Divorce Support Forums: How do I protect myself if I divorce?

I'll keep this as brief as I can. I'm seriously considering a divorce, it's beyond repair in my opinion. We've been married for over 20 years. I make most of the money. 2 kids, one is 20, the other will be 18 soon. My wife has serious issues with being responsible with money for all of our married life and every other part of our life sucks. Been the counseling route, I've tried and tried to talk and work things out to improve our situation to no avail (for many years).

She has done banking, but mostly daycare for many years. She doesn't want to go back to work, yet we need the money! Our financial picture is not great, but it's going to get bad without more income and I'm doing all I can do with a full time job and 2 part-time businesses. She has been oblivious to everything I've tried and she ignores the situation. We have not discussed divorce. I've kept my mouth shut about that and she hasn't mentioned it. I don't think she is considering it or suspects I am since I don't talk about that type of thing with her and she hasn't said anything or led me to believe she could be considering it.

Basically, I can't stand it anymore and I want out as quickly and painlessly as possible. I expect I'll get screwed over no matter what I do since we live in california, but I want to minimize that as much as possible. I've done as much reading on the web as I can but I need to ask some questions. I realize that there are no absolutes here, and I am ready to get some legal counsel very soon, I just want to be prepared. Here are my questions.

Our main asset is our home and I have a retirement account. Other than that, I'm not too worried about personal property, I don't have a lot that I'd fight over so I'm not worried a lot about working that out.

1) As far as getting counsel before the cat is out of the bag, am I risking future legal problems? In other words, if she gets a lawyer and fights back, can they find out I had counsel, and when I did? And will this jeopardize my situation in any way? Basically, I want to legally prepare to protect myself in the best way I can before anything starts. If something is better to occur before the divorce process starts, I want to try and do that and I don't want to get into trouble for doing that. I know some things involving money movement can get you into trouble, but I really have nothing anywhere to move around and I don't plan on doing that.

2) With the kids over 18 and one moved out, will she be able to fight for anything there?

3) What's the worst case she can get in spousal support percentage wise? And how long should I expect to pay that? My rough estimate is that I could make it on my own if I had to pay her 50%. Any more than that, and it would be tough. But if I can't keep at least half my money, how the heck can I get a divorce?

4) Splitting major assets - I will work this with the lawyer, but as far as I am concerned, she can have the house if she can get a new loan for it (I don't see how though). Otherwise, I'd insist on the sale in the divorce if that's possible. She could have the proceeds after payment of any shared debts as far as I'm concerned. I'll try to protect my retirement and hopefully use letting her have the house as bargaining chip there. Any tips here? If I can somehow get the house sold before starting, would that be risky from a legal standpoint?

5) Protecting my stuff - I have a room with all my computer, business and hobby stuff. She is one hell of a spiteful person, I fear that if I brought up the subject before moving out, that she'd completely thrash my stuff. If I moved just my own personal stuff and my stuff in the one room out while she was away, and I moved out, would that put me at any legal risk with the divorce process? I would not take the family computer or any furniture, anything. Just stuff that is mine and only I use. We could divide up the other stuff later.

Anyway, I'll save further questions for later and for the lawyer. These are my biggest concerns. My hope is to get this figured out and move out this summer when she's away on a trip and get papers served after she's back.

Any answers, tips, hints, etc. will be very much appreciated. Thanks.

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