meet, and batten down the hatches a bit here. You're probably going to have to wait for her life in affairland to flounder so badly that option WC doesn't look so bad after all. No telling how long that may take.

Also, I finalized a fairly quick (settlement before trial) divorce earlier this year. I had no house, no kids, only cars, guns, credit cards and my own retirement account to sort out. I still ended up spending $2500 to get the whole thing done. $1000 divorce would be a miracle, especially since your WW is already bent out of shape about money. Don't plan on it.

I believe its her way of reestablishing control, there is no way I am going through the effort of scanning the bills and emailing them to her. I doubt she actually needs them at all - just a power trip.


The fee was for $375. My attorney said that definitely looked like a filing fee, and that I should expect service papers in the mail soon. However, I do not know the rates of the attorney she went to... Maybe it was a consultation.


I am going to try to reply by Thursday. I will definitely add this to the email. I wanted to keep it short and maybe tack on there "I really enjoyed doing this together"

I am going to have to do some research as to how to cancel automatic payments she has in place. I may have to call the bank and just be honest with them - then call all my payees and let them know I will prefer paper bills moving forward. These are goals I have before Thursday's reply - even though that reply will have nothing to do with finances in it.

Maybe all of us can come together to draft an ideal response to her email? I will work on the finances, but maybe some of you "wordsmiths" can assist me in sending her something very "PlanA"

Thanks for the response axslinger, all very helpful considerations.

Hey all I have some news.

Joyce responded to my email and I will be a caller on the MB radio @ 12:50pm ET on Friday, 11/20. I appreciate you all for encouraging me to reach out to them.

This is typical wayward antics. But just be aware that if push comes to shove, she probably does have a right to copies of the bills. My ex/his atty threw hissy fit over wanting scans of every bills - and they weren't satisfied with the fact that I used the CamScanner app - they wanted real paper copies. They wouldn't let this one go. So I guess this goes back to where I was telling you that divorcing a wayward combined with slimy lawyers who don't care about wasting your money can become nasty fast...



I doubt that's a consultation fee. Sorry if this was covered but have you closed out that joint credit card? If not, you should and force her to get her own account. Also I think you should go along with separating all those things that she wants separated like the phone. That's all standard stuff that she has a right to ask for and if you resist it's just going to cost you more in legal $$ now that you both have lawyers.

Regarding the financials and other sticky discussions, I believe the standard MB advice is that you tell her the lawyers will handle the legal finacial talk in order to avoid any lovebusting and arguments.

Another regarding the bills, I signed up for ebilling on all those bills and on some you can log in on their site and download PDF's of your bills and just email them.

It's kind of a PITA to set up and get going but will be easier than making hard copies or scanning bills.

I agree with SusieQ that $375 isn't likely a consult fee. Too high. Get that CC cancelled or frozen fast because while $375 will cover a filing fee, it's nowhere close to a typical retainer for a divorce and her attorney may just be waiting for your response to the divorce petition to determine the cost of the retainer. Call the CC company and explain the situation.

On autopays coming out of your joint account that aren't for your stuff....you're on the right track. Call the bank, tell them what has happened. They don't want the payments to bounce either, they can block ACH withdrawals if they know who the payee is and you can figure that out looking at your bank statement. You don't want to deal with a bunch of overdraft fees.

You *can't* cancel payment methods on accounts for which she is the primary contact or cardholder/etc. You may even have trouble getting authorized to obtain information on the account, even as her husband. So switch over the stuff you can (yours or joint), cancel anything you can that is joint, and make sure the bank is advised not to process ACH payments towards her stuff.

And document everything.

SusieQ is right that your wife could technically legally argue her right to those documents she wants scanned, but this early on in the game, I doubt she will put forth the effort required. I think she is just trying to intimidate you.