evening folks. thought i would ask if anyone has done separation/divorce with some degree of niceness. she filed a week ago and wants to try and do this nicely. seems out of the blue sortof. sold 2nd house then i get served. i really would like to resolve this as easy as possible. i'm not out to screw her nor be taken myself. i guess i'm holding out still for a reconciliation but not much i can do at this point. any input would be appreciated. thank you

Hi Lonelyingh,

My own divorce was a nightmare and only recently has it gotten far easier (with near zero contact).

However I do have a good friend who is going through the same and has a very amicable split. It very much depends on the individual circumstances. Don't think though that he has not gone through the whole range of hard emotions because he has.

Best Wishes Neil.

I think it can be done if both parties have everyones best interest in mind and they've gotten past the hurt, or at least learned to controll their emotions, i've already dealt with all my hurt feelings about my failed marriage and now i'm looking foreward to a friendly split and a new and better life for all of us, so its quite easy for me. I dont think my wife is there though, she still wants to fight about the past and is still doing things to spite me. I'm determined to ignore this childish stuff and get this done as fast and fair as possible, i'm hoping she will see the logic in this before she loses it and gets a scum bag lawyer on the case, once that happens the lawyer uses her anger to align all the family assets with HIS bank account.

lonelyingh,

I went through I guess what you can call an amicable divorce. It wasn't what I wanted, far from it, but my X had her mind set on it. She began to get a little nasty during the process, but I held myself to higher ground. I fought off every temptation to get nasty or mean. I did not want the divorce, so my only participation was just what was legally required by me. At first that came across to her and her family and friends as me being a jerk. But after a while, they all realized that I wasn't going to turn mean and nasty.

Was it easy? No WAY! You have people on both sides telling you to "do this to her/him" or "do that"... It took a lot for me to ignore the advice and follow what I knew to be right. If one person can remain calm and relaxed, no matter what the other does, there can be no fights, no arguments. It takes TWO people to do that...

So long answer short, yes it is possible, but it isn't easy.

God Bless,
Mike

tonight was 1st meeting on this subject. this is'nt gonna be easy. 5 minutes after meeting it starts. we split our tax return this year. she spent her $ on who knows what. i bought a bedroom set since she took all the furniture with her. now bedroom set is part of the household assets. i'm thinking hold on now this is mine but not anymore apparently. i'm trying to do this without nickel diming but i don't think so. oh boy do i need to practice patience. wish me luck on this

It's best if you can be civil, but that doesn't mean you just go along with everything to be nice. Take last night's meeting as a lesson. If you are not legally separated, and it was a joint tax return, then the stuff you bought is marital property.

If she has been planning this for some time, and has been getting advice on her own, then you need to get caught up, knowledge-wise. You can do that and still remain civil.

Good luck

lonelyingh,

I'll probably take heat for writing this, but about the material items, are they really that important? Do you feel that you wouldn't be able to recover if she took EVERYTHING? Of course you would - you are an able, intelligent person - All material things can be replaced.

When I got divorced, I left it open to my X to ask for whatever she wanted. And 95% of the time I gave her what she wanted. There were just a couple items that I wanted to keep. I thought to myself, "hey, if she really wants to focus on the material items of our marriage, go for it. I like to work to be a much bigger person than that."

The best part though, was by taking my focus off the material stuff, the marriage ended, there were no fights, our legal fees were not much, and now I look back and realize I never would have wanted the things she took in the first place.

Nothing really "belongs" to us in this life in the first place. I say, give her what she wants and you will find that you will keep everything that YOU NEED...

God Bless,
Mike

From all indications, my H and I might have an "agreeable" divorce. Once D is inevitable, I guess it all boils down to accepting that... and working out the settlement terms.

He seems very sincere in wanting to work it out in a reasonable way.

I realize this could change at any time, but I am cautiously optimistic at this stage.