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Acting, no doubt, out of sheer self preservation, waffle has floated withdrawing the divorce complaint and resurrecting the sep agreement.

Because I was countering on fault grounds, I think it became clear I had him by the balls even though he filed first. My state requires witnesses for fault grounds (assuming he would have denied them in the pleadings).

The ball is in my court. If I file the answer and counterclaim before he withdraws, my counter remains regardless. Downside: contested divorce is not cheap.

I would LOVE to be able to have infidelity/adultery listed as my reason for filing divorce.

Downside: contested divorce is not cheap. amen.

But if you want to get divorced, then you have to...get divorced, right? lol I mean, if you resurrect the separation agreement, then what happens? I just would NOT do that unless I had a very good reason to stay married, like R or some financial benefit, like free health insurance or something. On the other hand, while listing adultery would be nice, I thought you two had a pretty good co-parenting relationship, so why risk that? And why spend the money on a contested divorce just for that? I would let that go and give him a no fault D, just to save the money.

Go ahead and file your counter. If he wants things over quickly, he could just man up and admit the adultery.

It wouldn't be adultery unless he admits it. You need to prove the actual sex act for that, and I don't have that kind of witness! The OW being pregnant would also work, but between his vasectomy and her being like 45, that's pretty remote.

The counter would be for extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty. Neither of these have strict statutory definitions (like sex for adultery) nor are they clearly defined in the case law. It's almost like an end run around the adultery by proving he was lying and that he was in a romantic (even if no proof of actual sex) outside the marriage.

He continued to waffle by wishing he had "done things differently" but "there's been too much damage".

We do have a good coparenting relationship that borders on emotional cake eating.

And no fault is not an option until separation for a year.

[This message edited by roughroadahead at 12:45 PM, May 28th (Tuesday)]

Oh, okay. I hate the separation requirements in some state. They are so unfair to a BS. I don't know. I would want to preserve the co-parenting relationship, since it seems like you have a good one. Would it mess that up? And are you well off enough that the expense of a fault divorce wouldn't hurt you financially? If it won't hurt your co-parenting relationship and the financial hit won't hurt you, then I say do what makes you happy.

Does resurrecting the separation agreement and withdrawing the divorce complaint reset any benefit that you have gained?

Don't lose something without gaining something else that you need/want.

Be warned that the amicable co-parenting may be a temporary thing being used to curry favour with you so you play nice.

What does your L say?

What he is afraid of is how I would go about proving the lying/romantic relationship aspect. It would potentially require deposing his former colleagues at the job he lost. That would not go well. It would also include the part where he and MOW would hang out with the kids while I was studying last summer, and he told the kids to lie, and the follow up where DS7 now lies about everything and is in therapy for it (along with that poop hoarding and fire starting problem).

A sep agreement will not affect the eventual settlement. While I can remain legally separated for the rest of my life is I so choose (gah!), it is really a stop gap until that year passes for no fault. He filed on "incompatibility", which is technically a fault ground. I could admit in my answer and let it go forward, but screw him. While I am not wealthy exactly, for various reasons I can afford more attorney time than he can.

Still, why spend money I don't have to? All I'd be doing is spending a lot of money just to embarrass him in open court, and to have it on public record that he is extremely cruel and a gross negelect-er of duty.

I'm not sure whether he will fade away on the co-parenting front. He has the standard visitation schedule because I don't trust his judgment (what with having the kids around MOW) to agree to more frequent visitation. He doesn't have a prayer at primary physical himself. It would go like:

"Mr. Waffle, what is the name of your son's occupational therapist?"

W: "uuhhh.. wait, he gets OT?"

And on and on for the numerous things the kids are doing these days.

To be clear, while he says with reasonable frequency that he should have made different choices/he has a somewhat uncomfortable bed/he's sorry/MOW was disgusting and wrong, he has never proposed R (or indeed, gone NC with MOW), so I don't anticipate that he's trying to hoover me back. More like ease his own guilt.

I filed with adultery as the reason. It made absolutely no difference to our settlement. XH (STBXH at the time) was not impressed. He wanted it to be irr. differences. I said that's not the truth. We are apart because you chose to screw the skank. He said his three ( ) lawyers told him not to sign it. I told him, that was fine. I did not name her on the papers, but I would be happy to do so, and subpoena her to court. Basically, I bluffed. He signed. I told him outright, I wanted the papers to say the truth. And now they do.

I am NOT saying do this, but some of the time, it's just another way for them to hide from the truth. They don't want to admit it was their fault, so they try to say it was something else.

Do what you need to do for YOU. I was willing to go for it, even knowing I might lose without substantial proof, but I needed the truth on those papers for me to accept it.

What you call guilt I call manipulation. Don't read too much into this - cheaters lie, liars cheat and both are manipulators.

If I lived in a fault state (country) I'd be doing everything possible short of bankrupting myself to ensure that adultery was listed. At the very least the threat of airing his dirty laundry and his dirty whore self and his whores would be used by me for a better deal to even consider not pursuing it.

But that's me in fantasy land because its not a remote possibility - in reality I'd go for the least dramatic dissolution of the underwhelming marriage.

I might be more inclined to call it manipulation if Waffle weren't so socially deficient (all the kids with the same thing had to come from somewhere, right?). He appears to lack the capacity to predict the impact of his words or actions on anyone. The only question here is whether it is a worthwhile expenditure.

Waffle has started laying it on. Now what does he want?

I arrive to pick up the kids from court ordered Wednesday at his house. He has cooked dinner for me(to go), hears my hideous hacking cough, searches for medicine. My pre-marital cat is packed up and ready to go, and he has purchased appropriate "small space" litter and geriatric cat food. Welcome home, pre-marital cat!

All this so I don't counter?

What benefit do you get if you counter? I mean, *other* than potentially embarrassing him and having him 'officially' outed as a dick. Because I wouldn't think it would be worth it to go the 'contested' route unless it was going to tangibly benefit me in some way.....as in, have an effect on the settlement that I received.

It's been my own personal experience that when Sultan's being *too* nice, that something I DON'T like is coming on its heels because he NEVER does anything without having an ulterior motive that suits his own purposes.....

Also. Loved this:

"Mr. Waffle, what is the name of your son's occupational therapist?"

W: "uuhhh.. wait, he gets OT?"

And this:

He continued to waffle by wishing he had "done things differently" but "there's been too much damage".

He is the box of Eggo's in a freezer full of generic waffles, isn't he??? (translation....he is a REALLY good waffle. )

Re-established near total NC with waffle. It is so hard not to get sucked back in. I mentioned my hideous hacking cough yesterday. I get an early a.m. text from him asking how I am feeling. I go to the Dr (since cough + shortness of breath) and he's all concerned, asking about chest xray (he's waffle, RN) and what they ended up dx me with.

I just can't do it. I can't be all friendly with him. We (by which I mean you all) have already pegged him as an emotional cake eater. It's so disingenuous for him to give a shit about my well being now??? Maybe because he has no needs of his own in direct competition with mine in this situation. If he really gave a shit, he should have manned up a year ago and do what he needed to for R.

Fucker.

[This message edited by roughroadahead at 5:16 PM, May 30th (Thursday)]