Yup.

This is the knot at the end of the rope to which I'm clinging.

You are not alone - remember that! We are here and I'm sure you have your family and friends supporting you as well till all this weirdness gets sorted out. Things will be different, but theat doesn't mean they willl be worse - in some respects they will be better. Good luck tomorrow!

Deuce, I don't have much more to offer than what others have said. My only experience with divorce is through watching the 60% or so of friends and family we have had go through it. Expect the worse, hope for the best. Don't be to trusting. Decisions have been made and minds made up. Get a good lawyer who will protect your assets. I have watched more than one guy, who did not want the divorce, trust the other party to play fair only to go to that fateful day in court and be taken to the bank, or near bankruptcy, for 20 or more years. I personally would hire a private detective and see what else may be going on. Just be careful. Good luck.

I think you might have been responding to my post...and I think I left it open enough with my responses. Fact is...she made sure that it is illegal for them to talk, no matter what her intentions were at that time. No blame. Just the truth. I also did not blame her if the fault was his. I did not blame him if the fault was his. I blamed her if she perjured herself- if she was not in harm's way and stated that she was a victim. I do not know...but it is a common tactic. I saw this game play out once in my personal life and the kid suffered the most. He was almost killed by the heavy handed game playing of the adults involved. It turned out really, really badly.

Follow the attorney's advice to every letter and everything else will work itself out. Don't take any chances Deuce.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^See above ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Good morning to you all.

I am still interviewing/shopping for counsel. I have to pick TODAY. I have two more meetings today.

I have been through much in my life. Complicated childhood, parental strife, blended families, death, marriage, parenthood, financial struggles. A lot. I have never been this discombubulated. I have never been this conflicted, this uncertain. I deal with an unknown future all the time, professionally and personally. Figuring stuff out is "how I roll" to borrow a phrase from a recent post of another dwellar.

I have not yet figured this one out. I have parts of it figured out. I'm crystal clear that if I don't get my shit squared away, and right now mister, the other side will become reality by default. That's bad, m'kay?

My difficulties have a few important aspects. I don't know how to do what I want to do. But the pros do. I don't know how to pick the (relative) best pro. I'm going to be leaning very heavily, no, completely on my gut on this one. There aren't rules, there isn't a peer reviewed established "best practices" method of choosing counsel. I'll be winging it. That makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Normally, when the stakes aren't so high, I like exploring the unknown. Let's go for a ride and see where we wind up. Let's order something new from the menu. Let's go see something we haven't seen before. In those cases, if it goes well, yay. If it goes poorly, oh well. Max downside, an indigestible meal, or we're lost and we wasted a road trip, or we see a dumb show. No biggie.

But this time... if I choose poorly, I will have paid a lot of money and gotten an extremely unacceptable result. Recovering from that mistake will take a long time and will likely be even more expensive, though it is unlikely to be fatal. *breathe* Ok. So I guess I can pick without being paralyzed with fear of making a terminally wrong choice. The stakes are high, but I cannot avoid choosing poorly by not choosing any. That is obviously worse still. I'll know a lot more by the close of business today.

After you choose counsel, you should tell them about this website and your posts here so they can review what you have written. They need to be prepared if anything you have written here is presented in the courtroom by her attorney to be used against you.

I also suggest that you don't erase any messages your wife leaves for you on the answering machine/voice mail. Save them. It's possible they may come in handy later. The fact that she got a restraining order against you and is leaving messages for you instructing you to violate that restraining order can't be good for her position.

Your gut is a good start, but considering the amount of wringing it no doubt has endured of late, this advice might be better:

Divorce should not have to be adversarial, but sometimes (most often) it just is.

I have faith in you, Deuce. It sounds like you have been taking the steps you believe are best in the long run, though sometimes they are the most painful. You are stronger than you might sometimes think.

IMHO the best way to find a good lawyer is to ask around of people who have had similar experiences and find the one lawyer that is most adversarial to her lawyer. Find out who this guys most fierce competition is. Choose him. Remember this is about the next 20 years of your financial life and your ability to move on from here. Each of my brothers paid alimony for nearly 20 years, 20 fuuking years! Neither will have a dime when they die. It all went to the ex. They were never able to save a thing. Prepare for it to get ugly.

Is that to me or to Deuce?

To Deuce. Its great advice. That and the old adage - hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

When perceived nightmare is reality- it's really hard not to try and throw in the towel, shake hands, and let it be over.....it's just not going to be in this case.
When someone asks for the State's intervention- there is no going back to normal.

If you are going to do this, DO IT.
Separate your intellect from your emotion.
I rarely give this advice and hate to do it, but sometimes it is needed.
There comes a point where one need divest from what makes us make decisions based on compassion.
If you are going to do this, do it right, as it need be done. Listen to your lawyer and if you begin to win, when she calls... and she will...
Well... just listen to your lawyer.
I just want to say that I'm sorry it came to this dude, but if this is what needs to happen, really... make it happen and don't look back.
Not going to go into why the "game" of in-and-out of pain and "I wonder" harms everyone more than you can imagine, but it does.
IMO, for the sane, this is a one-way-street.

I am a chump.

Why so Deuce?