The Good News

It's the 27th, and I did not spend my morning in Court as scheduled.

But that's okay. 

On Tuesday of last week, my lawyer approached me with an idea: What if we sent another settlement offer? 

My knee-jerk instinct was a big, fat NO. I had offered two reasonable settlement options, and Hubby had discarded both. What I haven't said before is that both of those options came with me completely waiving all alimony and child support. So not only is he getting money out of the sale, he's also gaining-by-not-losing future cash in the realm of any support, of any kind, to the family he has essentially abandoned.

But I also knew, from my discussions with my attorney, that I was probably looking at getting either Hubby's last offer (a 60/40 split) or 65/35 on the house when it came to the hearing. I asked what the chances were I'd get more than 65% in trial. My attorney said about 20-25%. Eep. Not good, then.

Lady Tiger (my attorney) proposed a 65/35 split on the house, with closing costs to be split 50/50 by both parties, an agreement not to list the house for sale until a date of my choosing, and several other things that had already been mutually agreed upon regarding personal property and such. No digital photographs would be exchanged.

Well.

Decisions, decisions.

I talked with my mother. She liked all of Lady Tiger's proposal except the house sale split. Mom thought I should get more.

Heck, Mom, I think I should get more. And so does everybody else who knows this story.

SnarkyDad thought it was a good idea and offered his suggestion for when I should list the house for sale.

In the end, I was bothered by why we were reneging on our "last and best" offer, so I asked Lady Tiger exactly about that.

She gave me three excellent reasons for it:

1. So that Oldest would not have to testify at Court (she was going to in regards to the pictures and not wanting them to go to her father).
2. So that we would retain as much control as possible over how things panned out in the final order.
3. So that I wouldn't have to pay assorted court and court reporter fees (Hubby magnanimously refused to pay half the court reporter fees since I was the moving party in the divorce).

I thought those were sound reasons and said we should move ahead with extending the offer. Lady Tiger drafted it, I approved it, and it was sent off electronically that afternoon, with a deadline of this past Monday at noon to accept it.

We got an email from Hubby's attorney, Mr. Smug, on Thursday, I think, that said basically that he thought now we were getting somewhere and that this was how he thought Mr. Divorce Master was going to split everything anyway. I wanted to boink him right between the eyes, a la the Three Stooges. He didn't have to be so, well, smug. Even if he was right.

Over the next few days, I continued to be easily distracted by new emails on my phone, and my anxiety went up several notches over the weekend. I honestly wasn't sure how this was going to go: would Hubby take the deal and be done with it? Or would he reject it just to hurt me/thinking he'd get more out of the Divorce Master? I could not begin to predict how Hubby would react to this. He'd changed so much from the man I once thought I knew down to his soul.

One of my friends asked me what I was going to do if he didn't take the deal. I chuckled humorlessly and said I'd go to Court and get 65% anyway.

Monday mid-morning, I got an email from Lady Tiger, stating that Mr. Smug hadn't yet been in touch with Hubby about the terms of the offer. The prison had been supposed to call on Friday, but hadn't, and was supposed to call this morning at 11:30 to let them discuss. Talk about cutting it all close to the wire!

Lady Tiger's email pinged in at 11:58 a.m. The offer, she said, had been accepted. No need for trial prep that night at her office; no need for Court on Wednesday.

The next steps are to draft the Marital Settlement Agreement, have Mr. Smug review it, and then get it signed by both of us and filed. After that, the Court will issue the Divorce Decree, and the divorce will be finalized. I figure it may take a month for all that to happen at the most, depending on prison mail.

I still feel like the whole thing is a little surreal.

I am annoyed that I am waiving so much child support, alimony, and APL in the face of him getting such a huge percentage of the house's sale value AND getting to pay off his entire DOJ indebtedness all at once. That's something I feel he should have to work at paying off, not just essentially get lucky at paying it all off in one fell swoop because a) there's a lien on the house that has to be satisfied with the sale, and b) the DOJ will come in and take any incoming money in his name to apply towards his debt; that's part of his sentence. It feels a bit like a slap in the face to only get 65%. It feels even more like a slap to realize I wouldn't have gotten more in court.

Oldest and I went out to lunch today in a small celebration of Not Having To Go To Court. We sat in Chipotle, ate good food, and talked about Hubby (she's finally getting past him and what he's done), Youngest and their relationship (some things don't change, some things do), her boyfriend (he seems to be a good egg), and the upcoming move (she's looking forward to it now). We're continuing to hope and pray for a home that meets all of our needs. (We have a list.) We also talked about the differences between getting married and getting un-married. Both are expensive, I told her, although unless you're rich, getting married doesn't usually involve a lawyer. Getting un-married does.

Lady Tiger will have the Marital Settlement Agreement to me by the end of the week. I asked her what happens if Hubby refuses to sign after we've done all this work. She said she didn't think it would happen, given what Mr. Smug has told her about Hubby's financial situation, but she asked the Divorce Master to leave the case open...just in case. That way we can quickly reschedule the hearing if we need to. But she doesn't think we'll need to.

Soon, the only thing left of this adventure will be selling the house and the legal bills.

Do I Call This Part 8? An Update

I met with my attorney before Christmas because I simply could not wait until after the holidays to learn the outcome of the December 11th Pre-Trial Conference. We met by Zoom for an hour and a half.

Most of the news was not good.

I'm going to tell you the good news first: the Divorce Master has declared this is not a 50/50 split case. That was something of a relief. But of course the Divorce Master hasn't looked at any of the evidence yet, either. He did, however, suggest to my attorney that I would likely be getting a larger portion of the assets because of the fact that I will not be able to collect any kind of alimony, APL, or child support from Hubby due to his imprisonment. To what end? Probably a 60/40 split, maybe 65/35.

It became rapidly clear, however, as my attorney and I reviewed the assets and debts of the marriage, that I wasn't going to be able to do the one thing I'd hoped for over the last two-plus years: keep the house.

I had already spent an hour one Friday night on the phone with our current mortgage servicer, seeing what I could do to put the remaining balance of our mortgage in my name. I cried when I got off the phone because it was so unfeasible. What they wanted to do to get me to keep my house was impossible, and that didn't even factor in an extra $30-40k to buy Hubby out. It was just impossible.

All because Hubby was insistent on having enough money to pay off his debt to the US Government with the sale of the house and have a little leftover to fall back on when he gets out of prison.

I'm sorry, but his worries about his after-jail life are not truly my concern.

My concern--and his, it should be--is the safe rearing of our children until they're grown...and thus a safe place for them to live.

I told the girls the day after Christmas that we were going to have to move.

On the one hand, they're mad. We love this house. It holds a lot of memories for us. On the other hand, the thought of a new place and new memories has a great deal of appeal. The house's memories aren't all good.

I have been packing up what I can here and there, stuff that doesn't need to stay out, filching empty boxes from work to bring home. The china cabinet. The library. The yarn for my crochet projects that are currently sidelined while moving is my new project. The scrapbooks. The shelves in the living room. Out-of-season clothes. Games that we're not playing. Christmas decorations.

Preparing to change our lives.

We sent an offer to Hubby's attorney of record: a 75/25 split on the sale of the house, since everything else was pretty much settled. We felt, my lawyer wrote, that this was a fair offer, given my lack of support of any kind from his camp.

The week that the response was due from Hubby's side, my lawyer received notification from the court that Hubby had changed lawyers. This is just five weeks before our trial is scheduled. My lawyer reached out to his new one to confirm he'd received our offer, and received a counter-offer in response: 55/45 split, and digital copies of all photographs from the marriage.

Well. There's a sticking point. The children do not wish for their father to have photos of them. Ever.

I discussed this with my attorney and we sent back what we called our "best and final offer": no photos, as we would be respecting the children's wishes, and a 70/30 split on the proceeds of the house, expiring on 3/15/24.

Hubby's attorney responded twelve days later with Hubby's own "best and final" offer of a 60/40 split.

My attorney and I began preparing for trial.

I began to quietly freak out.

My lawyer reassured me that she would support me no matter what I decided to do, trial or settlement, but suggested we prepare and gather our exhibits.

Court is in ten days.

Ten days.

The most recent bill from my lawyer's office came today. Almost $520. Between that and the one two months ago for $1500, I have maybe $100 in my little account for the divorce.

We meet on the 25th to prep for trial, which will be about two hours of time. Court is scheduled for three hours on the 27th. $100 is not going to cover us. Our GoFundMe is still active, and we'd appreciate your help as we head into this final stretch.