[Cliff Notes at the bottom]
Sorry if this topic goes beyond the usual scope of The Lounge. OOT seemed like the place, but I didn't feel the 19-year-old boys there were qualified to answer. Also, I'm opening myself up to a fair amount of ridicule (first and foremost for not creating a gimmick account), so I came to the more mature group.
I have several questions, so please, be patient and let me tell the whole story first. I'll save my questions for the end. Yes, it's a TL;DR post, but I feel that all the background needs to be weighed when answering my questions.
***
I've been married for close to 15 years, and the first 14 were marital bliss. Three kids. No assets. We rent our home, we owe more on our cars than they are worth. We had a bankruptcy ten years ago (we were both ridiculously irresponsible), and were just recently starting to reestablish our credit the time-honored way: high interest, low limit credit cards.
My wife has always handled the money. Occasionally, I'd get a phone call from a credit card company or the cable company and be told, "You're past due on your account." I'd look on the computer, and see that we had plenty of money in the bank to pay the bill. When I'd ask my wife, she'd say, "Oh, I forgot that one." I'd get angry (really the only times I ever got angry with her), and tell her that having good credit was very important to me--to US--and her laziness was lousing it up.
In fairness, MY laziness was the reason why I kept letting her handle the money.
2007 was tough. My income dropped dramatically. She spent chunks of time unemployed. There was a time when we could get by on just my income, but 2007 was not that time. I gave her time to find a job (how tough is it to get a job like Burger King or Wendy's?), then started to lean on her about it. It was only after I issued an ultimatum (the first of our marriage) that she finally got a job at a local McDonalds.
In winter of 2007-08, my income was still suffering, but I expected it to bounce back, so I was holding on to the job I had. I was still making a decent living, we just had to cut back on things like gambling or eating out. Those credit cards came in handy when Christmas rolled around.
The bill collectors were calling more often now. We would have the following discussion:
ME: How come you haven't paid the cable bill in two months?
HER: We didn't have the money.
ME: Why didn't you tell me about this?
HER: I was afraid you'd get mad.
WTF? What does that mean? I could never understand that. When I was a kid, my father would ask me, "Why didn't you tell me about this?", and my answer was, "Because I was afraid you'd get mad." But when I said that to my father, what I really meant was, "I didn't want you to hit me in the face." I've never hit my wife--before recent weeks, I had never even raised my voice to her--so I couldn't understand her fear of me getting mad. Besides, I already KNEW that money was tight. I knew I wasn't bringing home what I used to. That wasn't her fault. Still, she irrationally thought that I'd blame her for the situation.
In January '08, we got our usual whopper income tax refund (Thanks, Child Tax Credit!). We blew a little of it, but most of it went to paying off those credit cards. I kept one card in my wallet, and put the rest in my sock drawer. They were my safety net, in case of emergency.
As I expected, things started to improve at my job around April or May, and I started bringing home gradually increasing paydays. The weather was warming up, and I wanted to grill.
ME: Pick up some steaks when you go to the grocery.
HER: We really don't have the money.
ME: Grab one of those credit cards from my drawer. I'll be able to pay it back next month. Things are getting back to normal.
We ate steak that night, for the first time in a while. Things were coming around.
One day, she was on the couch, and I asked her, "Don't you work today?" Nope, day off, she said. "Isn't this like your fourth day off in a row?" They're cutting back everyone's hours, she told me. In fact, she was off for the rest of the week.
Strange, I thought. But she's never lied to me before, so the thought that she was lying now never occurred to me.
After a few weeks of her not working, I brought it up again. She stuck with her "hours were cut back" story.
"Nobody gets their hours cut back from forty to zero! SOMEBODY has to be working at that store, they can't all be sitting at home. Do not lie to me, I will not stand for it." She finally caved, and confessed to getting fired. She didn't tell me because (do I even need to say it?) "I was afraid you'd get mad."
I wasn't mad about her getting fired (she was calling in sick on Saturdays so she could take the kids to Little League--I couldn't do it because I work nights and sleep mornings). But three weeks of freeloading on the couch certainly got my goat pretty good. And sure enough, she couldn't just go out the next day and find a job. It took two more weeks, and one more ultimatum.
I get in the car one day, and one of our personal checks is clipped to the visor. She made it out to "Quik Kash", or something like that, for an amount like $286.45, and there are a dozen red check marks all over the front of it. I ask her about it, and she explains it's a payday advance place, and she had put up the check for collateral on a loan. Yes, she has paid back the loan, that's why we got the check back. Clearly, another thing she had no intention of telling me.
I tell her that all this deception is unacceptable, and if it happens again, we're finished. She nods. I also tell her I'm taking over the finances, and she needs to make a list of all the bills that need to be paid each month. The list is ridiculously incomplete, as I learn when creditor after creditor call the house looking for a payment.
ME: Who is Orchard Bank Visa? They're not on the list.
HER: They're not? I must have forgot that one.
ME: Go into your room and gather up every piece of plastic you have, and give them to me. I'll make my own list.
That didn't work. She had cards that she "forgot" to give to me.
I go a few weeks without even talking to her, because I just can't believe anything she says. If she tells me it's cloudy outside, I go to the window and check.
Now the phone is ringing nonstop. Here's where I find out that she's maxed out all those credit cards. We're talking about thousands of dollars. Not only that, but I'm getting calls from credit card companies I've never heard of. It seems she's gone out and got a few more cards in her own name.
ME: How could you do max out all those cards?
HER: You told me to use them to buy groceries.
If she thought she could cover her ass with that line, I quickly made it clear to her that wasn't going to fly.
I go another two weeks of not talking to her. I'm completely miserable, because I know this "partnership" must end now...but the thought of splitting up my family absolutely tore me to pieces. I've always felt that kids who live in a one-parent home were at a tremendous disadvantage in life. I wanted so badly to hold this marriage together "for the sake of the children", but I didn't see how that was possible.
It finally broke last week, when yet another credit card I hadn't heard of reached me by phone (as I was heading out the door to go somewhere). I told her to start thinking about who was going to move out, and who was going to get the kids, and whether we were going to need lawyers, because "It's over," and I stormed out the door.
All that's left to this story is the final twist, then we get to my questions.
We calmly discussed those things I told her to think about. She agrees with me that we should be able to settle everything without fighting or involving lawyers.
"First of all," I began, "we need to keep our current apartment, because neither of us can afford the deposit and the other upfront costs of moving to a different one. If you had thought of moving back to your hometown and taking the kids with you, I think you can agree that's unrealistic." She agreed that the kids should stay in this apartment. That was the easy part.
The hard part was, which of us moves out? As usual, I began the conversation. "If you told me that I had to move out, and that I couldn't live with my children, I would fight you to my dying breath, because besides them, nothing else in the world means anything to me. By the same token, I know you feel the same way, so I'm not about to insist that you be the one to leave."
She then blew my mind by saying, "You should stay with the kids, because you're a better parent than I am. They listen to you." Overwhelmed by this selfless gesture, I threw my arms around her, and hugged her for the first time in months.
I told her that there would be no custody squabble, that she could see the kids whenever she wanted. Hell, she could come over after work and hang out every day if she liked.
She smiled at that notion, but still cried at the idea of moving out.
That's when I told her, "Look, I'm better suited to living alone than you are. You stay here with the kids, I'll go rent a room somewhere. It would kill you to live alone." She instantly extended the same invitation to spend as much time with the kids as I wanted.
Then, the solution hit me. It's perfect. I'm brilliant.
"Instead of me renting a room somewhere, why don't I just live HERE? We still get along, I still care deeply for you. Why can't we get divorced and be roommates?" She practically rejoiced at the idea.
So that's the plan. We're getting divorced. And we're staying together. Sort of. The marriage is over, but neither of us is leaving.
FINALLY, the story is over, and I present my questions:
--How do you get divorced? Who do I call? The local courthouse? We really don't want to bring a lawyer into this.
--She makes min-wage (she's working fulltime now). I make about 4x that. What's a fair amount of alimony to give her? Half of what I make? More than that? How would child support work when we're both going to be supporting the children? When you answer this one, tell me what you think a judge would rule. I want her to get every dime that she has coming to her, but I don't know how to begin to determine that.
--I recently learned the term "Separate Leases" in an OOT thread. Our lease is up, coincidentally, in a few weeks. I must insist upon separate leases...but how much should we each be paying? Should I be paying 4x as much as her, or is that taking this fairness thing too far? Will the landlord go for Separate Leases? He's going to ask why, and if I say, "Because my wife is so horribly irresponsible with money, I won't do business with her," he'll throw us both out in the street.
--Here's the biggie: who gets saddled with all this debt? My initial reaction was, "I'll pay the ones that are in my name, you take the ones that are in your name." Is that fair to her? She wasn't blowing this money on hookers and blow, I'm pretty sure she was buying groceries and putting gas in the car and paying the phone bill. But she wouldn't have needed to if she had been working, or if I had known about it (and could therefore put a stop to it), so is it fair to me that I'm stuck with it? Is there a fair way to divide it, or am I jointly on the hook with her for all of it?
--Any other advice you could offer, I'm all ears. Thanks in advance for the help.
[Cliff Notes: Wife lies about all things financial; time for divorce; we still get along,we're going to remain roommates for the sake of the children; how do you get a lawyer-free divorce? And what's a fair amount of alimony/support?]
