My wife and I were married 8 1/2 yrs ago. I thought happily. Recently august of 07 I caught her in an affair. Have plenty of proof. We have not been living together in the same house although I live in a camper in our yard. She recently promised to stop affair and told me in several emails that she was sorry and wanted to work it out. Unfortunately I believed her. I have since found out that she never stopped and she has suddenly become hostile after finding out that I knew about it again. My questions are: She owned her house before I came along and its in her name only. I am the one who rebuilt it after Katrina and she says I will get nothing. Her family gave us land on the river to build on. We didnt build on it but I cleared it and prepared it to be built upon. She says I will get nothing from that. She bought a business in Wiggins, one side was her mortgage company and the other my electronics business. After Katrina I had to rebuild it also. I put in all the labor and some of the money. She says I will get none of it. She bought a house that her mom lives in beside us. I remodeled it so her mom could move in. Again she says I will get nothing. She also has a piece of land that had a house before Katrina but is now an empty lot (moms old place) she also says I will get none of that. I have never strayed from our marriage and have always worked to contribute to our family monetarily. Always gave her cash for bills. Sold several expensive boats to help her pay income taxes. She says that I have never helped finacially and cant prove I have so I will get nothing. The building in Wiggins is leased out now. I went and remodeled the who;le thing so a business coud move in. It was after I caught her the first time and since we werent getting along the only way I agreed to do the work was if she payed me contractor wages. She gave me 600 dollar check for 2 months of work and promised to pay the rest later. Never happened. She owns a Mortgage business and is somewhat successful with it so money isnt an issue to her. Little did I know when she convinced me to go to work in her Fathers family business taht it was so she would know where I was all the time so as to make affair easier. Sh ehas spent a fortune on Oxycontin addicted) and has trouble functioning on a day to day basis. Although she now claims to be in treatment. I was told I could file kin these manners: Cruel and inhumane treatment (for the swearing that she loved me but continuing the affair all the while accusing me of all manner of things which are untrue), Adultery, habitual drug use, and Witholding of affection. I dont know which are apporpriate. I dont know what I am entitled to financially or property wise. Nor if I am entitled to spousal support. I obviously am not going to be able to stay in this job as I feel when I file her father will let me go from here.I dont have the funds at this time for a lawyer and dont know what to do. I will not go back to her again. She hasd done this to me 3 times since last august and I am mentally drained. HELP.
MS is an equitable distribution of assets state, she is completely off base on the fact you will get nothing. It really sounds like there are some complicated assets and you need to get an attorney. Assets purchased during the marrage are 50/50 split, assets brought into the marriage are normally only 50/50 split of the equity from the marriage forward. Ie. house purchased before marraige was worth $100,000 and had 75,000 loan against is now worth $150,000 and owes $50,000 would normally be broken out to around $75,000 equity to be divided 50% and she would get the 25,000 equity in addition to it. Normally alimony is not awarded in MS for marriages of less than 13 years but temporary alimony (usuall term is rehabilitative support)may be available if there is an income disparity it is short term only. Are there children invovled?
File under adultry, cruel and inhuman treatment is almost impossible to prove if its mental cruelty, withoholding affection again is hard to prove, habitual drug use is rarely used. You only need one reason to file in MS for a fault based divorce so only use one unless your attorney tells you differently.
If you are going to try to not use an attorney sit down and list the assets and their value. Sweat equity does not amount to much in real dollars so I'm sorry that you remodeled something but unless it improved its actual value then it's a loss. Subtract the debts from the assets and that is your net worth, take 50% of that and offer to let her buy you out and avoid the legal costs. Use me as an example I just spent $20k on a divorce and that was just my attorney fees, she spent about the same, explain to your stbx the costs of an attorney and she may be willing to just get it over with and settle.
Best of luck to you and prayers are with you my friend. Divorce sucks and noone can make it easier.
-------------------- Forget waiting for the storm to pass
Learn to dance in the rain
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