OK gang---need input. My wife sent me an e-mail with a list of things with her thoughts on valuation. Her list totaled $26960. Some of the things I think she was high, some were low, and I am sure we missed a bunch. In her settlement request, she was asking for 1/2 of 32,000. She also made a remark of "High chair: it belonged to my kids and I don't want there to be any chance that someone else might give it away in the future, same with the cradle(which I made)." I may have LBed on that as I said earlier"do you actually believ I have no emotional ties to these that I would give them away? I have no objection with you taking them, but some of your comments do hurt".Anway, I told her that I could live with the $16,000, and that she could take the items she wanted without putting a value on them and subtracting it from the settlement. Today, I get a nasty e-mail----"You still have not presented me with what you think is fair. I would like to see a written proposal not just a critique of mine. I purposely made it as low as possible."SHEESH! <P> "...you making $xxxxxx try to end up with a biggerpiece vs. me with $xxxxx to work with. Do you think they(the kids) might be a bit concerned about that after 23 years of marriage? Or do you think that they will feel that I deserve it because I was a bad mom and wife?" I need some thoughts on how to handle this without pissing her off. I only want a little less than half. <P>Kind of ironic, but if given a chance, I would still be willing to see if we could make a marriage together. sigh

Suppose someone who was just a friend got mad at you over something. Maybe they didn't want to be your friend anymore because of it. You weren't sure you were right, and weren't sure you were wrong. You were sure that you had a lot of respect for your friend, and even if your friend wouldn't let you make things right, you wanted to offer that and do the best you could with what your friend <I>would</I> let you do. And suppose your friend was a little p*ssy, to boot.<P>What would you write to that friend? If there were finances, what kind of documentation would you offer of your position on the matter? <P>I think you owe it to the STBXW to be as thorough, detailed, explanatory without being defensive, forgiving, accepting, and relaxed as possible about the whole thing while still being timely, correct and complete. <P>It's a tough order. I would start by saying something validating about every one of her concerns, then tell her how you're trying to meet it (whether you consider it reasonable or not). <P>It may not seem to work right now. It may not ever really <I>work</I>. But people do look back, and when they're through seeing what they want to see, sometimes they see what was <I>really there</I>. <P>Good luck.<p>[This message has been edited by Sisyphus (edited February 07, 2001).]

Thanks for the reply---this is a tough one. Having already done a lot of estimating and talking with bankers, we don't have the net value that she thinks we have. I have even spoke with one banker who said he would talk to his appraiser ahead of time to ensure that he is generous in his appraisal so that I can get her the money I know she will need! This is so frustrating----I try to do the right thing, and get labeled as the person trying to screw her over! I don't want her to think she "owes me" after we are done.