1. I suspect everything would have worked a lot better for me had I not married a person with an extreme personality disorder. Sadly, people don’t come with those sort of markings, and she hid her nature pretty carefully before the marriage.
I got served on a Friday after 5pm when I came home to a nearly empty house. She cleaned out our joint accounts, I had nothing to hire a lawyer with even had there been one available on a weekend. If there are free resources for men facing divorce in my area, I could not find them.
She took the children, all of their clothes, toys, books, and furniture (excepting a bed for each child). I didn’t have any idea where my kids were until the following Tuesday. She left no note, she and her family would not answer the phone.
My ex refused to negotiate on anything. Because my kids are young and she was a “stay at home mom” I got very little consideration on custody issues. No one batted an eyelash when my ex withheld the kids from me, or when she cleaned out our joint accounts.
I paid for all of the lawyers involved, directly or indirectly. The way she took the money from our shared accounts made it nearly impossible to recover anything. Pretty soon I was a paycheck with support obligations and bills that kept me with negative cash flow for 6 months. I made too much to file for bankruptcy, but not enough to cover everything.
I never had an issue with paying child or spousal support. They way they calculated it wasn’t fair, but what can you do? I had lots of issues with getting access to the kids. After the divorce, she ignored most of the items in the final decree, I couldn’t call my kids and she kept me in the dark about school, medical, and after school activities. Had I failed to pay support, an organization would have come after me. When she refused to comply with the divorce decree, I had nothing. To get traction, I would have to go back to court, which I couldn’t afford.
It was brutal. I don’t remember long stretches of the last two years. I held myself together, stayed employed, and cared for my kids when I had them.
I don’t think men in a marriage with a stay at home mom understand how vulnerable they are. I would never consider such an arrangement again, under any circumstance.
2. My divorce was brutal. My ex cheated on me (7x) and when I filed, she instantly started crying that I beat her, playing the helpless blonde card at every turn, crying at the drop of a hat, how there was no way she could possibly support herself (with 2 multiple degrees and a job history). She pushed for 100% custody of the kids and made me pay through the nose for every moment I got to spend with them. She took most of my retirement and made me pay all her legal fees. Everytime I pushed back, she painted me as abusive and misogynist and the judge (a woman) gave her what she wanted.
I ended up with 45% custody of the kids (after a year-long fight), a year of my salary in legal fee debts, no house, and no retirement. She then proceeded to give the kids every single thing they wanted (let my 14 year old daughter sleep with her 19 year old boyfriend in her house) to try to woo them over to her, which backfired horribly and ended up alienating the kids to her completely. When that didn’t work, she took a fireplace iron to my son and ended up being committed, which was where her BPD (borderline personality disorder) was diagnosed.
Now, 10 years later, I’ve not spoken to her in 4 years, the boys despise her, and her daughter is realizing how crazy she was.
3. I was married to a verbally abusive women who broke me financially when I divorced her. I seriously believe that she didn’t even want all that she got, she just wanted to see me suffer.
I’m happy to hear you got away clean but I don’t know a single man personally who has. You said that the mother of your kids has been very reasonable. The mother of mine was awarded custody and I was allowed to visit at her home twice a week for one hour. I have no criminal record or violent history. When I would visit she would bitch at me from the time I rang the doorbell until the time I left. She also has had a vastly higher standard of living with the child support and alimony I was forced to give her for a marriage that was less than 2 years and would flaunt it incessantly.
She tricked a different guy into marrying her right after we divorced by faking a pregnancy. Then when she got married to him she did the same shit to him except with two more kids.
I was able to get the alimony stopped after she remarried but had to pay out the nose through the entire divorce process and until she remarried. I had to work two jobs to pay her off and had to live rent free with a friend until it stopped. She still makes a killing in child support which is only used marginally on the kids.
4. My ex-wife had an affair. While the court would not recognize it despite the testified evidence of numerous late night phone calls to his place of work, the suspicious “picnic lunches” at a location hours away from town, etc, an affair took place for almost a year.
Without knowing all of this at the time, she asked me for a divorce and then wanted full custody of our children, despite the devotion and involvement I was and am in their lives.
That being said, my ex-wife hired an unethical attorney, who believed in a scorched earth policy to ensure his client was awarded the bulk of the estate and the hours he billed were astronomical.
At trial, I was portrayed as a horrible husband and person, which is the farthest from the truth. The “spin” the attorney put on day-to-day aspects of life in order to make one out to be “the bad guy” was mind boggling and eye-opening to how the family court system is truly flawed.
The unethical tactics and manipulation my ex-wife allowed her attorney to do in court was unconscionable, all to achieve money.
The judge in my trial clearly did not understand the concept of pre-tax and after-tax assets and awarded my ex-wife approximately 85+% of the assets acquired during the marriage, in addition to enormous amounts of alimony and child support for 16 years although I was not married that long.
Given this huge amount of money she was receiving, I was still ordered to pay for everything for the children (private schools, clothes, sports/extra cirricular, trips, supplies, etc….everything!). I was also ordered to secure a life insurance policy for millions and name her as beneficiary.
This “alimony sentence” I was given through my early 60’s, has prohibited me to save for retirement and continue to live the life I would like with my new wife, yet the judge ordered me to keep her in the life to which SHE was “accustomed”. Despite the fact she is an educated woman capable of working and supporting herself in the lifestyle she desires.
Even worse, is that the ex-wife has been living with another man for 5+ years. Despite the emotional toll and unsettling environment my ex’s living arrangement has taken on the children, she continues to fight for alimony even though the divorce decree states it ends when living with a man that is not her husband.
Yet the flawed CT cohabitation law is written that the domestic partner must also provide financial support to her household. Why would the live-in provide financial support when the ex-wife has substantial amounts of money? Therefore, the alimony now becomes support of BOTH of them!
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.