Battling cancer while dealing with MLC

[river10]

Thanks for the replies.

JuJuB, I appreciate your reply and your insight very much, but I do want to say that I don't believe I fell for a con artist.

The person you describe, the selfish, self-serving man who is out for himself...YES, that is definitely who my H is right now.

But he was not that person for the 16 years we were together. He was not a high functioning addict or a narcissist. What he's doing now is not in his nature. It's in fact contrary to everything he used to be.

That is where I'm torn. If I thought for a second that I was with a narcissist incapable of love for 16 years and he discarded me due to his true narcissistic nature, I would have slammed the door shut as soon as possible after BD.

In fact, if he was this kind of person at any time during our 16 years, I would have ended our relationship in the past.

But this person he is now has gotten progressively worse since BD and it's not even close to who he was for 16 years. We had rough times over our life together and he never bailed and always showed he was in it for the long haul. This has all been completely out of character for him.

That said, I agree that he IS selfish and only cares about himself now. And I have no way of knowing if he will be this way now for the rest of his life.

If you don't mind I am still not sure about the situation. Assuming you had funds for a lawyer what would that get you in the short and long term financially that makes the legal expenses worthwhile? And do you have any idea of what kind of fees would be needed to get you there?

MarvinF, if I had funds for a lawyer, I would at least get him to sign over the retirement fund, and I could get help in trying to get him to honor the separation agreement (the one HIS lawyer drafted). He signed it over a year ago, but it hasn't been enforced because I moved to another state, had it amended to the laws of that state, then got cancer and moved back to my home state and now don't have money to have it amended again.

Since December 2015, I have spent $6,000 on lawyers. It took him from Dec 2015 to June 2016 to get me his one page financial disclosure form.

Then he spent the entire summer of 2016 making excuses for why he and his lawyer kept playing "phone tag."

He started paying me out of the blue in September 2016, but only paid me in Sept and October.

In November 2016 I told him I was moving to another state. He had his lawyer draft paperwork. His lawyer mailed it to him, he signed it and then held onto it for 3 weeks and finally sent it to me 3 days before I moved and demanded that I sign it immediately and return it to his lawyer before I left the state (which would have entailed me driving an hour and a half to his lawyer's office, because if I had mailed it, it wouldn't have arrived before I moved).

It was 42 pages long (which is ridiculous, since we have no children and no assets) and there was no way I would sign it without having a lawyer review it. So it was virtually impossible to have it signed and filed in this state before I moved (and if H had been honest with his lawyer, his lawyer would have told him that. He never even told his lawyer I was moving).

So H paid $3000 to a lawyer to draft a document that there was no way could be filed given the circumstances.

When I got to my new state, I took the agreement to a lawyer and paid to have it amended to reflect my new state's laws. I signed it and had it notarized and told H I would file for the D when I met the state's requirement for residency (I had to be living there for 6 months before I could file).

Even if I had filed in that state, I had already used up all my available funds so if H played games and stalled the process, I would have run into trouble. But at least I would have had the signed document filed with the court.

I gave him the exact date I would be filing. He didn't say a word in reply.

Then I got diagnosed with advanced cancer literally 3 days before I could have filed for D. I didn't have health insurance in my new state so I had to pack up my whole life again and move home.

Now I'm flat broke, have cancer and am only working sometimes doing freelance work. So I can't afford to do anything more.

In April of last year, H said in a text message that he had consulted a lawyer and learned that he could file for D in the state he lives in and he wouldn't have to pay me anything because of his salary. He wrote, "But I'm not about to do that to you."

Which of course is the messed up part, because he IS doing that to me by not paying me anything. He just hasn't filed for the D.