Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it

[ImprovedRomeo]

OT, that is good advice and I don't want to go into details of the case on a public forum because stbxw could be reading this- everyone wave hi to STBXW! lol.

Anyway...so I do want to clarify that there is no TOGETHER money in the literal terms here only in the legal sense. She didn't contribute even a cent to anything 'we' have in the savings and assets. When we got married I helped her pay off her credit card debt that she was burried in. I didn't have a lot of money but I had smarts and I tried to teach her. This is when we were making $40k and $60k. Fast forward a few years when she went from being an administrative assistant into IT because of my coaching her on it. She's sharp and a quick learner so she deserves a lot of credit there. Anyway she was making close to $70k at that point and then she decided to separate. During the separation she spent way too much 'can you say retail therapy?' of course I had no idea about it because I thought I'd taught her to not use credit cards. After we reconciled (and much heartbreak on my end over what she'd done during the separation) I found out that she not only didn't pay off her old student loans she took on almost $25k worth of credit card debt!! how the heck do you do that? I have no idea and don't want to know. So in keeping up with my 'give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime' philosophy I told her she'd have to find a way to pay off this debt on her own but I will help her with the strategy etc. She hardly showed any interest in it and a year later she got laid off. So my point is that while the law says anything we have in our savings and assets is TOGETHER money but technically it isn't. And we're not talking about a few thousand here. And that's what I find unfair including the spousal support. When you marry you get the benefits of being married when you divorce you should be allowed to go your separate ways. Yes the gender plays a big role in CA and she knows it she even made a comment to me early on in the process 'my such and such friend's husband spent $200k on lawyers and she still gets $6k per month from him'- nice! I'm sure there are high earner women too that probably pay the same price. I knew of a woman who's husband was a loser couldn't keep a job and when someone told her why don't you drop him like a bad habit she'd say 'yeah except legally I'd be even more screwed if I did' - I now understand what she meant.

OK so I'm thinking I have a couple of options:

1. dig in my heels and say if you want to be on my insurance then I'll have to drop it from PPO to HMO so I can pay the difference in the school costs.

2. Just let it go on both of these accounts 'be the bigger person'

Vote away!

Oh I forgot yesterday DD was so sensitive...don't know why it broke my heart. I was doing the dishes while I'd asked her to go get ready for bed. She came back to the kitchen a few mins later and hugged my leg and started sniffling. I picked her up and gave her hus and asked her what was the matter and she said crying 'I love you and mommy both' - I told her both mommy and I love her very much, more than anything in the world. She said she didn't want to turn 6 next week. I asked why not? she said she wanted to be 4 again so me and stbxw don't get old and die...awwwwwwwwwwww I told her we won't get old and die we'll be with her for a looooooong time. She said but she didn't want us to die ever. I didn't know what to say so I kinda lied and said 'we'll always be with you' thinking it's not really a lie if you could be with your loved ones in their hearts after you die. Poor thing, then when I was reading her the bedtime books she came down to lay with me on the floor and in trying to pass her the pillow I accidentally poked her eye with the book and she cried a lot again...I just sat there holding her and saying sorry. I also put the medicine she got for the wart she has on her finger which turned the wart and the surrounding skin green a few hours after applying it and she cried about that too 'why is my finger turning green?' I didn't know either but I told her it was normal...ugh.

Anyway, everything will be alright and DD and I will be fine- that's all that matters at this point.