alamogirl: Thinking of you as Thanksgiving approaches. Hope you are doing OK.
everyone: I finally received a response from my STBXW (and her atty.) to the last settlement offer. The short version: "No way in hell". So, we're off to court in Dec. (happy holidays! ).
Oregon is an "equitable distribution" state where it is presumed that the people contributed equally to the marital assets and, thus, they should be divided equally. However, this is just a presumption and either party (or both) can argue for a different division. Since she did about 45% of the housekeeping and maintenance and brought in 33% of the income, I consider 40% to be a fair settlement to her.
However, she won't hear of it (the constant drumbeat of "I deserve half" has grown monotonous). Since I'm unwilling to agree that she deserves to benefit at my expense (the extra 10% isn't coming out of thin air!), we seem destined for a trial. As I've stated previously, I have no interest in cheating my STBXW or in seeing her harmed financially. However, that doesn't mean I think I ought to be harmed. A 50/50 split would wipe out my financial gains for the last several years (while she would suffer no loss at all).
Sadly, the only people winning here are the lawyers (as usual). If only she could be even the tiniest bit reasonable. But, alas, that's apparently not in the cards. Sigh....
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