[SoCali E36]

Build a guest house in the backyard and live in it?

[jzchen]

Originally Posted by mylydiamy

Hello all,

I finally decided to end my 19 years of unhappy marriage (shoud have done it long time ago but it is too late for that). Yesterday I talked to a divorce lawyer ($400 for 1 hour consultation ).

A few words about my situation: I am 42 years old. I have a 14 years old daughter. My wife lost her decent paying job 2 years ago, and now making almost 1/3 of what she used to make. Although she could make similar amount of money that she used to but she is too lazy to take a job which would require longer commute. I make about 6 times more than she does. The lawyer told me I have to pay PERMANENT alimony around $3500 and $1200 child support (join legal custody, but my wife would have physical custody). This is like $56K a year as long as she is not remarried. It is like a brand new base M3 every year.

I was hoping 2-3K a month but for maybe 3-5 years, never thought about lifetime.

I worked my ass off to get to where I am while she was parting with her friends. Financially she will be better in situation than me if I can not do anything about it. I am so pissed off that I am even thinking about quitting my job (computer programmer) and just live on my savings for a while so that she couldn’t enjoy my money. I know this sound stupid but I am so pissed of that I am afraid I will not be able to use my logic. Just thinking about she is enjoying my hard earned money with her future boyfriend is enough to make me go insane . Now I understand why people’s life go upside down after divorce.

Anyone can give me any advice in order to reduce the amount or length of the alimony?

Thanks

I only read your first post, (sorry.)

Don't end the marriage. Follow the vow you made when you got married, assuming that is you said until death.... (I don't know what religion, if any, you follow, but I am following mine to great effect...)

I'm not sure what is making you unhappy, you only mention about her job and money....

[MediaArtist]

Originally Posted by Rowdy

First off.. sending an E-MAIL about such a thing? that could be a pretty big indicator of the lack of proper communication.. but still.. most girls these days cannot and do not want to deal with issues.. they'd rather just move on to something new.

Agreed. That's what I'm talking about. It's made to sound as if "sending an e-mail" about intimacy problems is somewhat normal.

This isn't a knock against shah, but for every guy on here who says "Woman are snakes, only go for women who are CEO's making $500,000 a year and have a great body", there are plenty of guys who married a normal girl from their neighborhood, or college, found their best friend for life, married them, and kept it altogether while having the best time of their lives.

I just wanted to point that out for the young guys who think marriage is a death sentence. If you're looking for the right woman, and most importantly, you know what you are looking for, then it can work.

[MediaArtist]

Originally Posted by carve

I think one reason I held out so long is that deep down I always had doubts.

You married someone you had serious doubts about?

[johanness]

Originally Posted by MediaArtist

You married someone you had serious doubts about?

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Rowdy

First off.. sending an E-MAIL about such a thing? that could be a pretty big indicator of the lack of proper communication..

Ya think?

Originally Posted by MediaArtist

This isn't a knock against shah, but for every guy on here who says "Woman are snakes, only go for women who are CEO's making $500,000 a year and have a great body", there are plenty of guys who married a normal girl from their neighborhood, or college, found their best friend for life, married them, and kept it altogether while having the best time of their lives.

I just wanted to point that out for the young guys who think marriage is a death sentence. If you're looking for the right woman, and most importantly, you know what you are looking for, then it can work.

Absolutely. I hope single guys out there don't take what the selected ego's here are spewing forth as church. There's plenty of guys (myself included) who enjoy being married to their wife; because - wait for it - they're magnificent AND not perfect at the same time. Imagine that.

Not taking anything away from the OP who obviously has had his life turned upside down. Condolences, really. Just not buying select 'tips for success' here.

[shah269]

tip for success?
simple
1) Prenup
2) Don't marry a woman who is uneducated
3) Don't marry a woman who does not have a career
4) Don't marry a woman unless you have lived with her for a solid 2 years

And remember if it goes to shit, and there is a good 50/50 chance it will.
Society will blame you the the man for the failure.

You cleaned the house and made dinner every night because she did not know how or wanted to? How dare you? It's your fault because you took away her sense of responsibility?

You paid for her education and backed her up and supported her in improving her mind? How dare you? Was she not smart enough for you?

She cheated on you? How dare you? Not fulfill all of her whims and be there every second that she wanted you there?

And what gets me....it's one thing to hear this shit from women....because let's face it a woman can crash her car into a crowed of people killing dozens while she is putting her make up on while driving and other women will blame the crowed for getting in her way....it's when bros throw you under the bus and blame you....even if they are your best friend or so you thought...that pisses me off to no end. I know I hold the notion of being a Bro very close to my heart. A friend is going through tough times..I'm there...no judgement at all...I'm there!

If you are going through a divorce or have survived one, don't talk to any one who has not been married....they will think you are lying. Don't talk to any one young...they just don't get it. And for the love of GOD don't you dare talk to anyone who is married..for in the eyes of a married man...a divorced friend is like a walking pathogen.

As for me, yup got the note via a text. And no I nor any one of my friends or family had any idea what was coming. Perhaps her family did but they didn't tell me.

[carve]

Originally Posted by MediaArtist

You married someone you had serious doubts about?

I was still in college- young and naive. I took for granted she wanted the same things as me and would become who I knew she could become. My doubts were a lot bigger a couple of years in though.

That's why I'm giving advice now- live and learn.

[carve]

Originally Posted by jzchen

I only read your first post, (sorry.)

Don't end the marriage. Follow the vow you made when you got married, assuming that is you said until death.... (I don't know what religion, if any, you follow, but I am following mine to great effect...)

I'm not sure what is making you unhappy, you only mention about her job and money....

Sounds like he put years (arguably TOO much time) into making it work. Life is far too short to be unhappy or live for the pleasure of another at the expense of your own. Sounds like she broke her vows first- to love, honor and cherish, to have and to hold.

[sohcpunk]

I think the national average which everyone hears is 50% divorce rate but it's scary to see that in California, the rate is a staggering 75%!

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by sohcpunk

I think the national average which everyone hears is 50% divorce rate but it's scary to see that in California, the rate is a staggering 75%!

Those damn celebrities throwing off the average...

[mylydiamy]

Originally Posted by Seminole

Those damn celebrities throwing off the average...

Haha! Good one!!!

[persian54]

so the only way to get out of paying alimony is if she gets remarried or she disappears right?

Prenups are the way to go.

If you don't pay alimony, i assume it's like any other debt? and simply hurts your credit/goes to collections right?

Find a family member you trust and just give him/her all the cash you get. then claim bankruptcy. Should clear the debt right?

I know nothing about alimonies :/. And hope to never need to find out

[shah269]

Like anything else in the world there are some common issues which can lead to divorce.
1) MONEY! Money issues will kill a relationship fast!
2) Family! Does your mom hate her or does her mom hate you?
3) Sex! No I’m not kidding! If you are ready to rock and roll every day and she’s a once a month girl….ha ha you are dead!
4) Predisposition to divorce…in the family, her friends or other.

And all these apply to you as a dude! She may be a once a day kind of girl and you may be a once a week kind of guy? You may have issues with your job and be worried about money while she is doing well and you can bring that stress home and blame it on her. And you may come from a whacked out family.

So assuming you have a stable job, come from a good family and match your partners sexual requirements then well things may be ok and there is nothing to worry about.
But as any good investor / gambler (can you tell the difference?) will tell you. You should always make smart bets and if you can’t you should hedge and hedge well.

So in this case the facts are the facts. What you should be looking for is a woman who is educated. Now if you are a high school dropout….forget about it. But if you have a masters she better have at least a bachelors in something slightly more difficult than say communications. This will allow both of you to have a common lexicon to pull from when it comes to communication. I have a masters, I have attempted to date women who have no more than a high school degree. It’s a disaster…ever attempt to explain odds to someone who can’t even do basic math?

Next career. So you can speak a common language but if there are money issues you are screwed! So only marry a woman who is career minded and has worked hard on having a career. This simply means she is a long term thinker and can at some level work and live above the chicken heads and their drama. So if you do hit a tough patch she can see into the future and see that it is just that…temporary. And due to have a stable career she will help with the finances of life.

Athletic. If someone does not care about their body do you think they care about their home or let alone their relationship? Note many of us divorced guys are saying we did the cooking and cleaning…it wasn’t because we liked doing it. Rather we were doing what needed to be done to live in a civilized and clean home. And let’s face it…if she starts packing on the pounds because she is preparing to hibernate for winter…you my friend will not want to fuck that thing and well we have issues.

And you may wish to have a prenup. If you make any real money so that you have some sort of savings and or own assets…have a prenup.

[MediaArtist]

Originally Posted by carve

I was still in college- young and naive. I took for granted she wanted the same things as me and would become who I knew she could become. My doubts were a lot bigger a couple of years in though.

That's why I'm giving advice now- live and learn.

I think it's great that you're sharing your experiences.

[JayML]

Traits unhappy couples have in common


David Bakke never thought he’d get divorced. At the start of his marriage in 2006, the 45-year-old from Atlanta, GA adored his wife’s intelligence — and was magnetically attracted to her to boot. Nonetheless, soon after tying the knot, cracks appeared in their relationship. “I was a saver, and my wife was a spender,” Bakke says. “She liked to leave a big mess in the kitchen and clean it up afterwards; I liked to leave as little to clean up as possible.” While each disagreement was small on its own, “You’d be surprised what an effect it can have on a relationship,” he says. “Not necessarily the habits themselves, but the unwillingness of one spouse to attempt to change them. Many more than one of our arguments began with, ‘If I can’t even get you to put the toilet seat down, how can I ever expect you to…’”

By 2010, Bakke was divorced, and baffled about how he’d gotten there. He was also worried about whether he could trust his instincts for relationships in the future: How could he know whether the next woman he was with would stick around? While none of us has a crystal ball, scientists have found that certain traits are common amongst those relationships that founder. Here are some of the most common ones to watch for — and what to do if you encounter them in your own love life.
Browse Local Singles at Match.com on Yahoo!
I am a: Seeking a: Near:
Identifying the “four horsemen” of failed relationships
Dr. John Gottman, director of Seattle University’s “Love Lab” and founder of the Gottman Institute, has studied thousands of couples for decades. By dissecting every nuance of their rapport from eye rolls to shrugs, he can predict with 94 percent accuracy whether a relationship will eventually dissolve. Four traits turned out to be the most reliable predictors of a breakup (especially when they’re combined in some fashion), so Gottman named them the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” These traits include: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Criticism involves attacking your partner’s personality or character by saying something like, “you never help with the dishes” or “why are you always so late?” Contempt involves putting your partner down (i.e., “you’re stupid for believing that”). Defensiveness often involves rebuffing your partner’s complaint with one of your own (“I may be late, but you’re way too uptight about it.”) Stonewalling involves clamming up and refusing to hash things out with your partner at all.

“We all do all of these things — that’s not the problem,” says Katie Ramsburgh, a counselor at the Gottman Institute. It’s when these flaws run unchecked that they can drive a couple apart. To keep this from happening, all you need to do is learn some techniques to combat them. For example, if your partner says, “You haven’t been helping much with the dishes,” don’t immediately volley back with, “Yes, but you haven’t been pitching in with the dog-walking much.” Instead, hear what your partner has to say, and then acknowledge it. Replace negative generalizations (“you never make an effort with my family”) with constructive specifics (“It would mean a lot to me if we spent more time with my family over the summer”). Based on exit surveys, 86 percent of couples make progress on a major gridlock issue in their relationship using Gottman’s methods, which are taught to them in a two-day workshop.

Enough about the bad stuff…what about the good?
While couples tend to hone in on the prevalence of negative interactions to predict whether or not they’ll split, the prevalence of positive interactions is equally critical. According to Gottman, the ratio of positive-to-negative interactions should be 20 to 1 during normal conversations — or 5 to 1 during an argument. These results were echoed by Terri Orbuch, project director for the NIH-funded Early Years of Marriage Project at the University of Michigan and author of Finding Love Again: 6 Simple Steps to a New and Happy Relationship. In her research, she found that 67 percent of happy couples say their spouse “often” made them feel good about themselves, whereas only 27 percent of unhappy couples could claim the same thing. The moral of the story: While you might assume your partner already knows you think he or she is smart/funny/sexy, or that you’re grateful he or she cooked dinner, it’s important that you reiterate your appreciation for each other often.

Marital affairs are rarely the culprit
Think infidelity must be the top cause of divorce? On the contrary: William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota and director of the Couples on the Brink project, found in his research that the main causes of divorce weren’t the highly dramatic ones people might expect (like adultery or domestic violence), but rather the “soft” reasons, like “we just grew apart.” Doherty isn’t sure why this is the case, although he has his theories. “We think that it may be that the softer reasons are ones where they don’t have a lot of loving feelings anymore,” he says. “If your spouse cheated on you, you may still be in love with [this person], and still might ideally want it to work out. But if the fires have just gone out, that may mean you’re less optimistic.”

The upshot? Don’t assume that just because you two don’t fight constantly or get in jealous spats that everything is OK. You two need to continue working on the “soft” side of your relationship, too. In particular, engaging in new activities together — from taking a Thai cooking class to salsa lessons — will add additional sparks. And here’s why: novelty drives up your levels of dopamine, a chemical in our bodies that’s also released when we first fall in love. In one study, Arthur Aron at the University of New York in Stony Brook asked couples to spend 90 minutes a week together engaged in familiar pastimes, such as dinner out or a movie. The other group of couples spent 90 minutes a week engaged in more unusual activities. After 10 weeks, couples filled out a marital satisfaction survey. Those that had gone on unfamiliar dates were much happier than the ones who had stuck with doing the usual stuff — proof that staying in love isn’t as mysterious as we might think.

[mylydiamy]

Originally Posted by persian54

so the only way to get out of paying alimony is if she gets remarried or she disappears right?

Prenups are the way to go.

If you don't pay alimony, i assume it's like any other debt? and simply hurts your credit/goes to collections right?

Find a family member you trust and just give him/her all the cash you get. then claim bankruptcy. Should clear the debt right?

I know nothing about alimonies :/. And hope to never need to find out

I hope you never need to find out about alimony in your like... It is very difficult to get out of alimony, at least in New Jersey as laws varies from one state to another...

In order to get of of alimony :

1 - You should not have any assets on your name. But you can't simply transfer your assets to someone else and claim you have no money! This has be to done gradually and cleverly

2 - You should have low or no income. But you simply can not quit your job and don't get a job or get a very low paying job. You need to to prove to court that you unintentionally lost your job and you are doing everything you can to get a similar paying job but unable to do so.

3 - Another way id to prove to court that your X is making enough money now to provide herself the same standard of living (she lives with someone, or she is making more money than she used...)

[amanda hor$t]

if there's a next time: prenup (or get all your shit in a trust, preferably swiss)

[Rowdy]

Originally Posted by shah269

Like anything else in the world there are some common issues which can lead to divorce.
1) MONEY! Money issues will kill a relationship fast!
2) Family! Does your mom hate her or does her mom hate you?
3) Sex! No I’m not kidding! If you are ready to rock and roll every day and she’s a once a month girl….ha ha you are dead!
4) Predisposition to divorce…in the family, her friends or other.

.

I agree totally with you here shah. Every relationship that went sideways for me was relating to two of those four things. Usually money and the predispositions to poor relations. The money concerns only escalate when the rest of the relationship starts to slip. Unfortunately for us, greed is everywhere, and it is now deemed acceptable for girls to generally speaking, ride the gravy train.

#2 and #4 usually relate to each other. If the family is batshit crazy, then it can be assumed that she deems this as normal and if not, its still under the auspice of acceptable. If mom has had 3 or 4 marriages and doesnt deal with her own issues, she'll see this as normal or acceptable. if the parents are together still and they scream at each other.. she'll deem this as acceptable. It didnt make sense to me when I was 19 and my pops would ask me 'whats her mother like?' I simply thought he was being a dirty old man. FAR cry from it.

I dont think a lot of the comments on this thread have been warnings to the younger men to NOT GET MARRIED.. but more or less a look at what can go wrong and what to avoid in relationships before it ends up costing you large amounts of your hard work and chunks of your life. If you dont learn from your own mistakes so what, if you dont learn from the mistakes of others, you're an idiot!

Now to keep things positive..

I've searched for a while and worked hard to meet someone who is on par educationally, monetarily, whose parents are still together and has a family life that would be considered solid. She is also active and takes pride in her body and possessions. We are well matched sexually (another huge make or break point) My parents like her, her parents like me. We agree on most grounds and have very similar morals. The big key here.. communication. We talk. About everything. All the time. If either of us dont like something, it's brought up swiftly and politely. We Dont belittle or bully each other. We're also both the type of people that go out of our ways to help others and make ourselves better. We both understand and know how to compromise. She knows which of her friends and peers are disasters and ignores their examples, as do I. This doesnt mean I'm going to run off and marry her tomorrow, but it does paint a rosey picture of what is out there. Oh and for the record. we DID NOT meet online, nor would I ever go back to that world. SO many disasters, hidden under a veil of cute pictures and well worded profiles. I dont recommend it. But I do recommend that you both put together a prenup when you meet the right lady.. and before considering her the right lady.. make sure you're BOTH on the same page and you understand her faults and can live with them

[carve]

Sounds like a catch. Where did you meet her?

[Rowdy]

Totally at random. Was staying at a buddies place while I attended a weekend long seminar. He had a few friends over, she came along with one of the friends and spent the entire night flirting with me. The rest is history.

[shah269]

Yes!
+1
And do your best to live near a large city. As in under 10 miles away.
I screwed up and am stuck 35miles/2 hours away from NYC and dating here is shit on a stick bad. Unless you are into fatties who are uneducated. Which well note the rules above are a mess in the making!

[upstatedoc]

couldn't wait to click on this thread and see what marriage advice shah had.