MJ and Anon... Thank you 😊

Anon... Get thee to a lawyer. Now! You will feel so much better.

Elle

Ellexoh_nz wrote:

Anon... Get thee to a lawyer. Now! You will feel so much better.

Elle

I don't know why getting a lawyer scares me so much. For some reason it just makes things feel so....ugly. And I worry that somehow I will actually be left with less than he is giving me right now. I worry that if he finds out that I talked to a lawyer he will get even worse and try to destroy me.

Anon2222 wrote:

I don't know why getting a lawyer scares me so much.....

 
Going to see a lawyer will be a first step, but it will be the first of many. And once you've taken that first step the second, third...fourth, fifth will be easier.

I was petrified. Scared of my partner's reaction. But not anymore because I've realised he doesn't even think I'm serious.

Make that appointment Anon 👍

E

Anon,
   What I discovered from going through the legal process of divorce is that my now-ex was not in the driver's seat, contrary to what he believed was the case and should be the case, and what would have been the case had I allowed him to dictate the terms or acquiesced to his terms. 

  The law, not your stbx, stipulates how assets will be divided. Yes, there's some variation (e.g., living in a fault state where cheating will count against the offender in a settlement), but the law is the law, and your stbx will have to abide by it and the judge's ruling, whether he likes it or not.   I found it enormously satisfying to watch my now-ex be pulled up short from his delusional ideas of what he was due and his assumption that what he wanted should determine the outcome.  

Judges see to it that the law is applied; your lawyer protects you during the legal process.  The lawyer has your back, and can serve as your backbone when your own spine, understandably, is bowed by the pressure and the blows, and you can't stand up for yourself.  To me, that is a very good reason to see a lawyer--for the support they can give.

 Going through the divorce process, I realized the extent to which I was afraid, just as you are afraid, of my now-ex.  I didn't know what he was capable of, because having been hit up-side the head by his trans bomb drop I had been made aware that I no longer knew--and hadn't known for a long time!--what he was capable of.  (I realized, too, what he WAS capable of, and that was something I never in my wildest imagination would have thought possible--and included cruelty and apathy toward me and my suffering.)  I also realized how much that fear, which included a fear for my future life, was driving my impulse to defer to him.  I remember asking my therapist why I was having so much trouble standing up for myself in the negotiations over assets, and she said to me, "You've been trained by society, by your family, and your spouse, to defer."  As a woman with a professional career, someone who believed myself to be independent and outspoken (and whom other people saw that way, too), that word "defer" applied to myself was like a slap in the face.  But it was a salutary one--it was true.  And once I'd heard it, I was, with my lawyer's help, able to better stand up for myself.  To "speak [my] mind, even if [my] voice shakes" as Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Grey Panthers, the organization that fights for the rights of the elderly, said. 

   Finally, don't assume that your stbx isn't acting on his own behalf, legally and otherwise, while you are paralyzed into inaction because you are afraid to anger him.   He is not going to protect you.  And as time goes on, he's going to feel even less charitable to you and resent you for consuming what he will think of as "his" assets.  Hoping he will keep your interests in mind and be fair is a false hope; he has already shown you who he is and what he is capable of.  Accept that the only protection you're going to have is that you secure for yourself--and go visit a lawyer. 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 23, 2023 8:22 am)

Anon,
 You are so welcome.  I have been in a similar place.  It's hard to find your strength, but from what you've said about your life I know you have it.  You know it, too, but have forgotten it because you have been so pummeled and buffeted by your stbx's blows.  One thing I did when I was going back and forth over leaving, knowing I needed to but afraid to take the step, was make a list of my assets, which included not only financial ones, but character and skills.  If you can take a step back and try to look at yourself objectively, as if from a distance, to survey your assets, and then list them, you can refer to that list when you need to reassure yourself that you will be ok.  My mantra, especially when I was panicked, was "I'll be ok.  I'm going to be ok.  It's going to be ok."  It was like a life raft when I thought I'd be swamped and go under.   In your case, the fact that you are working 50 hours a week means that you have drive and strength--and those are very very valuable qualities that will keep you from going under. 

What you have said about your ex and about financial assets--that he absconded with the savings, that you assumed the debt, etc--convinces me even more that you would be advised to seek a lawyer's advice.  For one thing, as Rob has said many times on this forum, spouses can be surprised to discover that they don't just get half our assets--they get half the debt, too!   I didn't see it until after we were divorced, but my husband was always willing to accept or to intimate that I should take on responsibilities or debts that more properly belonged to both of us.  Clearly your stbx is, too.

 Please believe me when I say that one reason you find yourself apologizing and feeling bad about your actions when it's your husband who has lied and ended the marriage is because you were groomed over many years to do that.  I also think it's a form of our wishing we could be in control and fix things--if we could just apologize enough, maybe that would fix things.  It's the flip side of the control we tried to exert over the state of our marriage when we were in it.  Then, we would do what we thought we could to please or to fix or to make things better, to make the marriage we longed for possible.  Now that we can't do that anymore, the only way we have to try to fix things, to act in order to control the damage, is to appeal to their empathy or to blame ourselves and apologize.  You've already seen that appealing to his empathy doesn't work.  Nor will apologizing.  (Not to mention that you don't have anything of substance to apologize for!)

I promise you that when you take an action for your own self respect, you will start to feel better.  It might only be momentarily, but even momentarily is a start.  My own experience of calling a lawyer is that it took me several times.  Working up to even make the call was hard, and I was very easily discouraged when the first time I called the lawyer wasn't available.  It took me another while to call again.  And the day I met with the lawyer I sat in her office waiting to be called, filling out a questionnaire about assets, apprehensively shaking with fright.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 23, 2023 1:11 pm)