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Expert: Equality in Marriage Institute - 2/28/2006
Question I filed for divorce (CA); my husband and I were married for 26
years and there have been no infidelities or any other monkey
business–no one is a bad guy. He was served in December and
is dragging his feet thorough the settlement process. our first
meeting was over 2 months ago with he, I and our attorneys. My
husband went nuts because I had checked off that I wanted
physical custody (only a temporary thin until I had a chance to
speak with our daughter, age 15. His attorney couldn't control
him and had to talk to him outside the room to calm down. That
meeting cost me $800 and him $900, and I was sick about
spending all that money for nothing that I vowed never to be
present in another meeting again. So my husband did the same
thing. After a couple of months of not talking to each other and
only talking to our atorneys, he and his attorney started working
on a proposal. In the meantime, after a conversation I had with
our daughter, we are in agreement on joint custody and physical
custody alternating every other week. We have 2 homes and I
offered to let him buy me out of the larger home, move into the
smaller home, assume the mortgage on that home. He would
assume the mortgage on the larger home where we now live.
Because the smaller house is his work studio and has all of his
equipment and work stuff there, I can't just move right in–it
needs to be made into a home for me and our daughter when
she's there. I feel so trapped–currently I am sleeping on the
couch in the guest bedroom and the situation is unbearable,
because I am afraid to disagree with anything he says he wants.
I think I have offered him a lot of compromises. I want to get
appraisals on the houses, so we can determine the net equity of
our real property and adding in the liquid assets, divide
everything up in a way that makes sense withthe buyout. This
seems to be taking an excruciatingly long time. I am good with
money and my husband is not, so I want to hurry and divide
things up before we are left penniless. I do not want to be liable
for his debts or the debts of his corporation, of which I am
currently an officer. But every time we seem to make some
headway, he finds something to go ballistic over and threatens
to halt the process and reneg on everything we've agreed upon
thus far. My attorney is not very proactive in contacting and
working with the other attorney–I told him I don't want to waste
money. Right now my husband is going nuts about spousal
support which I haven't even brought up to him yet, and putting
a value on his business, which is worth only the equipment and
furniture owned by the corporation. I have no idea how to figure
this, because he has the stuff insured for "replacement cost" and
he wants it valued at"auction cost." But when I asked him to get
a print out from ebay on the items, he told ME to do it if I want it
and don't trust the value he's put on it If he is not threatening
to halt the negotiatins and is threatening me with other things,
like getting spousal support from ME by going after my
inheritance–and my parents aren't even dead yet. He stopped
the proposal his attorney was sending my attorney because we
had a talk and were able to work out some things last night. but
this mosning brought the whole spousal suppost issue and
threats of halting negotiations. I don't know what to do. If I quit
talking to him now and tell his attorney to talk to mine, I'll be
spending way more money and make him angrier. What do you
recommend. If I say "black" he will say "white."
Answer Dear mthannigan,
Sounds like a mediator would help immensely here. They are much less expensive and can be a bit of a barrier between you and your spouse. By the way, inheritance is not considered marital property in any state that I know of. To learn more about mediators visit: http://www.divorce-without-war.com/, http://womansdivorce.com/mediation.html, http://www.adr.org/.
