I don't know about calif. In my state, you can ask fo ra legal separation and split all the assets, income, kids & etc JUST as if you were actually divorced. It would protect you from some stuff while allowing you to not finalize other stuff. LIke if you want to keep the insurance you might be able to.

If you go for a final divorce at some later date he could probably fight you on every issue as if you'd never resolved them already. Or maybe your state allows for the separation agreement to be final if a divorce is later filed. I don't know.

You are like so many who lived in untenable situations... just wanting out, safe, and with enough to make ends meet. Your lawyer is trying to look out for you but will not force you to do somethign you don't want to do. Here's how you handle a lawyer. You ask for advice. You tell them what your decision is, based upon that advice, and then if you disagree with thier advice, they may make you sign something saying that they TOLD you to do something different but you INSISTED.

I have a friend who was told she was entitled to about $4,000 a month for life based upon quitting her job to be the party hostess as the wife of a high powered executive for about 30+ years. Her ex didn't want to agree to anything, told her what a horrible person she was because seh didn't want to have sex with him, how he'd found a nice woman who WOULD have sex with him and the wife should just move into thier vacation/retirement home that they'd just built and he was going to have a nice life without her after she was gone.

She disagreed with her attorney's advice about a mediator, and went to one that her husband picked. She disagreed with her attorney's advice about alimony, and insisted on signing papers at the mediation. She ended up with $1,000 a month for 5 years. She told me when hse got home tha ther lawyer was upset with her for agreeing to htis and signing it. She was upset and didn't knwo what went wrong.

Two days later, my friend was coming ot my house to ask for help in writing a letter to her lawyer. She didn't want to pay the lawyer's fees. She wanted to file a bar complaint against the lawyer. SHe had talked to some other neighbors and found out that she got cheated. She brought all the papers over to me for help in putting together a complaint against the laweyr.

What she did NOT tell our other friends in the neighborhood... the lawyer had told her this was a bad deal, had told her not to mediate with this mediator, had told her not to make that agreement and not to sign the deal. The lawyer had backed it up in writing, explaining how she was just trying to protect my friend's interests but if my friend insisted on not following her advice, she'd try to make it work and get the paperwokr done so she could have it over with as she insisted.

And here she was, two days later saying her lawyer should have tried harder to convince HER... the CLIENT... not to do what she was insisting on doing.

My friend is now doing fine, retired, all is well. She's living a much smaller life. Upset at not having all the benefits of the very high income, upset at her ex for being the one to pay all the kids' college bills and get all the credit for doing it (SHE had wanted enough money left to do that on her own rather than HIM having control over it). When she talks about it, she becomes furious, but rationally, we've started to ignore this talk from her... I mean really... the kids' college is paid for and if she'd stop being a witch about WHO is paying it then maybe everyone would just relax and stop blaming her for making it all so hard!

Oh, if you're wondering, I refused to help her with writing the letter & filling out the paperwokr to complain to the bar association. She got angry at me for a while but you can't stay angry like that if you live in the same neighborhood. I'd never say a word about WHAT she was angry over unless she dared to try to tell anyone a lie, so she dared not try to explain it to anyone. Over time, I started to feel sorry for her lying, cheating husband... which felt odd as I never met him.

And I started to understand why lawyers will try to get you to assert your rights rather than sign them all away like that. But if you tell your lawyer that you've heard the advice adn decided against it, and ask them to help with the paperwokr and negotiation, then that's fine.

But DO this... let the lawyer keep things in teh paperwork that will protect you in case your husband goes off the deep end and tries to cut you off entirely. It happens sometimes to people hwen they're separated and divorcing... one stupid little thing happens (like a disagreement over a tax refund) and next thing you know it's world war three. So let your lawyer position you so that you KNOW what you're giving up when you do give it up... and that if he refuses to sign off on the WHOLE agreement at once that you've not already signed away your firstborn on some other part of the agreement. Don't give away the farm and sign it away in the HOPES that he'll be fair with you when it's time to sign other papers later.

Listen to your lawyer. Let her protect you. But when it comes to the final decision on what you should agree to, you make that decision.

Talk to your lawyer. File. Get all the information in hand about his assets & debts, and make an agreement. Tell him that you expect to make a fair agreement but you still NEED to see everything so that he's not hiding stuff from you when you make the agreement. And that way you wont' find out that he's got a hundred thousand in credit card debt tha the didn't tell you about that the creditors are going to come after you for later... or that he has bought a third house on the side for some little cookie he's been keeping on the side, and you have been duped into staying in the little place while he's been providing HER with a palace! You just need to KNOW this stuff... ALL of it... before making an agreement... but you'll still make the same agreement. Probably.