Divorce Support Forums: court process

If you do not respond and leave it "uncontested", then that means your stbx can ask the court for basically anything they want the court might grant it. You may love and trust this person, still, but the facts are they don't want you anymore and it's possible that they're going to pull something on the side.

I know someone who thought this was going to be that easy and didn't go to the hearing, and after the hearing it turned out that the ex had the house, the bank account, the car, and they were tossed out on the street, becasue they hadn't bothered to either file a response or show up to court.

Why didn't they file a response? Because the stbx had claimed that it was amicable nad it wasn't needed. Why didn't they show up to court? Becasue they didn't know about the hearing date, which ahd been changed. And they didn't get notice of it because the stbx had been taking those things out fo the mailbox.

Don't trust that it's just that easy & all will be OK. Show up and find out what's going on. Pay attention to ALL the paperwork EVEN IF your spouse claims that their attorney said it didn't matter and you could just relax and let them do it all.

Another case, she thought they had it all mediated out through teh court mediation services. She showed up at the final hearing to find out that her stbx disagreed with the results of the mediation and was now demanding full custody of both children, along with child support. She earns half of what he does, and now she was going to have to pay HIM.

She hadn't paid attention to the court papers and thought it would be all right... and when she found out that he was contesting it, she asked for time, but the judge pointed out to her that she was supposed to be ready for trial, the papers had it all laid out exactly what she was supposed to do, and she didn't do it, so she would have to go to trial on her own, without an attorney, without evidence, nad without even understand what she had gotten herself into.

Two years later, she's been paying support to HIM all along. Over time, the girls drifted away from his house and moved back in with her (he's not much of a housekeeper or clothing shopper or cook), and the ex is happy as a claim, collecting support while not even feeding his own kids. He doesn't even buy them a bit of the clothing they need as they grow out of the old stuff.

So she went back to court and changed it all as of, I think last month. FINALLY. BUT the kids are about grown now and have been living in near poverty with theri mother for the past year... because this jerk of an ex of hers convinced her not to worry because he had it all worked out & he agreeed with the mediator's decision... and she didn't bother to read the paperwork which said that if they did NOT agree with teh mediator, they'd have to be prepared to go to trial on that date!

Please don't let your stbx just take care of it all and convince you not to get a lawyer, or not to file a response, or not to read the paperwork, or not to pay attention to the court orders, or not to show up in court.

Chances are, if you DO the things they're trying to tell you are not necessary, they'll do the right thing by you... and they'll try to make you feel like a fool for not trusting them... but IF they have ANY chance of doing wrong by you, and you don't show up, then you're in a heap of trouble!