Hummmm... well you do need to protect yourself and your kids financialy regardless of where your husband is in this whole thing. I'm not familiar with your state's divorce laws, but I suggest you start looking into them (and don't let your husband know anything about this).
You do need to talk to a lawyer (or a few) and be prepared..... that doesn't mean a divorce will occur, it means you are protecting yourself and more importantly your kids. You need to find out your state's laws on child support and alimony. Start documenting how much time your husband spends with the kids. You may need these records some day. Do you work? Also, in your state how is alimony determined? I know here in California it is based on percentage earned and there's also "standard of living." If the standard of living is something in your state, be careful that your husband isn't putting a noose on your personal spending. It may be he wants to show that you and the kids can "live on nothing" to insure a low alimony.
My husband was very controlling with money during the separation and divorce, but because I realized this, I documented everything and what I couldn't afford on my own salary got added on to the credit card.
Of course, that wasn't a pleasant thing. We did go into a lot of debt and unfortunately that's unavoidable in situations like this. I figured OW cost us around 20K (6 months of divorce proceedings... and we weren't even close to being done!!! The expense of maintaining two households, etc...)
During that time I also gave my husband list of expenses weekly and asked for reembursement. For awhile he could afford this, but eventually he became overwhelmed with it all.
Try not to worry about your husband, and what he's doing or not doing. Just start focusing in on you and your children... and 180s for your my dear! Expect him to be mean, rude and ugly as long as he's with the trophy thing.
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
