He said he's seeing someone new

[Ophelia]

Thanks, 4ever. It'd odd how comforting it can be to read a few kind words from a complete stranger on the other side of the world.

I saw my best friend today. All through highschool she was hell bent on becoming a lawyer, so she got her law degree, then when she was exposed to the actual world of lawyers, she was turned off and didn't wanna become one. Anyway, because she knows a fair bit about law stuff, I showed her the letter I'd gotten from H's lawyer about this property settlement business.

In the letter, it basically set out a shortlist of debts and assets, (of which there aren't many, because we don't own a house or anything like that). It said that I could keep all furniture/whitegoods, the only thing he wants is the pool table, and that he'd also pay me $2500. It didn't explain where that figure came from though. Best friend reckons that there'll probably be costs associated with filing the papers for this property settlement, and perhaps the $2500 was thrown in so I'd be able to cover that, but she couldn't be sure.

She also said that I should probably speak to an actual lawyer, who would know better than her. She pointed out that I should find out what implications this process may have if we do end up reconciling. H's superannuation is listed in the letter, (it's really his only asset, apart from his car, which he still has a loan for as well), and the letter made no mention of me getting any portion of his superannuation fund, so even if we reconcile, this document may still prevent me from ever getting a chunk of that at any point in the future. That's something I hadn't even considered.

So now I've gotta figure out what I'm gonna do.

Before speaking to my friend, I'd been thinking it would be easiest to just accept it as is and not ruffle any feathers and try to fight it, because that'd just piss H off again. But now I'm thinking I really should speak to a lawyer to find out what the deal really is and what I should do. My friend suggested that if I spoke to a lawyer, they could send a letter to H's lawyer, saying that they were acting on my behalf and had received the letter, but I was still considering what to do, and in that way I might be able to stall the process, (the letter said I need to notify them if I'm gonna accept the offer or not by Feb 16th, which only gives me a couple of weeks to figure this all out), but once again, that would probably piss H off even more.

Good DBing right now is to not have contact with him and not put any pressure on him, but what if I need to do just that in order to end up with a fair deal, or even just to find out some more details about the deal I've been offered? What if I try to get some of the conditions of the settlement changed, and he ends up changing his mind and decides to take the furniture/whitegoods off me instead, leaving me with nothing?

I wish I could just pick up the phone and actually have a conversation about all of this with him, because it's so unnecessary to be making this all so complicated by getting lawyers involved. But I know that he's not thinking rationally right now, so anything I suggest he'll disagree with just on principal, so trying to talk sense to him will only push him further away, (not that he can actually get much further away than he is already).

Part of me also wants to discuss it with MIL, because maybe she could talk some sense into him and get him to drop this settlement thing. All he wants is the freaking pool table for crying out loud! That's what the letter says, I get to keep all the furniture/whitegoods, but he wants the pool table. Doesn't he realise that if he wants to take the pool table, I'll let him take the freaking pool table! We don't need a legal document to say that he can take the damn pool table!

I wish I didn't have this Feb 16th deadline to deal with. As it is, he's pushed, and I'm gonna have to push back, and hardly any time has passed since our last blowup, so going at it again so soon is not gonna help anything!!!

What am I gonna do? How can I possibly balance sensible DBing with getting lawyers involved? If I go see a lawyer, I'll have to decide then and there how I'm gonna respond to the property settlement request, and I honest to God don't know what I'm supposed to do.