What do I do next?

[Accuray]

That's the first time I've been called a ray of sunshine for sure -- I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. Although I researched by a$$ off to figure out how to stop my divorce, I certainly didn't follow my own advice as well as I would have hoped. In fact, I made lots of mistakes (and continue to). I caught some breaks for sure because OM left on his own and sealed off contact, and because my W wasn't quite as decided as she initially indicated.

The point is to realize you WILL make mistakes and backslide, that's human. You just have to double your resolve when it happens. You have to start planning your conversations and measuring your responses, versus following your emotions, which is your instinct. That's hard. Nothing could be more personal or closer to your heart than your marriage, so it's hard to back off and treat it like a dispassionate project you're involved in, but that's kind of what it takes.

WRT the $10K (combined), my sister said the same thing in Illinois. She also said that the shame of it is that no matter how much each side "lawyers up", everyone basically ends up with the same outcome. She had hoped they could skip the lawyers and just use a mediator, but the mediator said that in that scenario one party or the other can later contest the divorce on the basis that they didn't understand their rights, so they insist on representation.

Accuray