Divorce Support Forums: refusing divorce papers

Have your lawyer move to consolidate the cases and to substitute your petition as a "response & counterpetition" to your stbx's. This will save you a few $$ in writing a separate response to your stbx's petition... but do check it out to make certain you've answered and if he came up with any surprises in his petition, you might want to do a separate response, anyways. Otherwise, no problem with saving a few $$ in attorney's fees up front.

Second, on the insurance, you need to move for temporary orders requiring him to pay a fair portion of the joint expenses temporarily and reinstate the insurance. He'll look like a jerk for pulling that, particualrly for yanking his own KIDS off of insurance. That'll really mess him up with the judge.

Finally, be assured that there is no free ride. Even when a guy moves out and into a girlfriend's home, it's not completely free. It might feel like it is, but she WILL expect him to contribute sooner or later. She (or friends, or family, or WHOEVER he moves in with) will eventually demand money from him. They're just feeling sorry for him for now.

Any adult who sponges off friends or family, EVEN a girlfriend, for more than a month or two in an emergency, without eventually contributing, is eventually considered a deadbeat and shoved out (except in the case of some adults who move back in with thier parents, who are considered boomerangs, and the parents will whine about how their adult children never learned the meaning of responsibility, even if they don't start charging rent). It's scant comfort when you realize he's left you with the kids, the bills, the work of maintaining the property AND no insurance, and it FEELS like he's living the good life, carefree, etc... but the truth is that this kind of roommate thing might have been fun years ago, when college age was upon us, but most adults don't let that kind of "crashing" happen for very long in their own houses. It's NOT the life to which we've become accustomed by any means, and the transient feel is not as comfortable as it might seem, to the one who is left behind with all he work.

I hope you'll be able to work out things so that you'll both be able to afford a place to live, you'll both have insurance and the kids will be able to spend time with both of you as parents, and that both of you will take a fair share of the time involved in raising the kids, schlepping them around to their activities & whatever... but for now... you're just at the beginning...

Get the petition-response thing straightened out, get temporary orders to maintain things for the kids (and you) while this is pending, and THEN you can move forward to see what's next and whether the rest can be worked out reasonably. Recognize that whatever the temporary situation ends up being will set the pace for what the final agreement is, so it's worth making certain it's done right.