It is also annual enrollment time for benefits. Since the benefits decisions I make now are effective for all of 2010, I am looking at these trying to determine how I would want to be enrolled. For example, if we are going to get divorced next year, maybe I should stop my 401K investments, since I would need cash more than I need long term investments. I would be happy for any advice people can give me here.
Bring this up with your wife (part of the brutal reality.) If you keep her on the healthcare benefit ask her how she will pay for her part or if she wants to shop for her own plan. Go over the money - bills, debts, home equity and investments. Let it be her choice on how she pays for her part. Her problems are her problems.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
For example, if we are going to get divorced next year, maybe I should stop my 401K investments, since I would need cash more than I need long term investments. I would be happy for any advice people can give me here.
Sic svnt dracones! Can't speak for Eastern State, but in Coastal State the divorce paperwork comes with an explicit Temporary Restraining Order barring Petitioner from making any such changes without the express written consent of the Respondent.
If it were (able to be [don't know if it is]) a contested divorce, opposing counsel would rake you over the coals on any changes to the customary and usual family financial position, suggesting that this was part of a long-term Master Plan, etc., since Mrs. T is entitled to half your retirement -- you follow?
She's entitled to half his retirement even as deposited AFTER SHE WANTS A DIVORCE???
I mean .... a divorce in the offing seems like a pretty big change to the usual and customary, whichever way you slice it. Not in terms of justifying either party's evisceration of the savings, but in terms of ceasing to add more to any joint treasure chest, for sure.
No wonder so many men are pissed off ...... I will man the barricades with them.
ETA: Never mind. I missed the word "petitioner". Although that would apply to a man divorcing an adulterous wife, too, wouldn't it? So I will retain my indignation, just not as it applies here (to a degree, although you could argue her apparent willingness to coast on Thinker's financial coattails but not pursue divorce is putting him in a pretty awkward position, as above.)
(((Thinker)))
Glad you're enjoying the office hurly-burly.
Last edited by Kettricken; 10/27/0905:19 PM.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
She's entitled to half his retirement even as deposited AFTER SHE WANTS A DIVORCE??? I mean .... a divorce in the offing seems like a pretty big change to the usual and customary, whichever way you slice it. . I missed the word "petitioner". Although that would apply to a man divorcing an adulterous wife, too, wouldn't it?
Yes on both counts. Until the Community is dissolved -- often, but not exclusively, on the Date of Separation indicated on the divorce filing by Petitioner -- Community Property is Community Property, and it's irrelevant really who wanted what. And even then no changes are usually permitted for the period the petition runs. And that's a pain for the Petitioner -- just ask WAW, who still wigs out at the merest mention of money.
But it's also there to protect Respondent. Imagine you're one of these Gordon Gekko Wall Street Wizards and you're working the Big Deal of a Lifetime that will net you a Zillion Bucks. And Mrs. GGWSW is so Last Year's Model. So you shift all your money away from areas where she'd have claims in the event of a divorce, and then file for divorce, and then the next day -- Whoopee! What a Surprise! I just made a Zillion Bucks! Gosh what a coincidence!
Devil's in the details... Which is why I so often find myself saying to WAW during this or that of her Batsh*t-Crazy-a-Thons (which seem to have gone away lately, thanks no doubt to the Good Luvvin' from Signore il Secondo), "Falls into the category of Things That Would Have Been Good To Research Before....".
I get, I really do, the restrictions on jiggery-pokery with assets that were "joint" before the grass started looking greener to anyone.
But I don't get, nor do I wish to, restrictions on either party's ability to eschew adding additional loot to a joint pile after the handwriting is not only on the wall but enriching attorneys.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
I am not, however, willing to continue in a marriage with someone who is emotionally unavailable to me. I am not willing to continue in a sexless marriage. We are either proceeding to work on improving the marriage, or we are taking it apart. We are going for our initial consultation with the mediator on Tuesday. If you are willing, we can go back to counseling in parallel."
She's cake eating...not in the "A" sense of the term...but in the sense that she is enjoying the security of you providing for the family, but she offers nothing but "I'm unhappy and want space."
Greek
Yes. She is.
Room, Board and a Scapegoat - what else does one need?
Yes, yes, and yes! Remember buddy, you did the work. You made the efforts to fix.
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
Not sure this applies in my sitch. Since the decision regarding the 401K has to be made up to a year in advance, and since once deposited it can't be withdrawn without penalties, we need to decide whether WE want to commit to that 401K investment, or whether we want the cash instead.
If we don't make the investment, we would be able to save up more in cash, which would likewise be split and which we would both need during a post-d period.
Also, post D, alimony and child support are cash payments, so any 401K investment would then come out of my remaining income. In order to live my own life, I think I would need this cash more urgently than I would need to make retirement investments.
You make a good point SP - I can't make the decision secretly. I wouldn't want to do that anyway, however, because I want her to be fully involved in any steps we take toward D.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
She's entitled to half his retirement even as deposited AFTER SHE WANTS A DIVORCE??? I mean .... a divorce in the offing seems like a pretty big change to the usual and customary, whichever way you slice it. . I missed the word "petitioner". Although that would apply to a man divorcing an adulterous wife, too, wouldn't it?
Yes on both counts. Until the Community is dissolved -- often, but not exclusively, on the Date of Separation indicated on the divorce filing by Petitioner -- Community Property is Community Property, and it's irrelevant really who wanted what. And even then no changes are usually permitted for the period the petition runs. And that's a pain for the Petitioner -- just ask WAW, who still wigs out at the merest mention of money.
But it's also there to protect Respondent. Imagine you're one of these Gordon Gekko Wall Street Wizards and you're working the Big Deal of a Lifetime that will net you a Zillion Bucks. And Mrs. GGWSW is so Last Year's Model. So you shift all your money away from areas where she'd have claims in the event of a divorce, and then file for divorce, and then the next day -- Whoopee! What a Surprise! I just made a Zillion Bucks! Gosh what a coincidence!
Devil's in the details... Which is why I so often find myself saying to WAW during this or that of her Batsh*t-Crazy-a-Thons (which seem to have gone away lately, thanks no doubt to the Good Luvvin' from Signore il Secondo), "Falls into the category of Things That Would Have Been Good To Research Before....".
Smileys - Thinker, please pardon a small hijack. I finally opened my own bank account yesterday (WAW opened her own 8 months ago, just told me last month when decided to divorce, but hasn't put very much in it) and am wondering how to determine who's share can go in what account. Trying to take baby steps here as trying not to throw gas on the fire. I make roughly five times the amount of money she does and pay all of the bills plus most of the other expenses for kid stuff, etc.
Until lately, her money has basically been our family's "play money" but now she's trying to come up with the retainer fee for her lawyer. She flipped out when I told her I had opened one and wants to know what portion she gets to put in her account versus what portion I get to put in my account. From what you're saying (if I'm understanding it) is that it's all community anyway until we have a legal sep date in place, so we should just leave everything in joint until/if that happens?
Me 47 W 44 D16, D13 T 23yrs M 20yrs WAW/MLC + Male EA "BFF from H.S." = Misery
@Heartbroken -- if a petition for divorce has been filed, then the Community ceased to be in force on the Date of Separation (DOS). So as of the DOS you can separate your assets, assuming some agreement on continued maintenance of jointly held assets (i.e., mortgage, property insurance, car payments, etc.). If a petition hasn't been filed, then depending on your state it is still the Community and, at least as a first approximation, is 50/50. So let's say she makes $1 and you make $5. That's a Community of $6. Which means $3 each. Which works out nicely, metaphorically speaking, because -- attention all would-be WAS's -- divorce proceeds by the Law of Thirds: One-third for Uncle Sam, one-third for you, one-third for Left-Behind.
@Kett -- quite apart from bookkeeping trickery, there's a common-sense reason for @Thinker not making changes, and it gets to the point he made when he noted just up-thread that his DB efforts are continuing apace.
Let's say, at the decisive, final moment, when the @Thinkers are standing in front of a judge, in family court, with the @Thinker children bravely trying to restrain their tears and sniffles, while the lawyers present their cases to the judge, explaining for all to hear how the differences are irreconcilable, how the Family @Thinker has ceased to exist, how the Parents @Thinker no longer hold themselves out to the general public as a cohesive family unit, how and how and how the Marriage @Thinker is No More -- at that moment, at the decisive, final, clock-ticking-towards-Armageddon-moment, that Mrs. @Thinker, when asked by Hizzoner to confirm her POV that dissolution of the marriage, destruction of the family, the ending of the Saga @Thinker, that this is indeed the only possible course-of-action; that Mrs. @Thinker, when trying to not look at the Children @Thinker, while trying not to flush, trying to breathe, trying trying trying to pretend she were anywhere but here, anticipating the howl of agony that will surely explode unbidden from the throats of the Children @Thinker, what if she were to say.... "Ummm, no"?
Tinkering with the money now -- speaking of getting lawyers rich -- will create an infinity of requirements for reconstitution of the Community, changes of wills/trusts (back, they having presumably been changed already), and etc. then. And what about the potential ill-will at the worst possible time, at the early delicate fragile piecing time, when Mrs. @Thinker looks at Hisself and says, "You did what? You couldn't wait? What, did you think I'd steal it or something?"
No no no no no no no no noooooo, you don't want to be making even "rational" economic decisions until the Opportune Moment. And that Moment hasn't come yet, methinks.
