Newbie, mtg w/ attny tomorrow, HELP.
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| Wed, 12-13-2006 - 2:22pm |
I live in Virginia. I'll try to give the nutshell version:
After 19 years of marriage, my college professor husband trashed our marriage d/t mental illness leading to crack addiction. He also cheated on my w/ 2 different women. He's put me & our kids through hell over the last year...THOUGHT I was just dealing w/ a severely depressed/bipolar husband and was caring and supportive until I found out about the addiction & infidelity in May.
He's supposedly been clean and sober for almost 4 months..and for a few months we've been trying to separate/divorce "friendly" for our kids sake (girl 14 & boy 9). The kids & I live in our new house which I worked my a$$ on (painting, trim, stained concrete floors etc) while he did nothing. He initially was taking responsibility for what he did & said we could stay in the house & he would pay for it.
But for the last month or so he's been increasingly hateful & mentally unstable. He spent a week in a psych ward earlier this month. I meet with an attorney tomorrow (had an initial consultation back in June) to file for custody and find out what my options are for protecting myself & kids & keeping our home.
My stbx (NOT soon enough I'm afraid) is now saying he's too mentally unstable to return to work in January (he's been on a medical leave of absence all semester) and will go on disability... This will financially devestate us given our bills and morgage payments.
To complicate matters (although it's a positive for me) for the past 3 months I've been falling in love w/ a man who has been a friend for the past 6 years. I was NOT looking for a relationship at all, but this was a "bigger then both of us" type of thing and we both feel we're in in for long term. My kids and he adore each other. After all my ex put me through he's making a big stink about MY relationship and calling me an adulterer.
Anyone have advice &/or an idea of what I can expect during my mtg with attorney?
Thanks.

it is going to be YOUR attorney. So the least you can expect is understanding and sympathy - plus good advice.
Given your ex history of mental instability, it should be a quite easy case - calling you an adultress should not much help.
This is usually a good site: http://www.divorcenet.com/states/virginia/va_div and it gives you a lot of reading material, so you will be prepared with questions to ask your lawyer. Note that the court can take it quite hard if it can be proven that he is not going back to work in order to hurt you and to avoid paying alimony... so I would definitely consider talking to doctors.
I wish you BEST OF LUCK!!! and I am soo happy for you about your new BF, you can use the support and he is going to be sooo helpful with the kids and everything.