BF has talked to an attorney. Ex-w did get his attention. He did act promptly on the matter.
And upon reflection I have to say that ya gotta give his ex credit for taking action when she felt it was warranted. She didn't pussyfoot around and think about "what he might be going through" and soften the blow. Clearly the responsibility was HIS to approach her about the changing financial circumstances in his life, and he was in the wrong morally and legally for not doing that.
But I think she could have taken some intermediate steps before filing suit, like just showing up over here and telling him, "Let's get this settled." Or even saying, "We need to talk about this or I'm going to be forced to go to court." She didn't have to, but she could have.
For example, there is a religious community in my city that got disgruntled with the head minister a few years ago. A group of the congregants got together and instead of going to the board and reciting their grievances, they called a congregational meeting (by amassing signatures) and called for a vote to kick the minister out. It seems like they went from step one to step ten without stopping anywhere in between. When the whole congregation voted, they kept the minister, but now the community is divided. In fact a bunch of people left. It seems like some intermediate diplomacy might have been brought to bear and been more effective in the long run.
Just so, BF's ex might have gone through steps two through nine (even though she was not required to) before bringing in the big guns.
OTOH, in my dealings with him, I've been doing steps one through ten the hard way: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.12, 2.13, 2.14, etc., constructing an asymptotic curve......
