My wife is insistent on moving herself and my children from Oklahoma to California. I do not, and will not, consent to this move. Our marriage has been dead for years and I know that if the wife had the means (she's terrible with money and has destroyed my credit) to initiate a divorce she would in a heartbeat if it meant she could move to California.

As for me, I've put up with her for years as a means to maintain peace and get as much time with my children as possible. However, I recently took a job as an over the road truck driver. I know this wouldn't help my cause, but I had hoped that making the sacrifice of being away from home for the sake of improving our living situation would open her to compromising. Alas, she's already interpreted it as an opening to try to leave. ("I don't see why we have to live here. You're never around.")

Tomorrow, I'll return home from the road for the holidays. She wants to "discuss" (translation: fight about) where we're living since she didn't renew the lease on our apartment. I know she's plotting something, but I also know she's helpless without my income so I have some leverage—for now at least.

I'm going to stall for time by telling her that we should wait until the kids finish school for the year before discussing any major moves. During that time, I'm going to cash out an old 401k from my previous job and use it to put a lawyer on retainer. I have a couple of damning recordings of her I can use (me trying to compromise with her and her stating she wants to kill herself over living here), but need more in case she tries the ol' "claim abuse to get a restraining order" trick. (I've never abused her, but I'm 50% certain she'd lie if it suited her cause.) I'm hoping that if I preemptively divorce her before she can me I'll be able to keep her from leaving with my kids. I don't care what it costs me in child support, so long as I can keep my kids away from the trashy elements my wife came from.

So what do you think? Can I pull this off? Any advice? Warnings? Please, no fatalism or rhetorical information like "talk to a lawyer."