SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Ahhhhhh. You think divorce is about feelings? The relationship is about feelings. Divorce is a legal proceeding. Not about feelings.

I would have initially agreed, if it weren't for my WW and her lawyer suddenly bringing up her victim complex feelings into these divorce proceedings.

Find your justice in other places, where you don’t have to pay an attorney by the hour.

That sounds quite wrong and even damning for the attorney profession (at least taken out context like I did ).

And give up on justice.

Wow, I thought I was becoming too cynical after what I've been through, but I see it can be worse

Well maybe I won't find any justice or even closure after this, but the least I can do is to stand up for my truth and finally stop allowing the WW to tread on my life any longer, like she did for so long. If she wants to continue to play dirty, I can also expose her ugliness (even going as far as sending a letter to HR at her "great workplace", about her long affair which clearly provided many professional/funding benefits; she should be thanking me for not doing that already -- but instead she chose to "poke the bear" right? How crazy is this?).

[This message edited by lbh50 at 5:43 PM, Tuesday, January 18th]

lbh50, my understanding in MD is that you can use adultery (along with a few other reasons) to skip the one-year waiting period on the D, but it doesn't affect financials.

I agree with you that saying it is irrelevant to a D is ridiculous. Not sure who wrote that law, but I can't imagine they experienced it prior to writing that legislation.

And as a clarification to wiseoldfool, I only tell you about my experience and how my attorney handled things. If XWW had started to make things difficult, there might have been some reason to do into details. As a non-attorney, I would think it would be in the client's best interest for a negotiated no-fault D to try to set those issues aside, if they do not have an impact on the outcome, as it is only likely to escalate. My attorney was good at de-escalation.

Hopefully you will be able to resolve things without spending too many hours on fees.

Thank you Tigersrule77 !
Actually in MD there is a "mutual consent divorce" which got rid of the 1 year waiting period and this is what we are trying to get now.

The irony is that the WW left the marital home for a full year after she was caught in 2020 -- she rented an (expensive) apartment nearby, because she was being very difficult to live with, and both me and the children wanted her out, especially as she even kept complaining that we are "ganging up" on her and she wanted a break from the family, crying about how "oppressed" and "judged" she felt in the household, how stressful it was for her, complaining of mental health issues (she claimed "depression", because of course she was the victim -- being caught!). She knew perfectly well that legally I could not force her out - so she really chose to rather leave the household than show remorse and do whatever possible for a chance of reconciliation etc., which I was very open to (doormat BS playing the pick-me dance for so long after DDay). Obviously she kept complaining that *I* somehow forced her to leave the household, with my emotionally/verbally abusive behavior etc.

This is the same person who after DDay was admonishing me to "stop moping around", especially in front of the children -- because that can turn the children against her! (And yet I was the "cruel" one, huh?)

We have always had joint bank accounts, so her luxury apartment was of course a financial strain on the family budget -- that's why I agreed to her moving back into the marital home a few months ago (well, also because I had no choice anyway, she had the right to come back and she started to show signs of pushing that return anyway).

I was planning to consider that apartment as just her own expense during these settlement negotiations, as some kind of adultery expense (or tax), right? She actually verbally agreed to that concept when she rented it in 2020, but likely she "revised" that opinion about it these days, I don't know/care -- I'll ask the lawyer about it anyway.

I’ve been trying cases since the early 90s.

At the courthouse, we do compensation and incarceration.

Anything that feels like justice is incidental.

Divorce is a business deal, the sooner you get to that mindset the better off you’ll be.

I am attempting to read through a lot of this... comments are my own; I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer nor a therapist.

the WW did not accept just a mediator and retained a lawyer first, so I had to do the same. Already run into issues with my WW, even though we agreed otherwise to a non-contentious divorce (messy story, shameless work adulterer screwing her professor (who was also my supervisor) for 10 years etc. and then having no remorse

You need to be very careful here. Your STBX claimed to have a non-contentious divorce; so did mine. My divorce has probably cost us (combined) $75,000 and about 3 years. It's still on-going, in fact, because I am appealing the judge's decision from trial.

My point is this: You STBX lied and cheated on her husband for ten years. Do you think that she's capable of telling you that she wants a non-contentious divorce and then doing the opposite? Uh, yes she is FULLY CAPABLE OF THAT.

So: Tread carefully. You should view your divorce as a high-conflict lawsuit because that's what it sounds like to me. If she decides to play nice, then it'll be easier for you to play nice too.

I am completely clueless about dealing with lawyers, this system of being billed by the hour (minutes, apparently), not content or quality of work, through these face-to-face meetings (Zoom, actually), seems very inefficient and rather unreliable as a way of communication and retaining important information.

Yes, the process is extremely slow and painful. My attorney charges me a minimum of 6 minutes (0.1 hours) to respond to an email. You need to get it into your head that this process is slow, painful, and expensive. The other thing that you need to remember is that only thing more painful and expensive is going without a lawyer.

Can I ask them to provide some reports in writing (e.g. what they discussed with the opposing counsel) instead of relaying of oral reports.. Or is that taboo/forbidden? Sometimes I'd rather have them send me questions/topics to discuss, in writing (email) so I can prepare and use more efficiently the face-to-face meeting time, though if even their answers/follow-ups were in writing, it would be even more efficient. Am I asking too much?

You can ask and they can say no. It would be even more expensive to get written reports, I think.

Is it dangerous to admit I have transcripts (actually recordings, I can screen record the Zoom sessions without them knowing) of what they said in these meetings, so I can refer to the information they provided in a previous meeting, and the statements they made then etc.?

It depends on how you sell this approach. Are you keeping a transcript to help you remember everything? That seems reasonable to me. Are you keeping a transcript because you don't trust your lawyer? Well, that's a different story... one of the other responders said that they would fire a client who didn't trust them. I agree with that.

I don't really understand how the no-fault, "non-contentious" settlement negotiations work, it seems that the fact that she was an adulterer for so long does NOT really matter that much or even at all since we decided to go the no-fault divorce route.

The correct answer to this requires a person with knowledge of Maryland's laws, which I do not have. It also sounds to me like your STBX is not going the non-contentious route, as I said before.

But a few days ago in my last discussion with my lawyer, she informs me that in her discussions with the other counsel it came up that my wife is complaining that I am being "cruel" to her, as in the last year and a half since I found out about her LTA I kept sending her "vicious", offending texts and emails, calling her "names" (like "adulterer", or "heartless" or "pathological liar", all true! children agree as well, they called her "psycho" for good reason..).

First, you need to treat your STBX with kid gloves from now on. The grey rock approach works well. Say as little as possible.

Second, her attorney is ethically obligated to represent her client as aggressively as possible under the law. I was repeatedly accused of "verbal violence" by my ex-wife throughout our divorce. It didn't help and it probably hurt. SO SHUT UP!

Indeed I tried for a long time to "reach" her, again and again, I could not let go -- scolding her trying to make her feel real remorse and shame for what she did to me and the children (and ended up with her lecturing me that "shaming is abuse" -- thanks Brene Brown! tongue , so she totally rejected the idea of "shame", she claimed to feel guilt but she actually told me later that "she decided to forgive herself" :) -- and never cared for my forgiveness, haha.. instead proceeding to call me "cruel" because of those texts/emails and I don't care about her feelings, she suffered a lot, you know (for being caught?) ).

Anyway, so the opposing counsel was telling my lawyer that they even have "evidence" of my "cruelty" and vicious conduct (these angry scolding emails and texts from me) and ready to send that to my counsel.

My lawyer responded, rather absentmindedly (she was typing something at the same time on her computer): "Sure, send me what you have". Is she just incompetent, or what is happening here? What's our "strategy"?

Ask your attorney for the strategy. Be direct.

Then, trust your attorney or get a new one.

You called your cheating wife a name? How dare you (eye roll snd sarcasm here).

Again, I recommend that you do not call your STBX any more names. (note: my ex-wife tried to make my name-calling into domestic violence... she literally used the term "verbal violence" in one of her court documents).

I can say w/o any hesitancy that the vast majority of attorneys want to do a good job, get their client a good result, and move on.

I had three attorneys and my ex-wife had one. Two of the four attorneys fit this description. My first attorney meant well, but she was not capable of handling STBX's attorney and her associated legal madness. My second attorney was basically AWOL and didn't care. My third attorney was this 100%. My ex-wife's attorney, I think, only cared about generating billable hours; I assume this because they held so many opinions that were not supported by the law (and my first attorney described her as "the attorney that bankrupts all of her clients.").

A key point here is that while you are very much emotionally invested in your case, your attorney is probably not. And that's a good thing too.

Sometimes I wonder if people also go to their doctor's office or the auto mechanic's work space and tell those people how to do what they do every day, or if this phenomenon is limited to the practice of law.

There is a difference between the exchange that is necessary between a client/patient and provider to give informed consent to a course of action on the one hand and unhelpfully second guessing an actual subject matter expert on the other.

The analogy that I used with my attorney is a sports analogy. I was both the team's owner (the person who made the really important, final decisions) and an assistant coach (so I would make suggestions) but that she was the head coach (the person who ran the team day to day).

The other thing to remember is that you know more about your case than your attorney, so you do need to explain all of the details to your attorney. In my case, I am really good with math (way better than my attorney) and I actually suggested a tactic that ended up being the basis for my entire divorce strategy (albeit, my attorney hired an expert witness/accountant to present these calculations to the court).

EVERYONE REPEAT AFTER ME- I promise not to use my attorney or medical doctor as a therapist. I will use my therapist as a therapist.

This is true but also do not be afraid to ask your attorney questions.

For example, I needed a new car in the middle of my divorce (old car had 210,000 miles on it). How would this affect my case? Similarly, I was saddled with an unfair temporary ruling and I could not afford my expenses so I wanted to take a second job. How would this affect my case?

I promise to remember it’s because my physician’s brain is full of Kreb’s cycle

Really, this is relevant in the mind of a physician? Who knew?

I’ve never had a patient answer me directly when I ask what time their water broke

You have clearly never had me as a patient.

I would have initially agreed, if it weren't for my WW and her lawyer suddenly bringing up her victim complex feelings into these divorce proceedings.

They are very much trying to bully you into giving up and/or doing something stupid that will benefit their case somehow.

You very much need to get your emotions under control. Your lawyer is just your lawyer, not your friend. Your STBX and her attorney are definitely not your friends or your lawyer. Don't listen to them at all.

To summarize:

I think that you have a relatively straight-forward divorce as long as you get your emotions under control and stop listening to what your STBX and her attorney are doing. There are no kids involved. There is no alimony involved. After that, it's just splitting assets and moving on... as long as you don't make it worse.

[This message edited by barcher144 at 10:27 PM, Tuesday, January 18th]

Thank you barcher144 for taking the time to comment on this in such detail, your opinions are appreciated. You wrote:

I think that you have a relatively straight-forward divorce as long as you get your emotions under control and stop listening to what your STBX and her attorney are doing.

Great assessment -- and this was exactly the conclusion my atty and I arrived today! I finally talked to her just minutes ago and clarified a few things (including the evidence I sent). She stated there is no need to "get into the weeds" any more, only keep it relevant -- pretty much the consensus of the advice I got here.

So I think we're going to be OK (me and my atty). Though she needs to allow me to interrupt her sooner , whenever she is answering with long convoluted phrases, adding unnecessary considerations while merely restating my original question that only needed a yes/no answer I am still trying to figure out if she's doing that on purpose I told her that I need ELI5 answers sometimes, but I'll make it clear when that is the case..

Anyway she even agreed with me asking some questions in writing (by email)! We'll see, have to be careful there -- perhaps the first question should be full meta: "how much this email - and your answer to it - shall cost me ?"

Wiseoldfool

Anything that feels like justice is incidental.

I love it!