Fighting my way out of the dark - Part 6

[Accuray]

I'm not sure why you're being guarded from a legal perspective. You could secretly audio record 100% of what you say to each other and it really wouldn't matter a bit unless you were talking about doing things that were illegal or threatening to hurt yourselves, each other, or the kids, and even in that scenario the lawyers would need to filter it.

When I got divorced there were really just two components to it: a financial settlement and a parenting agreement.

For the financial settlement, the judge is going to want the two of you to put everything in a theoretical pot (assets and debts) and then each take half.

The arguing begins when you have things that are difficult to value -- i.e. if you take the couch, you might say it's worth $300 whereas STBX might say it's worth $4,000 and that type of arguing can consume lots of legal $$.

You each have to disclose everything to each other in terms of your accounts, balances, and debts, and if you hide anything you can wind up in contempt of court so you don't want to do that.

Then after you agree on how things are divided up, the judge will just ask if you've seen each other's disclosures and understand and agree to the division you've made, and he'll expect both of you to nod and say "yes".

Therefore your best bet is to work it out at the kitchen table between the two of you. If she doesn't want to give you any of her retirement money, can you claim something else of comparable value?

The judge will not care *at all* about any he said - she said or who did what to whom. They just don't care, nor do they want to get in the middle of it. There's no right and wrong, there's only dividing up your stuff fairly.

The other part is ongoing alimony and child support. Child support is generally a non-negotiable state formula based on the difference in your incomes and your parenting time, and alimony has state guidelines but can be modified or waived.

I wouldn't worry too much about trying to incriminate each other by recording your arguments, it won't count for anything in the final analysis and will just put both of you on edge.

Acc