I had a long winded post here and ended up shutting down prior to posting it .. it was genius stuff I assure you but now its gone so you are left with the leftovers
Concerning the D or Mediation ... remember I went through 3 of those ... heck its almost like I have been through 4 divorces in the past 4 years which should merit a cool medal or at the least a plaque. So yeah ... just take the emotions out of it as much as possible and simply look at it as a negotiation as you would discussing your wage for a job that you were offered ... in this case that job is a position in the Single Villas
Wanted to touch on the taxes thing .... I will try to summarize this but you do need to make sure you have something in place legally to protect yourself and I will explain why in the following novel:
2013 (BD Year) We filed joint, Somehow we had a huge refund (red flag anyone?) it was in excess of 11k .... well just for those of you wondering how, its easy ... your spouses family accountant uses all the numbers given but does not put in your spouses earnings ... upon BD I was given half of this, but upon the discovery gave it back to the MLCr .... This comes into play later.
2014 Filed Married-Separate: MLCr filed very quickly which unknown to me she claimed our only child which was a nice little gift of me discovering I owed about 8k in taxes that I did not have at the time, set up installments with Uncle Sam and began chipping the amount away a bit at a time, ya know when money was being spent on 2 house holds and the MLCr was living it up.
2015 Filed Married-Separate (Touch and go year): This time I claim kiddo, and my adjustments were correct and I received a small return which was applied to the 2014 taxes that I still owed like 6k on. Later on in the year this balance jumps up over 12k .... yup. that money from 2013 was never sent to Uncle Sam and yours truly was the one on the hook as I have already set up the installment agreement so they simply added it right to that. At the time this happened we were towards the end of her Peek-a-boo and she just was not going to pay MY debt .... thanks honey.
2016 Filed Married-Separate (Rope Drop year): This gets good. So She claims S this year, I owed a little but not much and paid that off only to discover that 12k ish debt was back down to around 4k. Good Ole Uncle took MLCrs large return and applied it to my installment. I recall S telling me about the tantrum she had walking from the mail box, on the phone with that 3 fingered accountant and facing the fact there was zero she could do.
I still smile about the Karma bus. So now I am finally all done with those tax issues but it was a 5 year cloud over my head .... point I am trying to make is the IRS still sees you as married, his tax issues are yours .... so if he owes and you get a return they will adjust the following year if he has not settled up ... we all know how good these MLCrs are at following through and keeping up with responsibilities so I would talk to your numbers person and ensure whatever you have to do legally to avoid all ^^^^ mess I just spilled on your nice kitchen floor.
