The Woman is Pure Evil

[ForGump]

RDS, what was your L's explanation for how this turned out?

[Zues126]

RDS, I'm not sure if you know my story, but trust me, I know the situation.

XW was a stay at home mom by choice. She told me it was her life long dream to be able to raise the kids through their 5th birthday. I made some serious sacrifices and worked extremely hard to make this possible.

Coincidentally, right as the youngest reached preschool age, she announced she wanted a divorce. Standard BD, OM1, 2, 3, and 4 stuff. Roll in some black out drinking and a suicide attempt just for good measure.

The problem was since she was the primary parent it took a lot of work to get to 50% custody. I moved out of the house, and lived in a friend's basement for 6 months. The first 4 months she got 100% of my income, I continued to pay everything other than just gas and my own food. I visited the kids at the house twice a week. 6 months in I moved into an apartment, it has 2 bedrooms which means S12/D9/D5 all share a bedroom. It is 'cozy' to say the least.

Since then I've gotten 50% custody. I'm working a full time corporate sales job, have the kids half the time, am paying for my apartment, and am still paying for all of her living expenses. On top of that I am paying for a lawyer and ALL court costs.

She has yet to get a job, despite the fact that she now has half the time without the kids. It has been 26 months since BD and she isn't working. She is on every form of government assistance possible and has a pro bona lawyer who has dragged the divorce out for two years, discounted utilities, etc. On the weekends without the kids she is taking trips with her new boyfriend to the cabin and cruising on his boat. But I am funding this because "she gave up her opportunity to advance her career to raise my children". Seems like I gave up my opportunity to raise my children so she didn't have to work and could realize her dream, but that's not how the courts see it, and instead of being thanked for my sacrifice, I am enslaved for another decade.

If you add up the money I'm paying to her (several thousand a month), the money I'm paying for my apartment, and the money I'm paying in legal expenses, I'm going backwards 1-2K/month. Even without my lawyer she is receiving around 60% of my net income and I literally can't make my obligations. I have maxed out my credit cards and am borrowing from my father to pay my lawyer to try to settle this thing. The hell of it is that I'm a high income earner that is TOTALLY a minimalist, other than a few books I simply don't spend money. It seems absurd that I can't pay my rent.

So trust me, I understand. The system is horrible. The reality is this: Most families are paycheck to paycheck, and unable to suddenly afford a second home. Yet after divorce their is a second home's worth of expenses suddenly thrown on the same income, and since the children always come first and mom clearly is the one raising the children, she gets hers before looking at what's left. Even if she's the one that pulls the plug. In fact, I think it's because of this that so many divorces are started by women. They don't need a man because the courts will force the man to provide regardless or ability or choice.

Now I know this is a generalization, I understand many women pay support, many women earn more than men, there are stay at home husbands, etc. I do understand this. I also understand there are WAH's like Cherry's that initiate divorces, and there needs to be protective laws in place to make sure she isn't left high and dry. And that helps to know that if I have to be screwed by a system so that there are other women like Cherry that are protected, that helps me too...almost like, "ok system, I'll take the beating on this one, just make sure Cherry is ok and I'll take it for the team". But for sure as a man that has been through this process, I also know that it can feel as fair as a carnival ring toss with a head wind, it can destroy your life and hang a jail sentence over your head if you don't slave away to make sure the woman that abandoned and cheated on you isn't provided for.

So hopefully you understand I feel your pain. Trust me, I have thought many times of moving to Australia and smoking pot on the beach in some small fishing community and just taking care of myself. It's almost like the world is trying to force me to go off the grid sometimes. But I obviously won't leave my kids.

Here's the thing though...and this is what's really important. Two things in fact: I can eat, and I can sleep.

What I mean is this. No matter how hard things get, I will have food on the table. This is the US, and even though things may not work the way I'd like them to, I won't starve to death. If you look at the number of humans on this planet historically, that automatically puts us in the top .1% of everyone who has ever lived. We will always have food, we will always have a place to stay, we will always get the medical attention we need. We MUST stay appreciative of that. In fact, if we can't appreciate how amazingly awesome that is, then more money wouldn't make us happy anyway.

The other part is I can sleep. When I look in the mirror I am happy with my choices. I have pride in who I am and how I handle the adversity I face. I couldn't do what XW is doing and feel good about who I was, and if I had the choice between being financially abused or being financially abusive, I would rather take the a$$ end of it because I couldn't live with myself if I did what she did to someone else. That said, I even can find some forgiveness. You have to understand, this is our culture. We live in a culture of divorce. It's not considered abnormal. And we live in a culture where women feel entitled to support. It's just assumed. Not many women say "I am going to forego the support because I'd like to pay my own way", it's just assumed that in a divorce a man will pay out money. It's not considered wrong, it's just the norm. So XW doesn't comprehend she is doing anything wrong, any more than a slave owner thought it was wrong to benefit from slave labor.

Make no mistake, I loathe the system. I think it's twisted, horrible, and completely unfair. I think it supports divorce as I've said, which I think is equally loathsome. And it's hard to shrug it off when I don't know how I am going to pay the 4K due to me on September 1 for her expenses and my rent, plus the $600 for the mediator, on top of the 2K I just paid for my attorney's invoice, but her income is court ordered and guaranteed to come out of my pay while mine is commission and variable, she is more secure than I am...ok, breathing, breathing...point is, it's hard to feel good about a system that you hate, and I do hate this system, and our divorce culture...

But in the end life isn't the way we want it. We have to continue to choose to be appreciative for what we have. We can eat, we can sleep, and while we can't change the world we live in, we can be the men we want to be to make the parts of it we touch a little better than we left it. Never regret your choices, you did them for YOU, and regardless of her response, you will feel honorable about how you handled it for the rest of your life.

My challenge to you- what do you have to be appreciative of in your life? My motto which I hinted at earlier has gotten me through this: If I can't be happy in my life because I didn't get the marriage I wanted and my woman left me...If despite my health, my children, my hobbies, my job, my food to eat, my place to live, my friends, my family...if I STILL look up at the sky and say "Screw this God, this isn't enough, without the woman and marriage I wanted I can't be happy, this is all garbage!"...If I'm THAT ungrateful...then having my marriage work wouldn't have made me happy anyway.

[RDS]

RDS, what was your L's explanation for how this turned out?

My L said the big reason was the judge's concern about the financial declaration discrepancy and my W's obvious physical pain she was in. My W had emergency surgery this past weekend, and she was in the hospital earlier this month so she played that out to the hilt.

I guess the judge has seen a lot of men try to hide assets from their wives and she punishes men who try to do that. I honestly did not try to hide anything because I knew it could bite me in the ass. I was clear and concise as I could be with my financial statement. That's why trying to come up with the money is devastating to me. I honestly don't have an extra $3k to pay my W a month and still pay everything else.

My cash flow is now in the negative. I don't have enough money to pay all bills. My W is the one who put us in this situation, yet I'm the one paying the price. It boggles the mind.

[RDS]

Zues126,

Thanks for your post. I've read your stuff before and I never thought it would happen to me, but it obviously has. I can't begin to think on your lines, just yet, but I know in time I will have to just to survive.

Thanks again. I will read, and read again, your post whenever I am most down.

[Tony68]

Rds and Zues

Sorry to read your current situations.

Zues, as I live in Australia, you would be more than welcome to come stay in my spare room. Probably can't help with pot though.

[Cherry]

Thank you for those kind words. What can I say, I'm the fool that he's going to leave. Haha. Some days I'm not handling it as well as I'd like. But just trying to focus on my babies.

[Luv1589]

Dear RDS,
I am so sorry you are hurting. If my husband and I do get the divorce we have talked about doing cooperative to reduce the expense. June 1 I quit my job because my husband and I felt I had to to look after our daughter. Even when I was working I don't earn anything close to what he does. I don't know exactly what research is done but he estimates he will have to pay me spousal support for A long time to come . I have heard again and again to protect myself by hiring an attorney and then forcing him to hire another attorney and battling things out would cost us A bunch of money and then nobody would be happy .

[Cherry]

Zeus, you want to know the crazy part? I'm too nice and have some grace upon me that even though my wh has absolutely crushed me and deserves all he gets. I don't want to ruin him to the point that he is unable to live. How crazy is that?! So many people tell me to take him for all he has. But I can't do that, at the end of the day, although he needs to feel the consequences for his actions, I don't want to leave him to the point he can barely afford to live or afford food. Child support I'll take, spousal support though, I don't know if I would get that. I work for a good company and will get paid maternity full salary for 9 months, then I will return back to work and work my ass off and show my kids that I work damn hard for all we have.

We had the D talk tonight, i told him I kinda wish I could be the scorned woman and take him for all he's got. But it's just not me, I'm feisty, but I'm not conniving.

Sometimes having morals just wants to kick you up the @ss!

[RDS]

Dear RDS,
I am so sorry you are hurting. If my husband and I do get the divorce we have talked about doing cooperative to reduce the expense. June 1 I quit my job because my husband and I felt I had to to look after our daughter. Even when I was working I don't earn anything close to what he does. I don't know exactly what research is done but he estimates he will have to pay me spousal support for A long time to come . I have heard again and again to protect myself by hiring an attorney and then forcing him to hire another attorney and battling things out would cost us A bunch of money and then nobody would be happy .

I think you're on the right track, I really do. My mistake was going after her to protect myself as soon as she left me. In hindsight I should have waited but she left me with a 3 sentence "Dear John" letter so I hired a L to protect myself. Big F'ing mistake. It forced my W to get a L and then all bets were off.

Try to work it out between yourselves as much as possible as it would be the best way to go about it. Don't do what I did and get attorneys involved. Nothing good can come from it.

Not to be sexist, but as a woman you do still have some advantages in today's legal system so you don't have to worry as much as your husband.

[RDS]

Sometimes having morals just wants to kick you up the @ss!

Yep, I have the bruises to prove it.