Divorce Support Forums: File now: pros and cons?

Filing does not mean settling. If you wait and she gets an attorney, she may end up eing really nasty about the terms of any agreement she'd be willing to negotiate, not to mention that if the 2 years hadn't started running yet that after getting what you thought was an agreement, you could come down to 1 year 11 months and find out that she decides to change her mind.

Getting the ball rolling on the time limits does not mean you have to separate... at least that's what I hear... in PA... When I got divorced, the state I was in, it was a short tiem limit and we HAD to separate... but I hear that PA, you could end up living a war of the roses for a full 2 years after the initial filing and even then it might not be final if she contests it at the last minute & makes you go to court over it all.

You could end up with her hanging around your neck for years & years if you wait for her to get the energy to find an attorney for herself. If you think getting her to MOVE is hard... just wait till you wait for her to get a LAWYER... and on top of that, watch the disappointments you're going to encounter if the lawyer she finds is evil & willing to do dirty tricks.

One good friend of mine, he did not care for his in-laws and so he did not take my advice to be nice to them and to her... he berated his wife often for the affair she had, and the in-laws finally started believing that he was as evil as she claimed and that she had good reason for having an affair... and they found her the nastiest darned attorney avaialble and helped her create some dirty tricks, generate arguments for her to get on tape to try to prove that he was violent... the father actually continues to try to create fights between them, confronting my friend in the men's room at the courthouse & other such nonsense.

My friend had wanted to wait till the last possible minute, giving her a chance to get a lawyer, before filing, and he waited & waited...not knowing that she HAD gotten a lawyer and was busily trying to goad him into an argument so she could tape it, run to a judge, get an order of protection and kick him out of the house. When he found out, it turned otu that she had gotten the lawyer about half a year before the actual filing... and the nastiness had risen to such a level that ... well, they both lost their shirts in the divorce and the kids are now struggling in school, the middle kid is losing friends, heck, my best friend won't allow her kid to play with thier kid any more, because the kid is acting out so much... and these kids WERE GREAT kids before all this started.

They lost the house, the retirement savings... and most of the furniture... to fund their battle to the death... she wanted lifetime alimony and quit her part time job to prove that she couldn't work... his company went belly up during the divorce. To fund the temporary support, he had to cash in the retirement accounts, and her lawyer made hay with that, claiming that he was looting joint funds to support her when he shoudl have used separate funds of his own to do it.

TRULY, it's a mess. Because he waited and let her get HER ducks in a row, allowed her family to think he was evil, didn't defend himself and tried to handle the PAPERWORK part of this in a calm, businesslike manner (handling the emotions of her affiair, though he didn't do so well). He had trusted the mother of his children and her parents to do the right thing, and they ran out, hooked up with a really evil lawyer, and bought all the nasty tricks they could afford... well, MORE than they could afford.

The house is sold, the equity being used to pay the lawyers, the retirement accounts mostly used to pay her support... and now that it's over with, my friend's life is looking very different for the future than the high income life he and she had dreamed of for themselves and had started to build... the pool, bikini'd wife with the surgically enhanced body, the perfect kids with perfect grades and tons of extracurriculars... all gone. In it's place, they have her living with her parents & boyfriend in a double-wide retirement community where the kids have to hide inside during their week with her or get kicked out... the former husband living in a 3 bedroom apartment, boys in one room, girl in another, and him in the master... Kids failing in school & causing problems with friends ... mediocre job that he was able to get after his company went belly-up... no savings, no vacations unless paid for by the new employer... And everyone still being hateful to each other.

And STILL he's happier.

Go figure.

Get the ball rolling, don't let the mother or her have time or incentive to find any MORE dirty tricks, and know that since they've already looted $15K from the joint account, they've already shown a propensity to do dirty tricks, the best you can hope for is to avert more ofthe same and not give her the time to make more of them happen.

I've told you so many stories, friends that I've watched go through this (and I'm a good listener so I get details)... and NONE of the stories where people delayed and gave their exes a chance to get good and angry ended well. ALWAYS the stories wehre people delayed so they could DELAY (not even save) a few thousand on lawyers & filing fees ended with the otehr person in a positon to cost them more than the few thousand ...

I know there's a saying about it... why is divorce so expensive? Becasue it's worth it! (true, but not the saying I was thinking of)... hmmm... give me a minute... you get what you pay for? That's closer...

Oh phooey, the saying I'm looking for is some old one that suggests that if you are foolish enough to think you're saving a penny here, you might be losing a whole lot more there. Hmmm... I don't remember it off the top fo my head. But you get the point.

Good luck.