@Sara wrote, "I am amazed at the ostrich mentality of your wife going into this."
Man, that gets the DB pulitzer for best metaphor. That is it to a Tee. She recognizes it, too. I asked her about that once and she said "There's a lot I would have done differently since February if I'd known what it would be like."
Now mind you, her "plan" -- and the air quotes are deliberate -- was to keep the D secret in her mind while pursuing Signore Schmuckatelli, and I finished my (now 5 months behind schedule) book. [Person, you're mind-reading! No -- that's what she told me.]
Her friends -- including 2 who were in our wedding party (nice) -- would know. A couple co-workers -- both of whom regularly saw me (nice) -- would know. (About the D and Signore Schmuckatelli.) She would know.
Of course, I wouldn't know.
She doesn't get how that hurts, either, incidentally. How the idea that she'd let me be ignorant, thinking I was married, would be hurtful to a person -- let alone this Person.
So given that "plan" -- which really wasn't much of a plan, really -- she presumably would have figured out the nit-noid details. But that IS mind-reading, because who knows?
"Ostrich mentality." More common than not, I'd think.
So here's a tip from Smiley's Person for both LBS and WAS, with respect to the money. This might be unique to Coastal State, but it doesn't sound like it.
For a while now, WAW has been saying that, after she moves out, it will be okay for us to "not rush" the D. "What's the rush? Why hurry?"
[I'm not accusing WAW in what follows of nefarious intent -- as one can gather from the past 2 days, thorough planning is apparently not her strong suit -- it just came up in the convo with Mojo Lawyer.]
Now this notion, "let's not rush," can sound very appealing to DB'ing LBS. Great! I get time to DB! I get time to chase the snakes out of my brain!
But it's dangerous for LBS in legal terms, as I understand it. Here's why (and this is why it's a tip to both WAS and LBS, depending on who is the higher-earner):
Courts are actually reluctant to intervene in marriages and divorces, @fb2's experiences and anger to the contrary notwithstanding. As Mojo Family Law Guy said yesterday, "You think judges don't want to go home and have dinner with their families?" So courts like the Status Quo. Whatever the SQ is.
So if WAS says, "let's not rush," and then pays LBS some amount of money -- pays the bills, for example -- AND if that amount of money is less than LBS would get as alimony/spousal support and/or child support in a full, adjudicated divorce settlement (i.e., the state's defined minimum or "guideline"), the courts are likely to take that amount as the de facto agreed-upon alimony -- even though it's less than the "guideline" or state minimum -- once it's gone on for a certain (undefined) period of time.
In other words "let's not rush the D" can -- can -- be a strategic delaying tactic by the would-be alimony-payer. You think WAS (for example, though not always -- see @Thinker's thread, not that he'd do this) is being "cooperative" or "open," when in fact WAS (particularly if advised by counsel) is setting you up to get less than you are entitled to under the law.
----- Again, I'm not saying WAW is doing this, and in fact I don't think she is -- that would presume knowledge she has demonstrably not had. Would she have done that, had she known the facts?
Blechh. Much as it pains me to say it..... I don't know. I'm not confident she wouldn't have done. And man how it hurts to say that.
