stbxWW Getting Aggressive in Divorce
So my STBX filed for divorce on June 1, I found out about her affair August 2020. We did counseling etc and she restarted her affair with the guy (15 years older than us, we're 37) in the winter/spring.
We both have lawyers and during this process I haven't really exerted any sort of pressure despite her trying to do so and filing motions to have me leave the house (never has been any violence...barely any verbal arguments either), and trying to only allow me 5 out of 14 days with my son. Luckily the judge didn't see any reason to make me leave and said 50/50 custody.
She is moving to her luxury apartment this weekend. I made an offer to buy her out of the house at a reduced $ but she wants her full equity, even though she makes 3x what I do (in a job that I found for her...she's a doctor)
We have a few issues to sort out:
- House - seems like she's just gonna leave me with all the work to get it ready...and take half the proceeds
- Private School - she chose a very pricey private school for our son (like....>$20,000 / year). He's in 1st grade and we live in a great public school district and there are other Catholic private school around that are like $5,000. I believe she wants him to go there because of her ego / image of having him go to such a pricey school. I've said she should pay for it then, she's says is 50/50 even though our income is like 75/25 (her/me)
- Child Support - the standard form for my state says based on our incomes I should get a nice size payment, but if she can include school is drops MY child support PAYMENT a lot.
MY QUESTIONS...
Thus far I haven't had my lawyer really exert any pressure, just stand ground on child custody and me not leaving the house. She has tried to exert leverage a few times, my lawyer wasn't worried and nothing came of it, and now she's trying again.
I've resisted exerting pressure because I thought if we're to have a cordial relationship later for our 7 year old son, it's better.
But she's doing this stuff anyway, and she acts like I'm the one who did so much wrong (when she had an affair for 2 years - there are things I could do better but nothing anywhere close to the level of an affair).
If this is where we are at right now... in your opinions....is there any hope of a cordial relationship later? Or I should turn my lawyer lose?
I'm starting to think she'll never give in on anything and will continue to exert pressure because if she doesn't get everything that she wants, then she can't tell herself that she didn't do anything wrong. I think she's also mad that all of our college friends, some of the neighbors, her mom, etc have sided with me.
Thank you for your help!
16 comments posted: Wednesday, October 13th, 2021