SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Did you tell your wayward about your intention to divorce before or after you filed? Advice please.

Before, but it pretty much was a foregone conclusion. My hard line in the sand was no sexual contact with anybody but me. In our MC session, he confessed to sexually assaulting somebody, and that was it for me. I said that I was done and we would D. Dumbass looked confused when I asked if she was pressing charges. He didn't realize what he did was wrong, and I realized he would never be a safe partner.

My only regret is that I stayed with him for way too long.

I did not tell my xWS my intention to D. When I left I wasn't even sure, all I knew is that I was happy being on my own and away from him. We were separated about 2 years before I filed and he knew when he got the D papers.

I gave my WS many opportunities to rehabilitate and told him I'd give him a head's up before I filed. I kept asking, "Is this really what you want to do?" He kept saying he didn't know. Unbeknownst to me, he was violating no contact. When I found out for the third time he'd violated no contact with the AP, I filed.

It helped me that even once you file, nothing is final until the final divorce decree. Once I filed, his true colors came out in a blaze of glory, so I knew I made the right choice, however hard it was.

My ex actually called me while he was working in another country to tell me that HE was leaving ME because he didn't want to work on the marriage or fix what he had broken. This was after he accidentally emailed me what he clearly meant to send the AP a week before. And this was how i discovered he'd broken NC and was still in the A. I got the message on a Sunday and by Monday afternoon, I'd made a few appointments with attorneys. I didn't tell him, and after he made his announcement, I didn't feel the need to tell him I'd already seen a few attorneys to find out info on D. What was the point, he was leaving anyway, right?

Fast forward to him coming home. Bright and early the next morning, I had him served (with LS papers initially). The whole drive home from the airport late the night before, he was talking about how he was going to leave first thing in the morning and he would file within the next few months.

Explain to me why he was shocked and curious that he was served? I will NEVER forget in a million years what he said. "How dare you (while his vein was pulsing like crazy and his fist was clenched)! You've been sneaking around with lawyers and attorneys behind my back. How could you do this to me!" You know, as opposed to him sneaking around sticking his dick in strange and stranger. Go figure!

You cannot make shit like this up. Wow, I haven't thought of this in years.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 3:59 AM, Monday, January 6th]

Before. After DD#2 a week ago, divorce was a foregone conclusion and WH knew that. The only open question was the timing of the filing, and I told my husband two days ago that I'll be filing this coming week. I want the D process to be as constructive as possible, and I don't think that surprising him with a filing would set the right tone.

But there can be a time and place where surprise is helpful. I did a post nup demanding immediate division of real estate assets as the fatm we live on was purchased with my own home as equity but later on, the farm mortgage was paid off with a large chunk of his inheritance he first had wired over and deposited to our joint account, thereby "commingling" it. Otherwise the source of those funds could have been a legal sticking point. But the idea of gifting him my old house and him gifting me the farm was brought up by a friend, and it seemed like a winner IF HE'D AGREE TO IT. As he had just been arrested for soliciting a prostitute (12 years after my first D-day about his little habit) I was 100% DONE after devoting years to trying to R and hours of MC that had clearly only prolonged my misery.

Like StillLiving, I was calling the divorce lawyer the very next day.

Lawyer drew up customized property separation papers that assigned him my old house and remaining mortgage (smallish yet I didn't have the monthly income to pay) and deeded the farm to me, free and clear of debt by that time. Lawyer wasn't sure he could do that as a post nup, once I backed down from a Separation after soft-pedalling the idea to my WH: If you want to stay M'd, would you be willing to sign an agreement gifting me this farm, and I give you the other house in exchange? WH was desperate to avoid D, so he said yes he would.
I went to the lawyer to change the Separation to a Post Nup with a tiny twinge of guilt, as my intention was still to go ahead and D him, but see how my life would change for a little while, and give him a little grace period to notice if he started doing serious work on his psychological issues, before actually "filing."

My lawyer did his homework and learned that in our state a married couple can gift property to each other as if they were separate individuals, so I asked the lawyer to draft a Marital Agreement with deeds of gift for those 2 properties and keep 1 additional, jointly-held piece of land as joint, since I hadn't financially contributed to buying it. (If we D it still is subject to Equitable distribution, I was told.)

The lawyer advised me to be sure to present the paper to him in a public place AND not to sign anything until he and then I sign it in the presence of a Notary Public.

So I picked the papers up at the lawyer's office one morning, met WH wfor lunch at an outdoor garden center, then sat down and pulled out the legal paperwork, handed it over the little bistro table apologetically and said "I hate to do this to you, but it is what we talked about." He instantly choked up, seeing the lawyer's name and the legal papers in his hand. (Even though I had said I was going to an attorney.) I think it totally blindsided him, but this was a good way to handle what could have blown up. Just as he was reading how he was surrendering his spousal rights and losing the farm he helped me pay for, along came an old couple from his men's group at church and asked how we were doing!! I almost thought I saw the angel wings on their backs!!! I feared a violent outburst or something (so did the lawyer!)

We left right from there to the County Courthouse. Did the Agreement signatures and Notarized it. Then over to a real estate attorney's office next door, as my lawyer said he didn't do that kind of work. WH asked me "What's the rush?" I said "I've waited 12 years for this moment!"

She found out at the moment she was served. Never had any discussion directly with her about it from that point on. Only through the attorney. She didn’t deserve any more of my personal time.