SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Following is an email from my wayward wife. It was a reply to my objects about how she was withholding her pension money. It used to go to our joint account. She changed it so it goes to her personal account.

She's retired from her government job. I was still working, and struggling to get a business venture going when D-Day happened and she left. That was in mid-August.

MY lawyer tells me that the pension is marital funds and I'm entitled to around half. HER lawyer says she is under no obligation to share it until we have a separation agreement, and that all she has to contribute to the house upkeep is to pay half the property taxes. The mortgage is paid, but there are utilities and repairs and upkeep.

She has been sharing the pension, but less and less each month- a monthly humiliation. In February she cut me off, finally moving $1000 (half would be $2300) over to the joint account only when I got my lawyer involved.

I suspect we're headed for another cut-off in March.

I did not reply to this email, other than to follow up about ways we could go about copying documents we both need. I'm using the forum to vent. Thank you!

I am not refusing anything. [this is in reference to her not suppling me with copies of records she removed from the house - she still hasn't provided me with them] I have been cooperative on every point. I took mostly my own files. I sent you a list. The mortgage papers over the years are also in there because I did not take time to sort what was in the ‘security’ box under my desk when I picked it up that day. You can have those, but I’d like copies for myself when i can get time to make copies of them.

I did take several years of early tax returns - large folders. Huge job to copy them. I guess we both need copies of those - I will work on that. I’ll have to spend a day at the library. Not sure who pays this cost.

Your aggressive and angry dealings with me are not helpful. It has been close to 6 months, and my intent has been to give you time to adjust after a traumatic separation. I have no timelines in mind. The breakup was traumatic for both of us and continues to be. As I’ve said, I did not want it to be abrupt and dramatic as it was, but you took actions that drove it in that direction. Since then I have acted as respectfully as a I can towards you.

We are getting different advice from our lawyers. Mine says I owe you nothing until we have a settlement and from there on we follow whatever is in the settlement. Despite advice to end support as of Sept 1, I’ve continued monthly support, with a very clear plan for the 6 months. It wasn’t anything you needed to agree to.

Until there is an agreement, we are as any married couple … I am not legally obliged to support you and never have been. Just as you have never been obliged to support me. At the point of a settlement, we will look for EQUITY ( state law does not require equality.) I will be satisfied with an equitable agreement for the rather limited resources that constitutes our marital property.

I’m sure it will be lawfully equitable, but doubt it will be morally equitable. I have contributed financially so much to this marriage for many years. Morally and legally wouldn’t look the same. At this point I want to see both of us able to continue our lives in modest but acceptable levels, and if you want the house, we’ll make it work that way. But if you’re going to go after me and put me out on the street, I will have to defend myself. It will be easier if we can each find some good will.

You tone suggests a deep level of distrust and suspicion. My fear is that we’re headed towards an expensive legal battle, which I cannot afford - can you? In your anger you are not giving me the impression that your goal is equity. If we are both looking for equity and taking care of each other, we can do this more on our own and it’ll be less costly. I have proven my willingness to act in your interest. In your proposal there are some very fair parts and other pieces that I feel are in error. I’m going to have to ask my lawyer to look at that. But thank you for taking the initiative and getting a proposal together. A big step, and very helpful.

i have begun thinking about the very hard task of separating our household goods. Here is a spreadsheet [LINK] with a start at a couple lists.

….m

[This message edited by BeeBee64 at 2:45 PM, February 23rd (Thursday)]

The reply I wish I could have sent:

Cooperative on every point? You “have acted as respectfully” as you can to me? Except for monthly humiliating me by not sharing our marital income in an equitable manor. I should be getting around $2400 a month, but you shared about $2000 in September and gradually reduced it to $1000 in January, then cut it off in February. My birthday was Feb 2, as you well knew. Happy birthday to me.. You only shared another $1000 in Feb. when I got my lawyer involved, and called it an act of generosity.

My aggressive and angry dealings with you have mostly been about this monthly mind-fuck. Oh, and also because you committed adultery and deserted me, upending and devastating my life at a stage when I have limited income sources and a year from retirement. But, you seem to think that six months is plenty of time to get over all that, already, and presumably to have found other income sources.

Yes, that’s so easy to do when dealing with depression and trauma and re-trauma every month you yank the money chain or any other time I have to think about you and the situation, and even though we have barely started the separation process. It probably doesn’t matter to you that I did apply for other work, but was turned down - which set me into a steep downward spiral for a week or two. That spiral was made steeper because it was the same week a good friend of ours died, and you refused to fade back at any point so I could attend any mourning rites without having to run into you. YOU didn't see any reason we couldn’t be in the same room at the same time.

I see you’ve decided it is MY actions that made your desertion overly dramatic and and abrupt. No, it was your actions - you having an affair, plotting with the boyfriend to lay low until after you had The Talk with me - so it would look like you “found” each other AFTER the separation, arranging to see an apartment for rent and making plans behind my back to furnish it, making lists of what things (including marital property) you wanted to take with you. It was not your fault that you got into a bike accident and I found all this on your computer while you were in the hospital, and followed the lovey-dovey chat between you and Bike Boy for about a week, and watched you set up cozy meetings in your hospital room. But, none of that was in any way MY action.

How stupid is your lawyer, how out of touch with reality are you, to think that it is a good strategy to monthly humiliate the person you have to negotiate a separation/divorce with? Have you stopped to think that it might make me unwilling to compromise? Apparently not. You’ll find out. Boy, are you going to find out. I told you again and again I did not agree with your plan to withhold marital funds I felt I was entitled to, if only on moral grounds.

You cite moral grounds, but you don’t mean the same ones. I’m talking about the moral responsibility you have to be contrite and giving to the spouse you left in the lurch on the brink of retirement, with full expectations of living out our lives together in the comfort our combined retirement plans could afford.

The moral grounds you cite have to do with how much money you earned. You had a government job with good benefits and a good pension. I’m a artist. You knew all along my earning power would not likely be as great as yours. Yet I also brought with me a tidy inheritance. It was not enough to support us, but $100,000 + went into our home addition. $50,000 went into our son’s college tuition. Whenever we wanted to take a trip overseas or buy a better car or even when general expenses overwhelmed us, we dipped into the inheritance. It gave you the life-style you desired. I contributed in many other ways, too. I walked or drove the kids to school every day. I worked at home so we didn’t have to pay for pre- or post-school care after. I was there for sick days or teacher conference days. I make lunches for them every day.

You enjoyed the cachet of being the artists wife, meeting my friends and colleagues, attending openings and lectures. You enjoyed being featured in my work. You enjoyed being the wife of a locally well-known person.

You leaned a more urban style and grace by being with me. Socially I brought you up a notch. I'm not being snobbish, just pointing out how some marriage benefits are intangible.

But all you can see is that you earned most of the money. “Morally,” you feel all the pension belongs to you only because you “earned it.” And judging from the financial records you are making copies of, it appears you are building a case that you deserve more because you earned more.

You still don’t get the concept of marital property. It belongs to both of us - equally. Because there’s more than money involved in a marriage and because, especially after 34 years, there is an obligation to the other person who has given you his best years.

The spreadsheet of belongings listed by who owns them is telling. All of the items I brought in with me or inherited are listed as mine. All of the items you brought in or inherited are listed as yours - mixed in with all the belongings you bought with marital funds. You think just because your ordered something or picked it up at a shop it is “yours.” But, you bought it with marital funds - so it belongs equally to both of us. You just don’t get it.

[This message edited by BeeBee64 at 3:00 PM, February 23rd (Thursday)]

While her lawyer is likely right - she doesn't have to give you any monthly income until you have an agreement, you might be able to convince a judge for her to pay you back support once the agreement is in place.

My lawyer advised me when I was separated to pay the ex what i could have been expected to pay. YMMV.

But her letter's overall tone is common...she didn't do anything...it's all your fault for "forcing" her to do these things.

The gotta make copies - don't know when that will happen... is BS. She can always drop them off at a Kinkos/Office Max and have them copied.

Honestly, I wouldn't even reply. Just have your lawyer deal with it. She's just trying to push your buttons and get a rise out of you. She's not going to agree to shit. She's going to have to be ordered to do things by the judge. The entitlement is strong in this one.

Thanks Worndown, I'm glad someone else sees her sense of entitlement here.

Fear not, I did NOT reply to this letter - other than a nuts-n-bolts suggestion for how to do the document copying.

I'm holding it all in, waiting for negotiations. Then she and her lawyer will discover the "monster" they have created - the one who will make no concessions. "Sign the agreement we propose or we'll take this to court - and then you'll REALLY start losing money."

[This message edited by BeeBee64 at 4:51 PM, February 23rd (Thursday)]

Vent away. I don't blame you. You are entitled to 1/2 of everything that is not inheritance. I know I sold all community property at a moving sale and gave him 1/2 the money. He had things on his list that were also not just his. Some of it I agreed to, but most I didn't. XWH#2 got no furniture, household items, or anything other than his clothes, 4 wheeler that was broken, and a 15yr old PU truck and some hunting crap and guns. His parents had already gotten most of his crap. If it wasn't on his list he didn't get it. Anything I ever bought him also went up for sale. I laughed the day he pulled two huge moving vans with hired help up to my door. Due to a RO he also had to hire a police officer. None of his stuff was left in the house, so I never allowed him in. He did try to take some things that were not on his list, and I said "NO". He was so mad and I didn't care at that point. I made him unload the stuff not on his list. When all was said and done he could have just brought a small trailer. What a moron!!! I still laugh about it and the expression on his face was priceless. He thought he was entitled to everything I had and I showed him he wasn't. All the furniture was mine before I met him and what little we bought he didn't think to put on his list. Be sure and go through the list she provides and say no on what is community property. XWH's sister came down to help with the sale because he wasn't allowed there and to make sure he got what was his. Don't give an inch and ask for more than what you will probably get. It worked for me, but XWH#2 was really all talk and no action. I love my life now without him. I sold the house/land for what we owed on it, plus the realtors fees. He got a check for $93.00.

Don't give an inch and ask for more than what you will probably get. It worked for me, but XWH#2 was really all talk and no action. I love my life now without him. I sold the house/land for what we owed on it, plus the realtors fees. He got a check for $93.00.

Great story, Trustgone! I hope I get an experience as satisfying as that. Thanks.

Hello again - I have not posted since February because nothing has moved in the separation negotiations. My lawyer sent a proposed settlement and we've been waiting THREE MONTHS for a counter-proposal. And, all that time without my share of her pension income.

We had an opportunity to talk a few weeks ago. I was very careful in what I said, as my lawyer advised. She was not as careful. According to her, what I was experiencing as deliberate mind-f--ing on her and her lawyer's part (delaying, cutting off the income) was just an inability to get to it. She says she's also dealing with the medical and insurance aftermath of a bike accident, and that's sucking up all her time and attention. She said she figured I'd use my investment income to live on.

I was floored. She expected me tap into investment income and change my accounts in the middle of negotiations when the ownership of said investments is not legally agreed upon??

And my investments are not set up for income producing. She's dreaming if she thinks I could live on it now.

I'm in bad need of money. I can't pay off credit cards, bills are mounting up and the loan I got from a supportive relative is dwindling. I have big expenses coming up.

Latest outrage is that she, upon returning from a big bicycle ride week in California, just proposed we see a counselor. This is on advice from her counselor "to acknowledge one another's feelings as to the separation and impending divorce. If you both heard each other's view without blame or judgment- just mirroring and acceptance, you might come to a less adversarial settlement."

My wife is clueless and so is her counselor. I told the wife (via email) that I would not do that, and can we please move on with the separation terms discussion.

This is the woman who dumped me with no chance of working it out, no reasons given, no chance to reconcile, and who was seen in recent weeks in the company of the guy she was having love-talk chats with on her phone before she left. But now when she thinks it might make me "less adversarial," she wants to go into counseling. So we can talk with "mirroring and accecptance." 'Scuse me while I puke.

It's really vital to get an agreement. I've volunteered for the Peace Corps and I'm leaving the country in September. That is barely time to get the house emptied and fixed up to rent in my absence. So we need to negotiate how to go about doing that.

So frustrating!

Has the divorce actually been filed? If so, talk to your attorney about seeking emergency orders or possibly a motion to compel a response. In other words, use the power of the court to light a fire under her.

If it has not been filed yet, get it filed.

I'm sorry she is dragging her feet.

(I'm not an attorney, but have seen some these tactics work.)

BeeBee, if I were you, my efforts now would be to find a source of income. Didn't you think of finding a temporary job (part time, or overseas)?

wordsofwisdom, I am doing some freelance work which is bringing in a little extra.

I did apply for a job a while back and I thought I'd get it. I was suited for the job and knew all the people in the department. It was a waste of time. They picked a person from within the department. Not getting it knocked me down for a week. I don't need any more of that.

If I couldn't get THAT job, what chance do I have elsewhere? I'm retirement age in a city full of highly qualified young people.

But, anyway, I WILL be working abroad, if you noticed. But, not until Sept. Getting ready for that is taking up a lot of my time right now.

If it comes to it, I could sell some stock and tell my wife its from her half. lol. I do have a couple of thousand in dividend income sitting in the account that is marital property. I thought I should not touch that until things are settled, which it should be by now. Ugh!

I wrote my lawyer today, and asked her about that dividend income. I also asked her how long we should give my wife and her lawyer. Wife's lawyer should be recovered from gall-bladder surgery and wife is back from her trip, so I might ask my lawyer to deliver another ultimatum to reply asap or we'll take it to a judge.

[This message edited by BeeBee64 at 12:35 AM, May 11th (Thursday)]