NY State is notorious for their slow processing of contested divorces. I hate to scare you but a friend of mine spent 10 years getting hers. The state bills itself as 'family friendly' but it is not helpful to anyone to have a long dragged out process. Until 2011 there were no no-fault divorces, I think mine was the first.


My suggestion is that you first write down exactly what you want from this; custody, assets etc. Keep it really, really simple. Number the items 1,2, 3 etc. Then take that to your lawyer and ask him to tell you how to make the list happen.


I don't think summary judgement would work in your case. My youngest child was 18 so there were no custody issues and I had a postnuptial agreement which I insisted on when I caught my XH 'having lunch' with the Fat Slag months after she had been supposedly dumped. So the postnup was incorporated into the decree. Summary judgement is a legal term meaning that all issues have been resolved so there is no reason not to grant the decree.


That is a question for your lawyer. It depends on the asset. The controlling law is 'equitable distribution'. Income earned by either party after divorce filing date remains the separate property of the earner. Inheritances and assets from before the marriage that are not co-mingled or spent are separate property. The uplift in a marital IRA would continue until division date but any new contributions would not. Illiquid assets such as a house or business are generally divided 'in kind' so if your wife was entitled to 1/3rd of your business, that would be what she would get rather than a specific dollar number unless you proposed something different and the judge accepted it.


This is a tough one. If you are paying your rent out of your income and she is living rent free in a marital rental property, she is (technically) paying her rent out of marital assets. The amount she receives from the in-kind division of the brownstone ought to be reduced by the after tax cost of her occupation. Whether it will be depends on a number of things such as whether she has an income and where the children are living. Judges generally side with the parent with custody in these matters.

I have no advice or thoughts on this. I live under a very different judicial system from yours, and I have no legal training in any system, and I have never been through a divorce. Also, I did not see living_well's post before I submitted my own. Had I read it, I would not have said what I did.

If New York divorces often take many years, they do and that's that. The only point I would reiterate is not understanding how a judge can penalise a person for asking for a case to be concluded. That does sound like corruption, and not the neutral application of the law.

Thank you living_well. NY is a he ache for me.

Sorry all. I could not reply because these has taken an emotional toll on me to deal with or respond. Avoidance.


The 10 years thing really scared me. However it made me aware of what may happen. It helps me plan my life. Better told than not.


I am writing down all though now I do not have a lawyer anymore. Bankrupted by case, lawyers and WW.



What is a postnuptial agreement? What did it entail in your case. It is some thing I could apply in my case. Dr Harley is advising me to expose the affair it helps achieve some legal objectives.



Lawyer never answered this question throughout the time he was representing me though I asked him many times. I will have to find out somewhere.



Sounds like a good plan. I will go with this.

Thanks Sugarcane. Yes, the ex-divocre lawyer(director of family justice said dod not even do that, the judges in NYC do not like it. They get angry and hold that against you. Yes, NYC is an extremely corrupt city. Many dod not know even people who live here.

Update: I have been communicating with Dr Harley on the exposure through a series of emails.. His advice which came yesterday is as follows:

Everything hinges on what's legal, not what's moral. If exposure helps you achieve legal objectives, go for it. If it doesn't, if it actually hurts your case legally, you should avoid it. My general impression has been that exposure of her affair hurts your legal case. Money she sent to her family, on the other hand, is a legal issue, and should be exposed. Did she have a legal right to give away money from your joint account?

In all seriousness the lack of exposure has taken a heavy toll on me in all facets and WW has thrived by lying to everyone and the court. i agree with many of you of you who had said I should expose, lawyers do not know anything about exposure. I am also going to expose about the money issue.

Now, I am assembling things that can achieve legal objectives to be included in the exposure.

Question1.
What other things do you think can be help meet "achieve legal objectives". in the exposure? Maybe from experience and what you have seen on this forum and many cases? My aim is to expose on the weekend I have the children for 5 days straight which will be 11 days from now. She will not have time to gaslight them.

Question 2
Do you have any templates for exposing about money or should I just follow the affair exposure templates but tailored for the many part?

If so, who should be the WW and who should be the OM? The sender(my wife) - vs the recipients(her brother and his wife) - support in influencing them to return the money, etc. Not sure what to say about my wife as she is the "thief". Or is it just one letter only. BTW my wife's family has a history of stealing money from each other. Their whole relationships are so broken because of this. This the reason we never moved to Argentina because there is no family support. There, people support each other in business through family network. Uncle(brother of the father) stole from the father, and grand parents. The aunt(sister of mother)'s husband stole from her father. The story goes on. Now herself, brother and his wife want to get our brownstone house(4 floors) worth $2million from me.


She did not have a legal right to give away the money from the joint accounts.

Thank you all.

Weird, you need to calm down and take some deep breaths. You are hurting your case and exhausting yourself. Dr Harley says you should expose on the money. That means you should explain to her family that she did not have the right to this money because taking it circumvented the automatic orders of the court which state: "Pending further order of this matter, neither party shall transfer, alienate, sell, mortgage, pledge or hypothecate any joint, marital, separate or business asset or property; neither party shall incur any debt except for ordinary and usual living expenses in the usual course of business of the parties." Send her relatives a copy of the preliminary conference order that she signed and dated. It uses exactly this language. She probably told them it was her money and you were trying to steal it. Explain to them that she will be in contempt of court if she does not return the money and that the penalty for that will be a fine or imprisonment.

In addition show them evidence in the form of a bank statement and wire transfer so that they can see exactly what she took and from where.

But before you do this, make a plan about how to keep the money safe until the trial. Generally your choices are to freeze it in situ or ask a lawyer to hold it in escrow. I have successfully done both. Either would work but cost money. There is absolutely no sense in asking them to return money to an account to which she has access because she will just take it straight out again. Depending on the relationship you have with her relatives, you could ask them to hold the money pending the outcome of the trial and send you regular statements.

Thank you for keeping me grounded. It is extremely hard. I am composing the money exposure letter and trying to reach the children's lawyer for escrow needs. I will show the draft here after I talk to the lawyer.

Question: Should this exposure go to family only? It would not make much sense because they are accomplices in the "crime" and there would be accountability or influence on them to act. I would not achieve anything. It is like sending this to a group of thieves. There is a long history of money stealing from each other in her family. I thought I should send it to family and friends just like the exposure letter. My family and friends and her fiends need to know because she has lied about it.

This is the latest reply form Dr Harley after I had replied to his advice above that I was thinking of exposing. Note that I sent him before I posted the above post from 2 days ago here asking for advice.

Make sure that whatever you expose is not interpreted as a form of vengeance. Do it with only legal objectives in mind. Don't try to add disrespect to the facts.

Ask yourself, what would be the objective in sending this letter to anyone other than the people holding the money. If there is a good reason, go for it. Leave out the history of theft, your simple message is "she broke the law, if the money is not returned she will face a fine or imprisonment for contempt of court". That should wake her up.

Have you located those all important documents (her preliminary conference order and the wire transfers)? Without solid proof she will be able to deny everything which will make your position even worse than it already is.

Thank you living_well. I have most the wire transfer documents and I just need to put them together. I need to dig the preliminary conference papers. I should be able to find them.

My wife is very good with hiding and lying to our friends and relatives. They need to be told the truth. Years will go while they hold on to lies.

Hi All,

Tomorrow I start cross examining her. I do not have a lawyer.

Question 1:
What questions can I use to cross examine her on the affair?
When I was with my lawyer he told me that ‘Wait and see when he starts cross examining her about the affair?”

Question 2:
What questions can I use to examine her on her threats tp commit suicide?
She threatened this 3 times. One in person and 2 through phone calls. She said if you do not give me the house I will commit suicide. She said if I do not give her the house and custody I will call the police and you will go to prison. She then said again if you do not give me the house I will commit suicide.

The more questions I get the better. You can just list them if you have any.

BTW, I have not written the letter for money exposure yet. I got caught up on other things but I will get to it.

Thank you.

That is a good starting point.
I am by no means a legal expert, but you seem to be short of time.
Ask questions you know the answer (an preferably you have evidence to back up) and want document legally.
If you cannot proof she's not telling the truth, it might make you look bad. Again, I am no expert. Try to focus on the bigger picture, don't fall for details that don't get you to the main goal.

Goody gives you good advice. Presume this is a no-fault divorce and the legal proceedings are to decide on custody and the division of assets?. If so, stick with those subject areas. Do not bring up anything you cannot document with physical handouts in the courtroom.

For custody you need to show you are the better parent. Where are the children living now and what percentage of the time are they spending with you. Judges generally do not want to disturb existing arrangements unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

Make sure you have prepared a complete statement of all assets and liabilities. Remember to include the money she sent to her family as this is still marital.

Thank you so much. I will follow this great advice. This is where I was wondering. I got it now. Questions with proof. Big picture. Stay away from details especially non-main goal oriented. Great.

Today's court was cancelled. We have tomorrow which may end up being short and allow me time to sharpen my questions and answers/proof.

Great. Thank you very much. Yes, the areas are custody and division of assets, possibly alimony since I had moved abroad for her job but I am not sure how the judge may handle this one.

The children are spending exactly half of the time with me. 50/50 though in 2019 summer they spent most of the time(about 75/25) with me because she did not want to spent time with them. She said she did not have tome to take them for tutoring because of work.

Yes, the judge has said there is no way he will change the schedule. one issue is that from her place our son has to take 3 trains and a bus to get to his high school. It takes about 2 hours. That is 6 trains and 2 buses(4 hours per day on the days she will be with him.

We have been in court. When I was about to cross examine my wife the judge had agreed that I order the transcripts of my wife's testimony. After the cross examination he refused. This change really surprised me. I was lost.

WW told the court she had only 3 files(pages) for evidence for her testimony at the beginning of the cross examination. At the end she gave more evidence- many files). I asked the judge that is was not right that she gives only 2 pages at the beginning and then gives all the evidence at the end of cross examination and then I cannot cross examine the evidence. He rebuffed my request.

My cross examination of her did not go well. The judge intimidated me. Asked me to hire a lawyer. I said I do not have funds.

The judge was also shouting at my questions - frustration maybe but it looks like he did not want her to lose.

The judge proceeded to say that I will have to give my testimony in 1 day(2 hours) next week and no more while he had my wife present her testimony on many days in 3.5 years. When it comes to me it is only 2 hours.

I am at a loss.

Though I never want point these things - to me it looked it came out as corrupt, unfairness, racially biased and gender biased(I keep hearing that it is impossible for a woman to lose because she is not a drug addict - maybe the judge has no choice except make her win). WW is white passing and I am in the minority(considered black) and male. I am not sure what is at play here but it is totally unfair.

Because of privacy I was also not allowed to show the medical records to prove that i took the children to ER for emergency visits. My wife tried to paint me as irresponsible saying i took them ER( 3 visits) when the reasons are actually valid.


Children's lawyer wrote us (WW and I) an email proposing 50 -50 custody and a parent coordinator. She asked us to reply. I relied, "Yes, I would agree". I should have posted this here before I replied but I was shaking and all over. The only good things is that if she replies No also we may end the case/court. The one who replies NO usually is labelled by the court as the who is not agreeing. WW is difficult to co-parent. I do not know if I did the right thing by saying Yes. The worst case scenario is the judge gives her custody.

Once I give testimony I will be cross examined and we move to the finances. I am still going to write the letter to relatives about the money she took after my cross examination. Sometimes I do not have the strength to even do it. if we end up agreeing on the children's lawyer proposal I will write it after.

I asked the children's lawyer why she proposed this and she said 1. because many people use parent coordinators, 2. the forensic evaluator for our case recommended it

Questions:

1. Do you think the judge maybe playing something here? The behind the scenes and corridors of powers are at play?

2. Do you think it is good to go with the proposal? WW has messed up many times and she gett away with it. If it was me who had done that they would not let me get away.

3. Do you think I should push for custody? Judge says he is not going to change the current schedule which is at 50/50. The children's thinks the same too. Child support on the proposal would be dependent on our salaries.

4. I asked the children lawyer on if/then situations..
if WW does not show up with kids and does not stay with kids at her time, does not take them to doctors.m, etc she said:
1. Seek Enforcement through the parent coordinator and court
2. Hire a lawyer and get it done in court
3. Change of custody

I seriously do not what to do. Any thoughts?

Now that we all do not have lawyers (which no money for the court business network/lawyers)maybe the judge is frustrated and just wants to end it? When I had a lawyer he was happy to let it drag and waste time.

I'm sure that is how it looked to you but the truth is that judges have more patience when people have legal representation because they do not want their decisions appealed.

How are you doing with deciding exactly what you are fighting for? You seem to still be wandering all over the place. You can only win if you focus on the most important issue.

On the division of assets, you need your paperwork that shows exactly what she sent overseas and when. Get that introduced into evidence. Automatic orders did not permit her to move funds whether the funds were separate or marital. Everything sent overseas goes into the total marital pot calculation. Then you get half of that number. Ask for your half out of what remains in the US otherwise that will be a whole new legal issue. Maybe you get the rental house?

If she wants to claim that those were her separate assets or that she was repaying a debt, she has to prove that in the court with documents. I bet she cannot.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you for keeping me straight. I get it now about the judges. Yes, I have been wandering all. I will now focus on the following most important issues for my testimony next week.(What I have done and what she has done wrong.)

1. health issues of the children
2. education of the children
3. welfare of the children
4. Her affair
5. abuse
6. house
7. finances

In the testimony I will present each and everything by word and back it by evidence.