FallenFairy,

what's with the link farm link - that's what divorcelaw.com is, btw.

sorry sometimes the fingers are faster than the brain - the link in post # 240 is now the correct one. FF

That link is only for; :neutral:

it's not the services that are pertinent on that site- it's the listings of the terms for abandonment - and what the PA Court system uses to determine whether abandonment has occured - it's way simpler language than the law books. :) (legal jargon sucks)

And really - no matter how "no-fault" a divorce could possibly be - the rule is if there are children involved then both parties should be represented by an attorney.

she filed. bitch.

what is the medical term for when it feels like your heart has been ripped out through your eyesocket then set ablaze right in front of you? fortunately, my dear wife was there to piss on my heart so it wouldn't burn too long.

Damn, Lookout. Just DAMN! I am SO sorry! Well, you gave her every chance and tried your best. Now's the time to fight like a tiger for the sake of your boy and yourself. Good luck, man. :(

I'm really sorry, Lookout. I hope the next few months go by quickly for you.

Lookout, I'm really sorry to hear this. I was hoping it would turn out a much different way.

I'll keep good thoughts thoughts coming for you and LilLookout.

she waited to file until my annual profit sharing bonus came through. she's had the paperwork ready for awhile. gotta love sleazy lawyers, selfish bitches, and community property states. i will walk away with next to no liquid assets until the house sells or she is able to refi. wooohooo - rental living, here i come.

It's been a while since I read through here Lookout. Sorry to hear about all of this.

Most sincere best wishes man.

Sorry, lookout.

I wish there was someting I could say or do to ease your pain, lookout. My thoughts and prayers are with you and the little guy. You won't feel this way forever, my friend.

Sorry lookout - this is never easy but you are in my Prayers.

The five stages of death and mourning also apply to divorce.

1. Denial and Isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

You can skip a step or two (there was no bargaining in mine) but accept the basic idea that you will be continuing to go through the emotional ringer.

After that things will start to get radically better!

The best advice anyone gave me was, if some thoughts seem to be overwhelming, just ignore them for the time being. You can delay worrying about stuff - not forever, but you don't have to consume yourself with how you're going to cope with X today. Leave that to next month and just drop the worry entirely.

I sort of wish I had been forced to move out. Instead, she volunteered to move out as part of the split of things, I'm left with all the house and furniture and color schemes and wallpaper etc. that I only half picked out or in some cases didn't pick out at all. Stuck in a life I only half made and am partly disgusted by, is a strange feeling and bits of it remain even years later. I hate my dishes for example. As a pretty fierce individualist I would prefer to have my own choices around.

You can say oh damn back to apartment life, or you can say, thank god I don't have to try to maintain the lifestyle that we built together, because it turns out that was sort of bogus; and I am suddenly granted the wonderful luck of not having that sort of reminder everywhere I look and the favor of building a life that is fresh and new and all my own.

thanks, all. starting over fresh has its pro's i know. as i type i have tears in my eyes because the family room couch is right in front of me. we picked that out when we first got to arizona. we spent countless nights laughing and talkign about the future on it. it was the piece of furniture my son leaned against the first time he stood up.

am i overly sentimental? yep. i want it for all those reasons. i don't want it for all those reasons. this house we are in we designed together, decorated together, etc.

Sorry Lookout, but I've been out for just over a month and a 1/2 and it is getting a little better each day. Two steps forward and 1 back - its just the way it goes. I've cried myself to sleep many a night and others I'd just stay up till I passed out. I'm not sure if this helps, but the bad days are getting fewer and farther apart. I miss my kids so much. But the pain will ease and you will live and, believe it or not, love again. One friend said a divoce is like a forest fire. In the beginning it is all crazy and out of control, then there is nothing but destruction. Then finally, new life beins to grow from the ashes. . . . . Good luck, my friend.

I'm so sorry to hear this, lookout. My best wishes for you and your boy.

Sorry I'm late with this... and I see that she has filed, but it really doesn't matter in a civil trial who files first... you can always counter-claim to get yourself on the top, so then it looks like X v. Y v. X... yadda yadda yadda.

Order only matters in a criminal trial. You want to be the one who files first - because you're not the crook ;).

Hey lookout,
I'm sure it's not the money but the extra drop in your esteem of her that hurts the most. Remember that this isn't the woman you fell in love with and married. She is sick and her actions and motivations are colored by her illness and her lawyer's greed and are not indicative of her true nature.

Don't let the pain get the upper hand. Adults get mired in the past, kids are living now. Take a cue from your son.

And like Beestie said, you've got the whole cellar behind you.

Damn, that really sucks. Well, the gloves are off. And its very unfair to you who would like to do this as amicably and as considerately to li'l lookOut as possible. Protect your son and yourself as you would against anyone who would bring stress and disruption into your lives. I don't see why she should get a "free pass" to wreak havoc at your expense.

I know you don't feel this way and I understand but if it were me, I'd take her ass to the mat.

But, in spite of the bumpy ride ahead - it won't be as bad as it seems right now. Check in and post updates. I've helped a lot of friends through similar situations and this one is shaping up the same way. I'll fast forward to the end: you and lookOut Jr. will bond together and both of you will come out of this better, stronger and happier.

And if you ever find yourself in a spot and you just don't know what to do, do what I do - ask what John Belushi would have done and do that. ;)

The advice here is the best, and typically getting stuff off your chest is the best way to keep it from suffocating you so please post whenever you need to vent. No one here sees it as whining or weakness to take care of yourself. Instead of wasting energy trying to figure what is going on in her head, spend it making sure your boy is taken care of. You have the Cellar (and RL friends), but all he's got is you :). There is no such thing as too many hugs. I hope the storm is short and the resulting damage as minor as possible. Good Luck.

I'll add my good wishes to everyone's here. I'll also repeat what I think I've said here before: this is between you and her, keep LittleLookOut right out of it, even if she keeps trying to drag him into it. That may not be easy, but it's the best course in the long run.

One of the benefits of posting is having to get things, that are playing tag in your head, in a logical order so you can write them down. It can be a big help when you feel confused and overwhelmed. :juggle:

Hang in there, Lookout. This is post number 265 in your support! ;)

Best of luck to you lookout.

The worst of it is over, man. Now you have a future to tend to, best get started. lookout jr. deserves the best, and you do too.

Lookout, please don't take what I am about to say/type as flippant or disrespectful, because it isn't. Okay, it is going to be a bit crude and boorish, but I want to make sure I'm getting the fundamental message across to you. I know exactly what you are feeling right now - however, I now have 14 years of perspective behind me, and so I'll just tell you what I found out when I went through what you are experiencing.

Right now, you feel rejected, belittled, hurt and uncertain of yourself. You feel like you weren't good enough to keep the love of your wife and mother of your child. Right now, I'll bet you are questioning everything you ever did or said with her, wondering how you could have been so wrong, and wondering why you couldn't see it sooner and make up for it.

Screw that. You *are* a good and fine person. You *will* look back on these days and wonder why it hurt so damn much...and there is nothing that will help you start on the road to that end any better than the first piece of ass you nail as a single, divorced father.

The sooner you get out there, strut the package, pull out the old stuff, unencumbered by the deteriorating years of marriage, the better. When a bitch has ripped out your guts and handed them back to you, minus 40% for legal fees, the only answer is to find a piece of strange and let her remind you of the man you really are.

For some stupid reason, approval is like a magickal healing drug, and nothing says approval like a woman who wants you to give her the Lookout Layout. So line up a babysitter and start making phone calls. Start planning your recovery. In particular, look up that little hottie you've run into at parties a couple of times...you know - that one who made it so obvious that she wanted to do nasty things to you, but you couldn't, becuase you've always been married. The one who would have done you right there in the coat closet if you'd given her half a chance? There is no time like the present, and I guarantee you that, for a few hours at least, it won't hurt.

You do this a few times, and your attitude will turn from "No one wants me" to "stupid bitch, look what she ain't gonna get no more." Meanwhile, thanks to the miracle of Enhanced Self Esteem, you will be a better father, a more rational divorce correspondent and a guy with a big smile on his face that everyone wonders about.

There was never a more satisfying moment in my relationship with my ex than the night she stood banging on my locked bedroom door while I was inside banging on a lovely lady friend. I don't think she saw that one coming...

Be well, brother.

Well! How am I s'posed to follow that voice of experience?

Just to chime in that I wish you the best outcome for all this crap and I know that you are the right man to raise a strong, smart, kind little looker. Ride the waves.

thanks all. i know there is truth in all the words entered for my support. i just left the land of amicable divorce and entered the battlegrounds though. no fresh piece for me for awhile as i watch my p's and q's. she went and hired a well known POS bulldog for an attorney.

i was served my divorce papers today. her attorney's first salvo? he filed on valentine's day. fortunately i'm not into hallmark holidays so that doesn't really matter to me, but a nice first showing of his class.

they are demanding joint custody. yeah right. i would get him two nights each week (that she just happens to have to work late on) and every other weekend. for that honor i get to pay all medical, tuition, etc, + child support. they've inflated my income by 10% and decreased hers by 40%. *pfft* i've got her business books from all year. guess it wasn't such a bad idea to copy every document in my office a month or so ago.

her lawyer actually turned red when i took my pen in my hand as if to sign this ridiculous crap, but then i stopped and said "as soon as you climb up on this desk, drop your drawers, and suck your own cock - i'll sign." i put the pen down and sat back. after a 5 count i stood up and let him know that he would hear the response through my attorney. they tried explaining that i would spend the pittance they were prepared to give me in legal fees if i chose to fight. my response? "i'll see your pittance and raise you - every penny i have now and will make for the next year. i'll make more." then i turned and invited my wife to dinner, gave her a kiss on the lips, and walked out.

*let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuuumble*

Good show, man. I know you've got the balls to pull this off, now that you've been forced to go this route. You may have misgivings when you're alone, but you'll step up to the plate when it counts. :shotgun:

even now, i'd be the most loving and loyal husband imagineable if she'd agree to get help. but i will not be bent over when it comes to my son. they actually threatened my retirement accounts, investments etc. give me a break - i don't care about money. it is only a tool. i'll spend it all for a halfway worthy cause - and my son is the absolute most important. game on baby.

Lookout, having crossed horns with you often on this board, I know you to be a very worthy and very tough opponent. Your soon to be ex has probably been lulled into a false sense of complacency by your kindness and love for her. You are the last person I would want to come up against in a court of law. For the sake of lil' Lookout, give her hell!

NOW, we're talkin. Oh, yeah.

And to quote one of my favorite lines from The Blues Brothers:

*let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuuumble*
i don't care about money. it is only a tool. i'll spend it all for a halfway worthy cause - and my son is the absolute most important. game on baby.

Rock on Brother !!!!!

expound please.

Lookout, you need a meaner attorney. I mean this in the nicest possible way.

You might want to ask around to find out about the most skilled and meanest female divorce attorney in your area.

Hell hath no fury, and all that.

As much as I like (and agree with) Elspode's advice, Lookout, in your post after his, you're right about "having to mind your P's & q's" right now. When my now-husband went through his divorce several years ago - to make a long story short - during an investigation, he was asked by detectives about his really being celibate for all that time and he replied "There are more important things in life than pussy, and there are two kinds of liars - men who say they never did, and men who say they've quit." He said the detectives immediately looked away and shut up. Like a lot of men, they don't want to talk about jacking off....
I'm not sure if she knows what she's up against...Lookout, I can tell you're ready to ruuuuumble for little lookout, and also for yourself...you do not deserve to pay financially also for her decision to divorce, especially if your pay is equal! I hope your state is similar to ours, not automatically giving custody to the mother, but weighing in all of the factors Good luck and go get 'em!!

I'm with wolf. He may be scum but a bright ballbreaker and you'll be laughing.

i had an appraisal done on the home. she wants to keep it and give me a fraction of what the equity was when we bought it, not even beginning to approach the $$ of equity that was there at the last appraisal done in the fall.

a middle number appraisal done on saturday shows the equity to have increased by no less than $55K since September. my guess is that will cause a fight, because there is no way in hell she can afford a mortgage large enough to give me my share and keep the house. i hate to sell the house - but i don't even want that big of a mortgage.

Lookout,
You need to take her ass to the mat, so to speak. Get a deal so good for yourself it will make headlines. Get teh courts to award her as clsoe to nothing as possible.

Since you are an ok guy, you can always give her more than she is awarded. No one will put your picture on a milk carton for being too good to your ex. On the other hand...

I just read this thread and I have a little bit of advice...take it, don't take it...whatever you think...but consider some of these points:

It is extremely familiar, in that I could see myself in some of the behaviors your wife exhibitied earlier in the thread and now, I see my husband's exes behaviors in the later parts of the thread...you know, the parts where she is a conniving lunatic? Well, all I can say is make sure your lawyer is sharp. It wouldn't hurt if you got some information from a few of the father's rights organizations. I don't know about Arizona, but here in Colorado, they say joint parenting, but what they really mean is the woman gets what she wants and the man dishes out the $$$. Barring some kind of vulgar crime in her past, it seems there is nothing that can bring down these kinds of bitches, though a kid's father may be obviously more fit a parent. Sick and sad. I saw it all from the sidelines and couldn't contain my anger at how skewed the system is in this way. And her lawyer was a true flunkie.

Savor every moment with your child right now. Don't move out of the house. If you have to, get her to move out first. Don't do anything that could possibly ever be construed as not being able to spend time with your son. Save every conversation you have had and have with your wife (ex, I mean). Write down every time you spend even a few moments with your son. If he ever indicates to you something negative she has said, write it down. Never say anything negative about your wife in front of or within earshot of your son (I know, common sense and you wouldn't do that anyway.) If you have been ordered support on a temporary basis, pay it on time...or early. These are just a few suggestions I have based on the experiences my husband and I had when he was fighting this. By all means...NEVER allow anything about relocating out of state to be included in the decree. A common sleaze tactic some women use is to get a restraining order, so then that gets you away from your son. They are so easy for women to get with minimal or no real proof, especially in a divorce situation, so, beware. I know you haven't probably done anything threatening at all but that doesn't matter to the courts...they always figure "better safe than sorry" with those kinds of things, so you would be left trying to prove your innocence.

Okay, so all that out the way, I am truly sorry this is happening to you. I know a lot of us have experienced similar struggles so we can tell you that things will be so much better in time. It has been about 2 years for my husband and things are quite "normal" these days. It takes a while, yes, but I think in the end you might be glad it happened...it will teach you a few things about yourself.

Oh yeah, and hope beyond all hope that your judge doesn't turn out to be a former criminal defense lawyer and single mother.

Not just CO, nationwide.

You guys want to talk about suppression of civil rights? Talk to half the men in this country that have gone through divorce.

There's your victims.

Financial wage garnishments, siezures of property, legal processes, procedures, and suspiciously near illegal entanglements.

There is ONE office in my home town that has bullet proof glass, ONE. Out of all the possibles, there is only ONE.

Not the banks, municipal buildings....not the schools and not the gas stations.

It's the place where they fuck men out of their money and give it to their ex-wives to spend that on their kids. THAT's the ONLY place that this type of security is needed.

There are thousands of handgun permit holders back home. There is RARELY a problem with them.

People go into banks, businesses and throughout the society and attend to their lives with no troubles.

There in only ONE place that there is no justice or accountability to the male citizen. CPS.

When I rule the planet, the organ donor shortage will be no longer....and neither will this Nazi-ish agency.

Statistic:
only 35% of men kiss their wives goodbye when they leave their house, whereas 90% of men kiss their houses goodbye when they leave their wife.

In lookout's case it should be the other way around.

Case is dead on when it comes to the RO thing - at least in Colorado. And women can get hit by them too when finances are involved. I don't have the money to hire a lawyer and I got slapped with an RO merely for asking the ax murderer how often he needs to get his diapers changed in front of his adult daughter and new GF who has tons of money to hire a shark to oppose me in court. Watch your step! And document EVERYTHING to the max!

Fathers do have to fight much harder and are damned lucky if they even end up on equal ground with the mother.
My ex got behind on child support for a year, we didn't keep track of it very closely. When our son was 18, the ex had been clean & sober for a while and paying it, along with giving me cash, a car, a washing machine, etc. The the state upped the interest on back support and his balance started climbing about $100 a month in just interest. When I went to DHS to write off the balance and give him credit for everything not on their records, they discovered they had our son's birthdate right everywhere except on the child support order, and the ex was over charged 10 months of support because of the one place they had his birthdate at 10-8-87 instead of 1-8-87, making him 18 ten months later than he was.
How many other men have been overcharged, and with outrageous interest amounts? If I hadn't made arrangements to write his off, that mistake would've not been caught.

And Lookout - I know you're going through a hellish and personal thing here, but it's been a while since we've heard from you. I know others are wondering how you're doing too......drop us a hello when you can...we know you're hanging in there.....

Since I don't have kids, this question is purely academic to me -- is it even possible to work out your own child support arrangements with your ex, instead of having the state dictate it?

And yes, Lookout, do drop us a line if you have a chance. We're all pullin' for you!

Keep taking the high road, lookout. It will pay off for your soul, and if you have a decent lawyer, it will help when the judge decides how much money comes out of your coffers.

I believe it is possible ( in Pa anyway ) and reasonable that this would happen but is rare because of all the nastiness of the divorce process.

From what I know this is the big stick. The state not only has the power to rough the man up, those offices that administer the "service" for the woman and child are most often staffed by bitter women that have gone through very tough circumstances in divorce and are somehow getting justice for themselves and women at large. These positions pay nearly nothing and in the case of back home, you might find bullets flying at you in a very literal way. Regardless, these are power positions for women that have it out for men in some way and see their role as an equalizer.

There is little respect for men caught in this trap (back home anyway ) and they are always presumed to be the evil scum of the earth lying bastards that deserve the fires of hell regardless of the true situation.

For those men with enough means and money to have legal representation BEFORE the net scoops them up, the experience is slightly less humiliating with the blatant attitude that he is the worst sorts of humans on this planet, but the legal manuvers, garnishments and siezures are very difficult to challenge even with a good lawyer.

It's been a while since I have seen a man have the extreme misfortune of having to go through this and I have not myself gone through this. The situation may be completely different now but I seriously doubt it.

Absolutely--the state would rather not deal with you at all, in general. Many states have clauses that say if you want to go back and change something down the line, you must pay to go to mediation first. Their top priority is getting through the overloaded docket as fast as possible. My parents had a completely screwed up, intensely complicated custody arrangement that no judge on earth would have wanted to be involved with, but because they both went before him and said, "We've agreed to do X, Y, and Z and our lawyers have drawn up the paperwork here," he said, "Wonderful, I so order it--next case."

In response to Slang's post about the women staffing those offices, hell, even us women can't hardly get along with them, when we do eventually get through to them (almost impossible by phone), and I can get along with just about anyone! I can't even imagine what the men must go through with them. At least that's the experience we have here with the local child support office. Never thought about what Slang said, but it does ring very true..... Bitter...bitter women!!

And what triggered the state's involvement in my child support was when I applied for assistance with medical bills when my son broke his femur and spent 3 weeks in the hospital, etc. Even with insurance the bills I was left with were high, the hospital encourages you to "fill out these forms to get some of these bills paid", then the state looks to the non-custodial parent for the money....and it goes on...

The salaries of these positions are so low that the only reason that many of these women take these jobs is to financially torture and abuse men, regardless of the circumstances of their case.

You could easily make more at McDonalds than working for CPS. That is....unless you have a grudge.

Was there in inquiry or investigation for possible neglect or abuse on this accident?

This is another of their responsibilities, checking that sort of thing out. Kids dont break bones and get hurt on their own, you know. It's got to be that the parent is abusive or negligent.

These people would be so Fing GONE if I was running the show. It's "for the sake of the children" though and you know what that means.

That means that everyone loses some of their civil rights cloaked behind the seemingly unapposable goal of protecting the children

I dont doubt your eperience or that this happens CF. Do you have any idea how often this happens?

Many of the things that you post here are not what I like to read. That's fine, but I'm seriously wondering Mari....

Have you ever had good luck or fun.....some positive outcome?

If your life is truly as tough and hopeless as you sometimes describe, fine..I'll shut the fuck up and go chase some goats. Is the life of Mari one big long tragedy of one kind or another?

Please tell me...has there been one time that you've made out in this life? Please?

No - 3 wheeler accident. Just a bad break with a lot of bills. (Breaking a femur at 11, when you're still growing can result in one leg outgrowing the other if it's not healed properly.)

Oh, pretty darn rarely, I would guess. Like you said, most people getting divorced can't agree on anything. Even if they start the process with the best intentions, a lot of people can be convinced by friends and lawyers that they're being taken advantage of or need to get nasty to get "what they deserve". Anecdotally, I think perth and case had a mutually-agreed on situation set up for their son, with very little court involvement. It's really the best way to go about it, but not a lot of people can pull it off. Most women aren't capable of freely letting their ex care for the children for any amount of time, even when they openly admit he's a perfectly good parent.

As the resident physiopsycho-sexual therapy recommender in this thread, I just want to say that, with a good lawyer on your side, you'll need to worry *far* less about who you see for a bit of mutually agreeable adult shagging that your ex will need to worry about the whole substance abuse issue. And, if things get nasty, that sort of stuff will come up, but I still say that level headed adult behavior beats being a hopped up single mom any day.

By all means, be discreet, be adult, be mature...but I don't believe you have to be celibate. It isn't like you're going to be putting on a Copenhagen sex show in the tot's playroom, after all. Your mental health (and a healthy sex life, especially in times of stress like this, is a critical component of mental health) is going to be sorely tested during the divorce and subsequent years. (Don't think for a moment that once the divorce is done that your agony with her stops...you have a child together, and whatever *you* think is best for that child is likely to be diametrically opposed to what she thinks, even if she might have thought you right before the divorce).

You're going to need to take care of your self-esteem and your positive self-image in order to be the man you're going to need to be.

Rock on, my brother.

Ah....nice work there Elspode. Been a little busy lately, thanks for bringing us back. :D