TLDR: Been navigating a divorce for a year with my assets locked up. There is nothing left to fight about but I can't finish the process without spending even more money than I have already spent 30k+ in lawyer fees alone, My ex is utter chaos and can't be relied upon to act rationally about anything. I'm trapped in a perpetual cycle of lawyer fees and no action.

So I'm at my financial wits end with this divorce. I'm thankful my position is not as dire as some I've read on here but I'm out of answers at the moment.

Divorce was filed in August and I've lived in my own apartment since July, after leaving my emotionally abusive and unhealthy relationship. I vowed to not put my daughter through what my son has had to grow up around. I had started the process multiple times before but never followed through with it in fear of not being able to see my kids wake up everyday. Eventually I knew it was a better decision for my children to have a father that enjoyed his life and didn't have to grow up in an extremely toxic home. I wanted to make sure the children had a stable household to weather this in and let her stay in the house even though its on my VA loan.

Fast forward, my ex has gone off the deep end. We had wrote out an arbitration document many times before when we had played divorce charades and I had hoped we would stick to it. Then the accusations came out whenever I did something she couldn't control. So I lawyered up and she did as well. We spent the next 5 months negotiating on our initial child custody order as well as massive delays and stall tactics from them until she torpedoed it out of nowhere and we had to go to court 2 separate times to get a temporary order. After that was all said and done we both didn't get what we wanted in regards to time with our children. Now I have spent the last 4 months just trying to GET DIVORCED!!! She has no assets I want, I have no assets she wants we each have our own debt. The only thing I want is my VA loan out from under her, the equity I'm owed in our house and to be done with this. I'm now about 30k in debt from lawyer fees alone not including having to start a new life over from scratch. The kicker is, I can't sell any of my assets to pay it off or to have a war chest for my lawyer. I just found out today I owe my lawyer another 5 grand and I don't have any more money left. How the hell can I just get divorced? I know she is probably in a similar situation since her lawyer has made many clerical errors having to resubmit orders to the judge. Her lawyer won't respond to most of our communication which has forced me to spend more money to get them into court to wrap this up.

If I could get out of this mess I could sell a rental property I owe to get out of debt or use the equity from the house she is currently living in to start over.

When I ask my lawyer all the answers are more legal action that cost more money. My life is infinitely better for me and my children after a year of hell but it feels like I will never escape it. Anyone have any experience finishing this process without lawyers or have been in a similar situation?

Keep up the good fight.