EEEK. We're NOT tellin gyou to file AND force her to move out. WE're TRYING to tell you that these are separate things. Filing ONLY is a piece of paper that fixes the time of what the assets are worth and starts the clock running. She does NOT have to move out OR demand temporary support or ANYTHING, just because you filed for divorce. LOTS of people stay together for economical reasons before the divorce is final... waiting for the house to sell, waiting for one to get a job or antoehr house, figuring out how to deal with it with the kids so that they're not too disrupted.

When you are being amicable, this is possible. You are NOW being amicable. Don't wait till it's hateful before you file. Keep it amicable. Just get the clock started and start making plans, separating your assets etc.

OK... one more example. My husband thought that the negotiations he & his ex had made through their marriage about what would happen in a divorce were nearly finished, and when he walked out of the house there was only a little more talk to finalize what they were going to do, after which they'd put it on paper, get whatever court forms were required, wait the appropriate amount of time and file & finalize it all.

What he did NOT realize was that the negotiations they made would all be stretched out longer, given the chance to change AFTER the filing. With HIS ex, she saw their pre-filing negotiations as a bottom line, the worst she could do, and she refused to sign off on ANY of the written documentation of waht they'd talked about unless he bumped it up higher. By waiting and trying to negotiate without a laywer, he shot himself in the foot... getting her into the frame of mind that she was going to get this, get that, get the other thing, (all of which was more than the law woul dhave required), AND that this was the WORST she could do... that all she had to do was hire a lawyer to contest & fight & find dirty tactics and she'd get even more.

She was wrong, but it ended up really costing them a LOT.

The point of the waiting period is to conduct the negotiations, to give the other party a chance to disagree with what they'd been offered or what has been started to be done. Most people who think they've got it all worked our are surprised to find that the ex is forcing a whole new series of negotiations during the waiting period... I mean, 2 years is a LONG time to wait! It's crazy to think you'll get to where you're all happy with this settlement and then settle into it and hold your breath for 2 years and no one will want to change thier mind in that 2 years. Heck, you've seen people here... they get their divorces FINAL and still want to go back & change things.

You're asking about what to do... should I file, should I kick her out, should I pay her support, should I talk to her mother... in all pieces. And we're answering as good as we can, the pieces of the puzzle that you're asking about. BUT you're putting it together into your head in a way that it doesn't all necessarily FIT together.

OFTEN, moving out and filing are associated with each other, but no one ever coordinates their move date to exacctly coincide with thier filing date... frankly, doing both on the same day would be ridiculous, almost too much to handle on one day.

So CLEARLY there's always a day or two of lag time between one & the otehr... and since there's a day or two, why do you think it doesn't OFTEN happen that there is MORE than a day or two.

I suggest that people who have filed for divorce live separately as soon as they can so that they don't end up hating each other and at war, but this does not mean that if there is no way to separate, that they should not FILE! If they dont' file, the clock doesnt' start running, the person who is the procrastinator does not have incentive to get moving, the person who has a tendency to pull dirty tricks gets more time and comfort within which to plan MORE dirty tricks. If you don't file, the timelines just get delayed.

The date of filing the initial complaint in divorce has nothign to do with the negotiations. You can start them before the filing, you can continue them after filing, you can finalize things any time up until the final divore decree is signed (that's 2 years after filing, for you)... AND if you THINK youv'e done the negotiations, there is nothing preventing HER from re-opening it at any time until the divorce is FINAL... so thinking that you've got it all done before filing is a real mistake... if she doesn't wnat it done, it's not done, simple as that... but if you get the 2 years wiating period started... and continue the negotiations at that point... then there is the POSSIBILITY that in 2 years you CAN get her to make an agreement and get the jduge to sign it THEN before she changes her mind. You can't get that thing to happen, the judge to sign it so she can't change her mind... UNTIL the two year period runs... so getting the time period started is a good idea.

NOW, on the splitting of things, being nice to your mother-in-law, creating separate accounts and signing over property to each other... these things can happen at any time. BUT if you ... oh, I don't know, get her to sign the house over to her today and file 2 months from now... and in that 2 months, the house value raises by a hundred thousand... know what happens? She has a GOOD chance of getting the judge to order tha tyou have to pay her half that hundred thousand! Why? Because you were still married to her and had not filed for divore yet, and the date of the value of the house is the date of filing.

If you hold off on filing until you get everythign settled, and you re-finance, sign her car over to her, have her sign your house & cars over to you... and take your own sweet time in getting enough savings to hire a lawyer and file... and in the meantime the value of the stfuf that you got from her has raised... you're going to owe her half.

And on being nice to her or her mother... you have to find a way to negotiate and remain in a negotiation position EVERY DAY between now and when it's final... and that means two whole years after the day you file. It's a LONG time to maintain composure... a LONGER time to hold off on starting your new life (if that's what you want). And believe me... 1 year, 11 months and 20 days from now you're going to be wondering why you didn't file 10 darned days earlier! If you wait for another 5 months before filing... you're going to be sitting there 1 year, 11 months and 20 days from now KICKING yourself because you've got another 5 months & 10 days to wait and hope the stbx doesnt' change her mind!

I'm not sure why you think htat filing and evil things are always hand in hand. Filing is jus tthe start of a clock ticking... a VERY SLOW clock in your state, but a clock, nonetheless. It does not mean tha tit's the end of negotiations, the beginning of your new life, the day your ex moves out (or the day you push her to move)... and it does not mean the day you start paying support, either. YOu MIGHT end up paying support IF she gets a lawyer right away after you file IF she moves out and IF she asks for the support. That's a lot of IFs...

If I were you, I'd tell her that i'm going to file because it takes 2 darned years to get it going, and she can stay till August anyways (if that was your plan), for financial reasons, and maybe while she's there with you, you can find a way to negotiate this so that you can stay friends and both afford to make ends meet after it's all over with.

The only time it's a rushed panic to find a lawyer and get filed and otu of the house is when peopl ehave waited so long that they're so hateful that they're having affairs and hurting each other's feelings or having screaming fits at each other or worse, accusing each otehr of violence and running to court for orders of protection.

Please don't assume when we answer the question, "when should I file", that we are answering, "when should she move out", and visa versa. The two issues are not necessarily hand in hand.

Aw MAN, so many questions:

1. credit card. It does not matter whose name it's in, after the date of filing, you want to get a separate card from her and keep off each other's cards. AFTER that date, everything you spend is on you and everything she spends is on her except if thre's some reason that it's a jointly necessary thing. For you staying in the same house, it would be best to set a budget and put money for spending on that budget together the way roommates would. If she pays for all food & her own needs and you keep paying household expenses, then great, don't put anything new on the credit cards. If it turns out tht the TWO of you need to ... I don't know... need SOMETHING that you can't pay cash for... then if you get an agreement in writing to put it on either card & reimburse each other for half OR put half on each of your cards & keep the finances clean between the two of you.

Everything spent until now is joint and you'll each owe half, though whoever it was that said you'd end up with it all was probably right... what you do is use the extra JOINT debt that you take on as a negative to offset the positives you keep. SO ... you ... oh phooey, let me explain it like this...

PROPERTY DECISIONS:
list everythign you own between the two of you. Cars, houses, valuables, IRAs, bank accounts, hte $15K that she took & says still exists. Give a value to each item (this is where you've gotten all bogged down, in valuing the house).

List every debt that you have between the two of you, credit cards, house mortgages, car debts (the totals, not the monthly payments on them.

on the list, separate out all the stuff that belongs to you separately (heirlooms from parents, high school rings, etc) and everythign that clearly belongs to her separately (her collection of barbie dolls from high school).

What's left is things you've accumulated or paid for during the marriage.

You can argue about how MUCH of it belongs to the marriage. The debt on your credit card that goes to YOUR lawyer will be YOUR debt and the debt on teh credit card that goes to HER lawyer will generally be hers, but it's your joint card so you'll want the more responsible of the two of you to take on the whole thing OR you'll want the other person to re-finance their portion of the debt.

Put the house mortgages next to the house and figure out the equity.

Put the car loans next to the cars and figure out THIER "equity".

Now, draw a line down the right side of the paper, one side for your stuff, one for hers. Put the house on your side with it's equity... and your two cars. Put her car and the $15,000 on her side.

NOW you know how inequitable things are... who has teh more positive number? THere's a lot of stuff left on the list, and you can trade stuff back & forth to see how equal you can make things. Maybe you'll end up with $2,000 positive equity more than she has, after you count your house & two cars against her $15K & one car... SOOOO... from teh rest of the stuff, you just take on $2,000 more worth. OR you split the rest up equally and agree to pay ehr $2,000 to account for her share in the house. Heck, that $2,000 equalizing payment is just a tiny price to pay to get this over with... cheaper than the lawyer, for sure!

Is this making sense?

HOUSE APPRAISAL: You're going to have a problem. Until now (maybe you'll change your mind after going through the above exercise), you have been all focused on getting the lowest appraisal possible for the house so that you could cut her equity down, and realistically, the deterioration of the house becasue she refuses to help take care of it on top of the bad housing market, you might not be so wrong on that. BUT you ALSO want to refinance and ... well, I don't knwo what you're thinking of doing with th eextra money you wnat to take out? If it's to pay her off an equalizing payment for her half of the property, then great, but if you thought that getting rid of equity, turning it into cash and makign it disappear, well, you're really shooting yoursel fin the foot here.

You might not need to do that, it sounds like soem kind of dirty trick that someone (not quite as crazy as JBar) might ave suggested.... pull all the equity out of the house and then hide it. It's kind of obvious and nasty & the judge will probably credit you with havin git unless you can prove... well, I had a friend who lost his job and had to pull a lot of money out of the retirment accounts to pay for their mortgage while the divorce was pending. His ex demanded that he return it all but it was easy to show that this was the ONLY way he could afford to pay the expenses during the separation so ... well, at elast so far, the judge hasn't ordered him to pay her for half of the retirement account he had to liquidate.

And your hope to have the hosue appriased for very little is NOT a good way to get a loan approved. You're either going ot have to have enough equity for the banks to lend you money (these days, with the sub-prime debacle... this is EXACTLY why the banks are in trouble these days).. .OR you're going to get a very low appraisal and the house will not be worth enough to get it re-financed. If you can't refinance and it stays in her name, you migth end up finding that she gets to get half of it LATER< when you CAN refinance... or in another situation I know, the wife was hanging on to the house with her fingernails as the loans on it were more expensive than the value of the house... and the husband was going under by paying for her to be able to stay there, so the judge ordered it sold out from under her. IF you can't get it re-financed within a certain amount of time, the judge very well could order it sold out from under you and the profits split IN HALF.

You do not want this. But artificially reducing the value of the house just to mess with the ex's equity is how thi shappens.

Worse, you do NOT want to go into court with you showing an appraisal and bank loan application showing your income as high and the house value as higher... and your own affidavit about your income being low and a second appraisal paid for that shows the house value at zero. You look like a big fat liar if you do that and you don't want to see what will happen if you try that type of dirty trick... you would end up one of those nice guys who got one stupid piece of advice and tried one stupid little thing and lost it ALL, ended up with a lifetime obligation to pay way too much support, and complaining that the system cheats men.

In almost every situation wehre a guy says he's been cheated, if you REALLY look at what happened, you realize that he shot himself in the foot, didn't file whe he should have, waited too long, didn't assert his rights right out, tried one stupid little dirty trick, got fed up with all the nastiness that the stbx was pulling and pulled his own DOOZIE of nastiness that got the judge really pissed off... forgot to show up or deided it wasn't worth it, told the judge that he thought the court was unfair, ignored the paperwork and tried to pretend it wasn't happening.

Truly, in every case I've looked at where someone says they've been cheated, it's been some bonehead move they made that made it happen.

You do NOT want to be the one who made the VERY CLICHE bonehead move of getting two different house appraisals, a high one to get a loan and a low one to try to cheat her out of half the value of the house.

Instead, so what I suggested about listing all the property. SEE what is FAIR... what the COURT would consider an equial split of stuff. This is your starting point. THis is your goal... to try to do what's fair and hopefully save your house in the process. YOu MIGHT find that you don't have to squiggle around on appraising the house at all.

Your questions about appraising the house have confused me in the past, making me wonder why you've been talking about refnancing at the same time as wanting to follow the appraiser around to point out things that will lower the appraisal. I THINK you may have gotten it into your head that hte only way you can keep the house is if you pay her for half of it... but you forget that you count off her car, the $15,000 that she took, and everything else that is part of the property settlement, and you may end up having enough OTHER stuff to give her (or take on, like the debt), to pay her for her half of the house, WITHOUT having to squiggle around about the value.

Is this helping at all?