Hi group. I've been living apart from my spouse since September 23, 2004. For one reason or another, we haven't filed for divorce. She has been cohabitating with another man for at least 18 months. We have one daughter, and we plan to share joint custody once the petition is filed, with her being the custodial parent.

Within the past few months, we had decided to do the collaborative divorce, with both of us using the same lawyer. Well, yesterday my estranged wife dropped a bombshell on me.

She is pregnant with this guy's child, and supposedly the lawyer we had planned to use informed her that we couldn't even *file* the petition for divorce until after this baby is born.

Is the lawyer correct in that I must wait until my wife delivers the baby she has conceived with *another* man she has lived with for 18 months, before I can even *file* the petition for divorce?

It doesn't strike me as correct that my divorce proceedings must wait until the birth of someone else's child is resolved, especially since the two parties in the divorce have lived apart without reconciliation for over three years. If anything, you'd think the current circumstances would be reasons to *speed up* the proceedings rather than delay them.