Need divorce advice
I’m really stuck between a rock and a hard place and would appreciate any help anyone might have. Context: -Married 5 years -1 kid -Wife hasnt worked in 2+ years because she wanted to act (we’re in LA), never did anything with it -Despite wife not working, I’ve been paying for full time daycare for past several years; wife is not stay at home mom -Wife used to earn ~130k when she was back at corporate -I currently earn ~170k but contract is ending soon -No meaningful assets; we agree that we will split any debt owed 50-50 -Wife hardly ever takes care of our kid; I take our daughter to and from school, get her dressed, feed her breakfast, make her dinner, full bedtime routine, without any help, 95% of the time. -Most of the time wife has either left the apartment or is about to leave by the time daughter and I get home from work. She is either going to the gym or going to see friends or going to see new guy she’s trying to make her boyfriend. Daughter hardly ever sees her during the work week aside from the 30 minutes shes eating breakfast. -Additionally wife is total mess; her stuff literally everywhere, our home looks like it was burglarized, that’s how messy it is... and it’s all wife’s stuff. She doesn’t do any chores, she has nothing to show for the couple years she’s been “acting”... not even going out on auditions, literally nothing. Instagram addict, sends me YouTube clips or Netflix recommendations while I’m at work and our daughter is at school. With that context in mind, here is what I want out of a divorce that we agree on: -Split debt 50-50. -She moves out (presumably to a smaller/cheaper place) and I maintain the lease on the apartment so our daughter can at least still have her room and her neighbors she’s grown attached to. Here is what I want that we disagree on: -I want primary (full) custody, ideally both legal and physical custody. Despite hardly contributing any meaningful time and certainly not money towards our daughter my wife wants equal custody. -Going along with the primary custody, I want my wife on the hook for child support. She has high income potential if she quits her acting pipe dream and goes back to work but chooses not to because she’s been living off of me. If she won’t contribute significant amounts of her time to our daughter then she should contribute financially. She doesnt agree. -My wife wants alimony from me. This might be inevitable since she isn’t working and has no job to support her moving out, but I want this off-set by her child support contributions; if she weighs me down with alimony and no child support I won’t be able to continue living in our current neighborhood which is in one of the few good school districs around here. -My wife has no way of moving out on her own, refuses her new would-be “boyfriend”s invitation to move in with him because she “doesn’t want to be dependent on a man anymore”... and he already has his dependent mom and sister living with him so it’s crowded over there... and I am not aware of any way I can kick her out of the apartment where I won’t be liable legally for something. -Neither of us have any family locally, so staying with family is out. Wife said if I left the state and returned home to my family with our daughter she would “shoot me in my fucking head”. We agree on most everything but the custody is huge to me. My wife doesn’t have her shit together and it’s dragged us down to bankruptcy, a hoarder home, infidelity, and I want her out. I have ARAG but there are only half a dozen attorneys near me in network, and all of them either have terrible reviews, no online presence, or aren’t responsive to calls or voice mails. I am not confident in any of them. So here is where I need help: -Hire ARAG attorney anyway since 15-20 hours is covered and see how it goes? -Hire expensive attorney and fight it out? If I hire any kind of attorney she could get money from her parents and we’d potentially drag our extended families down into financial hell along with us. -Give in and let her take 50% custody even if she’s going to be constantly asking me to watch our daughter so she can keep going out like she does now but not have to pay child support? -Mediation? -Other option? I’m also a little terrified because she watched A Marriage Story on Netflix and asked me if i plan on calling up every good divorce lawyer in town so they can’t represent her since I approached them first... which makes me scared she’s going to do that if things aren’t going her way and totally fuck me over. Help? tl;dr - Wife and I agree on 90% of terms of divorce except custody. I want primary, she wants joint 50-50. I want child support, she wants alimony. Wife willingly hasn’t worked in years, currently spends way less than 50% of her time with daugher (closer to 10%), and I want her out of the apartment so I can move forward with my life. Need advice on best approach to make this happen.
If what you say is right, I hope you get custody of the child. The child deserves it. Praying for the kid
I appreciate it.
You say you agree on 90% of terms and yet you don’t agree on the major ones like child custody, child support. These are sort of big and you definitely need a lawyer as courts aren’t generally favorable towards the father in these matters. If you have supporting evidence that points to infidelity you have a huge advantage in your favor. But, tell all of this and any evidence you have for these things to your lawyers. Also, don’t trust online reviews for divorce lawyers. Trust the length of time they have been in service and their professionalism.
True; where it really counts we don’t agree at all. Is infidelity an important factor? I was disappointed to learn that California is a no-fault state, so she won’t get penalized for being unfaithful as far as I’m aware. The only leverage I’m aware of here is that my wife doesn’t want to file for reason: infidelity, since she thinks it will harm her reputation (even if it’s true; again, she wants to become a famous actress). She would want me to file for irreconcilable differences since there’s no benefit to me for filing otherwise, just harm to her.
Umm, who cares about her feelings. You do what’s right for you. She decided to harm her reputation by being unfaithful, that’s on her. Also, her infidelity can’t harm you in anyway. It could only benefit you in the courts and make your arguments stronger potentially. Maybe the infidelity alone is not enough, but combined with everything else it could be something.
Fuck. This sucks brother. Feel the pain for yah. The lessons from the Marriage movie on Netflix recently is to find a damn good lawyer. What a brutal world ;(
Man I don’t have much advice but I will be monitoring this thread like a hawk because my personal sanity and kids’ futures are in similar precarious positions. She isn’t fucking other men yet, but down to being a hoarder, ignoring kids, and wanting to be in show business (in this case a failing “YouTube star”), I’m living a similar pressure-cooked environment. Good luck man. I’m rooting for you
Get a lawyer. Even just an hour of advice is helpful and still affordable
If you lived here in Seattle, I could recommend the BEST attorney for you. He's helped save ENORMOUS amounts of money for my friend (i.e. not give half his stocks to ex wife) etc.
^ asking the important questions
She goes to the gym and probably wishes she was an instathot. It’s highly likely.
Definitely not Indian
Sure this situation is definitely not Indian, but the way Indians are copying western lifestyle, we will see things like these happening in Indian families too.
Holy shit. Good luck. Hire a good lawyer.
I think step 1 is call every good divorce lawyer. Step 2 is hopefully that threat where she threatens to kill you is a text or email. If so hold on to that for dear life. 3rd, worst case you're only on the hook for alimony for a little bit since you weren't married too long.
I’m thinking I might have to do that just to make sure she doesn’t do it to me. For the threat unfortunately that was over the phone, so I have no proof. I do have multiple texts of her saying “I never wanted to have this kid in the first place” that might come into play, but... Honestly if we fought it out with lawyers I think I’d win because the truth is the truth. But to get there we’d bankrupt ourselves and our extended families. Is there a path forward to get the situation out there plain and simple to resolve the dispute without expensive attorneys on both sides?
That requires a significant amount of maturity from both sides. It doesn’t sound like she’s willing to accept facts and courts will favor the mother generally speaking.