SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've got the best kind of WW. The kind who had serial affairs, then told me it was my fault and went scorched-earth. She has delayed and delayed and delayed the divorce because she believes it's financially to her advantage. It is not, for a few reasons, but since she thinks it is she delays everything everytime.

Trial looms because she will not settle. Two weeks ago I got her interrogatories or whatever they are called. It is very clear that my worst fears are here. We went through the parental alieantion thing. It worked well for her for a long time. Now it's not sticking, and dad is the cool parent for a change. But these questions focus on all kinds of things that are very much about my not being up to the job of parenting. Really invasive questions, fishing for anything. Even trying to find out through the questions if I have a girlfriend sleeping over when I am here solo. I do not. As if that even mattered. I believe that she is about to go for full custody.

Her revenge fantasy, the one where she gets back at me for making her have affairs and then pulling the curtain back on who she really is, is now going to court. Early talks with the attorneys left my attorney amazed at the aggression she saw. It's very bad. And she decided I am out to get her financially. I am not. And she decided as well that the best custody plan is 100/0.

Best of all, I simply do not have the money to pay to go to trial. But I have no choice. We are talking raiding retirement, emptying the coffers. While she says and will say to a court that she paid for everything throughout our marriage and I am a deadbeat who under-earned on purpose. None of this is true, of course. It does not pass any common sense test. And legally, our assets were all shared because we were married a long time.

I don't know that I am asking anything. Just wanting to vent, mostly. I wish I knew what to do to get me through this unwelcome time. I have friends, and maybe even a touch of romance in my life. But it is still incredibly hard. I want this woman out of my life. I want to be a single father in search of a stable new life. Instead I am tangling with her and enduring awful attacks on me as a person and a father. And to endure them, I have to pay many thousands of dollars. Feeling a bit dismayed about all of this.

Sorry man but if this does go to court she will have little control over the outcome. On today’s world 50/50 is pretty standard child custody.

If you haven’t cut off any unnecessary contact.

Fwiw we settled in the hallway b4 court. My atty said they try to discourage a trial bc any agreements the attys have already worked out can be changed by the judge.

Just stay strong and soon she’ll be out of your life and it’s awesome!!!!!!!!!!! My xh and ow tried and tried to draw me into drama after the D and very wise people in SI said to ignore-and they were right.

Her attorney may be telling her things that aren’t true. However she clearly doesn’t have the best interest if the kids snd she’s going to lose.

Unless you have serious criminal history or anything documented it will be 50/50 custody.

Get the ironclad custody agreement signed and I place. Get everything in writing b/c you know she’s not going to adhere to it. And you most likely will be back in court until your kids are of an age where they can freely choose what they want.

Be prepared. Just remember she has to hate you in order to justify her actions. It’s how many cheaters think.

Get the ironclad custody agreement signed and I place. Get everything in writing b/c you know she’s not going to adhere to it. And you most likely will be back in court until your kids are of an age where they can freely choose what they want.

Be prepared. Just remember she has to hate you in order to justify her actions. It’s how many cheaters think.

We have a custody agreement signed now. It's less than 50/50, but I gave way because of parental alienation, trying to salve the wound before it got worse. That's kind of the main issue. The freely choosing. She is busy with parental alienation so that the impression arises in a tween brain: "Oh, I just want to be with Mom! Dad is _____." Scary to hear.

What helps these days is that she tries too hard, and backfires through doing embarrassing things. I'm the chill Dad.

I don't have serious issues of any kind in my background. No substance abuse, no violence, no infidelity, maybe a parking ticket 30 years ago, nothing except the case she's building through hyperbolic messages about things, criticizing anything she can. And the fact that I've been in therapy a lot. Most recently because of what she did. It's comically transparent. But she is leaning hard into it.

And you're entirely right that she has to hate me. The projection and weird desperation are so weird to watch. She is normal, and then when divorce and court heat up, she gets this strange, animal-like furtiveness in my presence, as if she is working very hard to be afraid of me and project that to others, including kids. If you knew me IRL, you would know just how insane that is. I'm about as aggressive, easily angered and confrontational as those hippies who used to put flowers into soldiers' rifles.

What amazes me is that she is still capable of this emotional stuff. I have moved on eight ways to Sunday. D-Day was around 2 years ago.

[This message edited by Slanted at 4:04 PM, Sunday, October 3rd]

Yes, I agree with the above statement that 50/50 custody is the norm now days. My husband left without telling us, at Thanksgiving, for a woman he’d known 2 weeks.

He was abusing pills and didn’t pay me a cent in child support until court ordered about 6 mos in.

And he got more custody than he wanted

As a rule judges are not happy with people that come to court with illogical or irrational demands. Basically a couple can decide more-or-less everything. If you wanted to give her the house or not go for her retirement then a judge would verify you understand the consequences and then sign on the dotted line.
If she brings you to court and your attorney can show that you have made reasonable and fair offers then the judge won’t be happy with her demands. I wouldn’t be surprised if her attorney knows this and is simply creating pressure to force you to accept a less favorable settlement.

If she brings you to court and your attorney can show that you have made reasonable and fair offers then the judge won’t be happy with her demands. I wouldn’t be surprised if her attorney knows this and is simply creating pressure to force you to accept a less favorable settlement.

You raise good points Bigger. Her attorney seems pretty passive. In meetings, STBXW has done almost all the talking. Well, if you call nearly yelling talking. It is hard to know for sure whether her attorney is steering everything behind the scenes or being steamrolled by her like almost everyone in her life.

Hopefully to give you more perspective and advice....I went and got 50/50 custody after the D with a few spatters of negatives against me (real negatives). I kept my nose clean, followed the custody plan to the minute and followed the advice of my attorney, etc. Later, the exW wanted more time and better "days", whatever that meant. She didn't work for crap but wanted weekends to do with her new hubby, but he has no standing in court. So the parental alienation started. Well...I documented the crap out of everything and several other instances of bad behavior on her and her hubby's part. My attorney passed away, went to another and got excellent representation and got 60/40. Same child support. Then more alienation and a horseshit serving on her part that left me less than the legally allotted time to prepare for hearing, let alone miss mediation. I got advice from another very highly recommended attorney and went and represented myself calmly, maturely and with laser focus on how my kids were thriving and excelling in everything they were doing. She lied and refused to answer the judges questions several times. Not good. And I asked for child support to be adjusted.

I now have >70% custody. Kids are killin' it. I couldn't be prouder. And I stood my ground and let the evidence speak for itself and let the exW hang herself. Child support went down 75% to boot!

Don't back down. Take the long view. It worked here in Ca! Notoriously not friendly to dads when I started down this road. Stick to your guns and your attorney's advice.

Woah, reading this thread is like re-living my divorce... or, less dramatically, there are a lot of similarities.

She has delayed and delayed and delayed the divorce because she believes it's financially to her advantage.

It's hard to guess what motivates people, especially since I've never met you or her... but more likely, it's all about control. She wants to control you and the only way to do that is to delay and to obfuscate.

In my divorce, my xWW invented the legal theory that I was required to find new housing within the kids' school district. This was not a negotiating tactic by her (e.g., she could have said, stay in the school district and I'll agree to 50-50 custody), but rather simply a command. I asked all three of my attorneys about this and they all said that the only requirement is that I continue to live within the same State that I am currently living in. She has the same issue (i.e., the custody settlement implicitly requires that we stay in State... if we move out of State, then we have to come up with a new agreement).

I have now been living about 30 miles from xWW for more than a year. She still complains that I did not follow her command.

Best of all, I simply do not have the money to pay to go to trial. But I have no choice.

Yep, been there... done that. I spent $30K on legal fees to get divorced (mediation, custody evaluation, trial). I had to take a second job. I cut expenses wherever I could (I like to fish... so I have been eating a lot of fish in the past year -- hey, free food!). I am now looking at another $15K in legal fees for an appeal... which I had better win because I am completely screwed financially if I don't.

Really invasive questions, fishing for anything. Even trying to find out through the questions if I have a girlfriend sleeping over when I am here solo. I do not. As if that even mattered. I believe that she is about to go for full custody.

Yep, they're trying to intimidate you. Just be yourself. I was accused of neglecting my mental health because I had stopped seeing my therapist every week. I had stopped seeing my therapist every week because I had FULLY COMPLETED the therapy course (this took about 16 months) and I had not experienced any depression symptoms in 6 months (at that time). I was still seeing my therapist monthly and I was still seeing a psychiatrist.

The correct response is to remain calm and just answer the questions carefully as if you don't have a care in the world. It's not easy because it's a lot of noise, but it's just noise.

We have a custody agreement signed now. It's less than 50/50, but I gave way because of parental alienation, trying to salve the wound before it got worse. That's kind of the main issue. The freely choosing. She is busy with parental alienation so that the impression arises in a tween brain:

Again, I've been there, done that. My middle child, with whom I was EXCEPTIONALLY CLOSE (we'd go fishing together every week, all summer long) stopped talking to me for three months.

You have to just remain calm, do the right thing, and keep being a great dad. Never miss your parenting time. If your kids don't want to talk to you, let them do that... but require that they come to your place for your parenting time.

It sounds like you have figured all of this out already, so I am merely trying to reinforce that you're doing great. I have been physically moved out of the marital home for more than 2 years and I think that all three of my kids have figured out that their mother is a lying psycho. I don't know this, of course, because I don't talk to the kids about their mother (and I *never* criticize her in front of them). That said, I feel like I have a strong relationship with all three of my kids right now.

Just continue to be a good dad and raise your kids to be wonderful human beings.

Her attorney seems pretty passive. In meetings, STBXW has done almost all the talking. Well, if you call nearly yelling talking. It is hard to know for sure whether her attorney is steering everything behind the scenes or being steamrolled by her like almost everyone in her life.

I think this bodes well for you. Her attorney is ethically bound to aggressively represent your STBXW's interests within the scope of the law. A passive attorney suggests that her attorney knows that she wants things that are not established law. This also means that her attorney is probably encouraging her to settle... so don't give up on the negotiations.

In this sense, you're lucky. My xWW's attorney was more than happy to push whatever buttons that could be pushed, no matter the law. Again, it was all noise and I got almost everything that I requested when we went to trial. The parts that I did not get are being appealed... because the judge made an egregious error according to my attorney.

Thanks, barcher144. That's certainly encouraging. I appreciate your perspective. And I had not thought about the attorney's passivity in that way. It does explain some things I just could not figure out otherwise.

There's change in the wind, though what kind I don't know. She was way friendlier for a while. Now that is gone again. That usually means there's an iceberg of ill will waiting to surface dramatically.

The worst of it is really the financial part. I hope you get your appeal. This stuff is crazy that way- we could settle, but because she wants to mess with me, I have to pay and pay. Doesn't seem right. But what can anybody do?