Moral dilemma: To sue or not to sue?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2005
Moral dilemma: To sue or not to sue?
4
Thu, 09-07-2006 - 7:48pm

Hi there,

You have been great help to me so far and now I am thinking of doing something different regarding my divorce and need some input and advice.

Originally, we (STBX and I) did not want to use lawyers or mediation to make the process cheaper and quicker. One mitigating factor for me was that I inherited a house and STBX was put on the title to refi. Two years later, he is cheating and I ask him to leave. Because I inherited the house, I told him either he signs a quit claim to the property and lets me have it (or the money from the sale, it was on the market before he left) OR we go to court and I fight for it. In return for not suing me for half of the house value, I told him I would pay off all of our bills. While we have been negotiating, he has been indicating that he will not pay the full amount of child support that the law would allow and he will only pay me small amount of spousal support for a short time and will not pay for me to be retrained (I was a SAHM). He also moved away from us, about 150 miles away.

He signed the quit claim. Now that he is not on the title and I still own the house (it is still for sale though), I had an epiphany that I could sue him for the full amount of child support, spousal support (we were married 16 years) and for retraining using a lawyer. I still plan on paying our bills like I promised I would.

My question is: Should I?

There are a lot of circumstances surrounding why I am considering this but mainly he was a chronic liar and chronic cheater. He makes a lot of money (I do the budgets and bill paying and that is how I could be a stay-at-home mom in California) but thinks that he shouldn't have to pay me anything but child support because of the money I will make from the house (about $170K after bills are paid). I think he should pay me what I deserve legally because he walked out on his wife and child for another woman and also moved far away, making visitation difficult and infrequent. I feel like if I settle for only what he wants to pay financially, I will be "rolling over" (the term I have heard).

$170K won't buy much of anything in California and my son just started Kindergarten this year. After "losing" his dad with this divorce, moving far away to buy a house is an option, but just not right now. My plan was to sock it away for college money or retirement money or emergency funds until I am able to figure out what we are going to do.

I am unemployed and my work experience is several years old so I definitely need to go back to school.

Comments, opinions? Has anyone "rolled over" and regretted it?

Thanks,
Robin in California (Silicon Valley)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Fri, 09-08-2006 - 12:04pm

Hummmmm..... I'm guessing that you're already divorced?????


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2005
Fri, 09-08-2006 - 12:38pm

We aren't divorced yet. We had decided to file an uncontested divorce ourselves, using someone else to fill out the papers for us. I have the papers now and have been going over them and was planning to file them next week. What happened was that we discussed how much he would pay for child support and spousal support and at the time, I agreed. I have not filed those papers yet because I am wondering if it will be worth it to really go to court if I could get more child support and spousal support than he is offering me. I also know I qualify for him to have to pay for retraining, and when I asked him for help with that, he refused. So I thought I'd see what anyone had to say.

With regards to the joint debt, I am offering to pay it all (not including the mortgage, the remaining bills are about $30K) because he is not suing me for half of that cash from the sale of the house (before paying the bills it would be about $200K). I figure if we were split everything down the middle, we each wind up with about $85K in cash after we pay our half of the bills.

I am also wondering why you think I would not get spousal support at all--is it because of the cash I would have? I thought if I am unemployed I would be entitled to something besides child support.

Thanks,
Robin:)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Fri, 09-08-2006 - 2:35pm

Oh no, no, no, no... if you were already divorced... it would be unlikely that you could go back and get spousal support.


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2005
Fri, 09-08-2006 - 4:29pm
Aha, now I get what you are saying. Thanks!