SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Had divorce mediation this morning, and we've settled. I'll transfer about 22% of my retirement savings to her IRA. No ongoing commitment of support, in either direction... We've got some relatively minor business transition stuff and personal property retrieval to take care of, and she'll let me store my boat at her place at less-than-market rates for up to two years so I have time to find a new home for it, but otherwise we're done. Our lawyers will be writing up the agreement, and once we've both signed, they'll initiate the divorce filing with the court, we'll have an initial hearing with the court where we say "Yeah, this is our agreement," and ~60 days after that it should be finalized.

Yay!?

?

I am still sad....

I feel you and understand, but at least things are moving forward for you. I'd rather rip off the bandaid than stay in a place where I don't know if I should.

Remember, that for every end there is always a beginning.

It's one of those instances where you're sad & glad at the same time. Congratulations on getting through mediation relatively painlessly! (Happy dance.)

But, it's sad because it's the legal end of the M. I cried when they called & said that the D was final, too.

Keep us posted on how it's going.

Being said is understandable, but get ready for a new and probably more exciting chapter of the rest of your life, congrats ! IMHO your M should have ended a long time ago, but better late than never.

Mixed feelings for sure, but the healing can really start now. Welcome to the other side.

Grrr... She wants to re-negotiate the boat mooring and storage part of the agreement. I get it, she's going to feel awkward whenever I show up on her property/place of business; it's going to be painful for me too, knowing that I'm not a part of it anymore despite all that I've put into it over the years. OK, maybe I can forego the mooring and storage altogether if she's willing to revisit the retirement asset transfer -- it's a trade off, what is it worth to her to NOT have me showing up there at all?

Turned, I have read all of your posts on this forum and another site. You are surrounded by friends and family. You are restoring an old house. Do you really have time for a boat? Why don't you get rid of it and go straight no contact with your ex. Why is this boat so important to you?

Do you really have time for a boat?

That, and the question "Can you really afford to keep the boat?" are both very good questions, and ones that I don't have good answers to right now. And I also can't really articulate right now just why the boat is important to me, other than I love it, and my son loves it and I want him to have the opportunity to take it over when and if he can.

In any case, I would still have to get it off STBX's property and into the water before I could try to sell it. And it's not the kind of boat that would likely sell overnight.

OK, maybe I can forego the mooring and storage altogether if she's willing to revisit the retirement asset transfer -- it's a trade off, what is it worth to her to NOT have me showing up there at all?

I think this is the right approach, use it as a bargaining chip but run it by your attorney first just in case.

Personally, I would have suggested right away to NOT store the boat near her.
The biggest healer after divorce IMHO is distance and the inability to be impacted by actions of the former spouse. This in turn helps lead to any future relationship (as friends or maybe even no relationship at all) to be healthier.

Now imagine dropping by in a month or two to check something on the boat and have to wonder if the guy having coffee with her is a friend, a lover, or your replacement. Or if you need to arrange any boat-visitation with her and she’s pissed off because in retrospect she feels she got shafted in the divorce.

What’s the difference between "slightly under market" and market? Are we talking $ or $$ or $$$?
Frankly – for anything under $$$ I would let it slide. At most a very weak bargaining chip. You can even look at your potential cost ($$$ for 6 months) and consider selling the boat at slightly under market as is simply to get rid of the hassle and storage costs.

Update: I can moor the boat this summer at minimal cost on an out-of-the-way mooring that entails minimal if any contact with her nor presence on her primary property. She has accepted a ~5% reduction in the retirement asset transfer for me to not store or moor the boat at her place beyond this summer.

I still have to get the boat prepped and launched (it's in her barn), and there are still some business transition loose-ends to chase down, and I still have some stuff there to retrieve, and we're still waiting on her accountant to provide a report we need to finalize our 2021 taxes, so we will still have to see each other over the next month, and likely on into the fall (I'll be out of the country for most of July).

So while the divorce decree might be issued before summer is over, final "closure" likely won't be until well into the fall, around the one year mark from the decision to separate...

I hope you're feeling like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Update: My lawyer wrote up the revised Marital Settlement Agreement, and her lawyer prepared the paperwork to file with the courts for the divorce. Yesterday STBXW and I printed it all out and went to the bank together to get things notarized where needed. Yesterday evening, my lawyer sent the form for responding to the divorce filing, so I'll be heading back to the bank this morning to hopefully get that notarized. We'll send the appropriate papers back to our respective lawyers, who will file with the court, and then it's just a matter of time...

I'm not staying with her in her house while I am here at her place, but either sleeping on the boat or in one of the rental units (when available) - the latter being preferable because of access to bathroom and kitchen facilities Besides facilitating the completion of all this paper work, I am here now getting some good work done on prepping my boat for launch (have a launch date in a little over two weeks).

I'm still very sad, and wish things could have worked out differently. This is not the outcome that I really wanted, but at the same time it feels inevitable and perhaps even overdue. There is no going back, only moving forward, and moving on (and I'm working on that).

Update: I had a great 60th birthday party - my son's travel schedule happened such that he was able to be here to help me celebrate.

My boat was launched in late June. The boat hauler almost started crying when I told her that STBXW and I were divorcing! STBXW drove me over to the launch ramp following the hauler's truck, and she helped me with the preliminary rigging. Then I brought the boat back around to the mooring she originally assigned me (an hour's trip). But my boat was bumping up against one of the neighboring mooring balls -- I texted a pic to STBXW and she discussed it with the boat yard that manages her moorings, and then she told me to bring to boat over to one of her other moorings, which is in front of her place instead of in back of it. She came out in her little motor boat to pick me up and give me a ride back in to the dock. I had closed all the seacocks, including the engine cooling water intake, so I left STBXW with instructions on how to access and open that should she need to move the boat (maybe the boat yard will re-arrange the moorings on the back side, who knows?).

Then in early July, I left on a month-long sailing adventure on somebody else's boat, just getting back two days ago. And I got word from my attorney that the court hearing for our divorce has been scheduled for early September. Hopefully this will be the initial and final hearing all rolled into one, since we have our agreement in hand (we both signed it June 10, see last update), and the required 60 days has elapsed since the divorce complaint was filed.

Work and other things have piled up while I was gone, so I'll be pretty busy between now and then. I had a lot of free time on my watches on the sailing adventure as the autopilot did all the steering and I just had to look around for things that we could run into (and make sure the sails were trimmed appropriately) every now and then -- so I spent a fair amount of time contemplating the demise of my marriage. Sure, there were a lot of things that I could have done differently, misunderstandings that could (maybe) have been recognized earlier and cleared up, etc... but none of that would have changed either of our sexual orientations to be more compatible with each other; the end result likely would not have been any different. So I also spent a lot of time contemplating the possibilities for my future going forward -- and things there are looking pretty exciting!!!