Separation at 17.5 months

[adinva]

Thanks Acc. I have to come up with $125K to buy out his equity, so him walking away from it is not going to happen. I do plan to use his equity as a relatively painless way for him to give me concessions in exchange for things he needs.

I'm working to continue being someone he might want to work on a marriage with, so I'm handling the agreement as low-key as I can.

College was always a given in our marriage, but now that it's approaching and we just don't have a lot of savings, it was becoming a source of anxiety to H as to how he would pay for it. When we talked this week it was more like maybe they don't need college. If we stayed married we'd have these conversations, so it's hard for both of us to try to lock him into something five years down the road. He thinks I'm trying to lock him into something he won't be able to afford, and I'm concerned too. H even brought up the idea that some kids emancipate themselves in order to qualify for more financial aid.

I don't know if the separation agreement rolls into the final divorce terms but I believe so. I think you could file for D here without the separation agreement, but you'd have to have one by the time your D is finalized. We're saving time and money getting it done first. My L thought it was sensible, but he did not understand H's insistence on getting one signed before he'd move out.

I wonder if your W's dad resented the idea of giving anything to his first wife's daughters because it felt like giving something to his first wife, or helping her in some way. If he remained bitter about being cheated on it's possible he transferred that onto his daughters. It must have been horrible for your W to be cast aside like that for her dad's new family.

My sister had three girls and after they divorced her H remarried and had his dream come true, a son. Now the son gets whatever and he chintzes on what he gives toward his daughters.

I would expect, and told H so, that nearly a decade from now he's going to have different priorities. I want to put our terms down as clearly and completely now so that we're not coming back 10 years from now asking for something he's no longer willing to give.

H's attitude makes me angry too, and sad for our kids. He was such a loving and fun dad when they were little. Now that they're not little copies of him he seems to have lost interest. He always did joke/complain about how much they were going to cost him though. If he just doesn't want to deal with them I'm not sure he'll be doing them any favors by agreeing to more time together.

My L has not seen the separation agreement. I wanted one round directly with H, then one round with the financial planner before I gave it to L because I expected there to be significant changes coming out of the first two rounds.