Child support (and parenting plan) should be calculated separately and not be part of the other financial equations. Remember, you or your XW incomes can change in the future and child support values can also get changed. Do you have something written down about college expenses?
The other stuff is assets, which includes debt, retirement and possible alimony which all needs to be negotiated. You get the house, but also have the huge tax burdeon and debt. I dont know if that is a fair deal or not. Do you get to claim the kids for tax purposes and tax credits?
Just remember, at $2K a month income, that is not much for her to survive on where you live. I doubt any court would assign debt to her.
Sometimes the free legal aid people dont get all the details and you dont want to have to be in court a few years from now for something gone wrong in the divorce dissolution document.
Frank, trust me, I too got raked over the coals and it felt like I was rewarding my wife for having an affair and breaking apart my family. And to top it off, she lives with a very rich guy and she was still fighting me for alimony. I may have won in court - my lawyer said 50/50 chance on alimony being awarded her. If she had been awarded alimony, I would have been paying at least $1000 a month for 5 years in addition to the child support. I did not want to take that chance and instead bought her out of alimony to the tune of $40,000. I was able to refinance my house to pay for that and the additional division of assets. In the end, I feel like I came out pretty well. I still have good equity in my company which she did not fight for and I am surviving.
