I'm in the process of a divorce and have been separated since August. My take home income from a small business has gone up significantly mid divorce (100k to 180K) and so now she is wanting a larger chunk in alimony and now wants a larger equity settlement from the business buyout. We had our business appraised by a professional firm in our city at the time of separation and agreed on it's valuation for purposes of buying her out. Now that she sees it become more valuable immediately after our separation she wants a much larger chunk.

It is super frustrating given the fact that it's really blossoming because I'm not dealing with her shit on a daily basis. I have more time to focus on our kids and growing our business. She materially did not contribute to the business for about 14 years and frankly refused to assist in any way. If a delivery needed to be made for example, she scoffed at the notion or groaned about having to participate. Or she would want to be paid immediately and have sole use of the income from any participation, while all of my efforts went 100% to our family account which she had complete control of.

Since covid, I took on the majority of family responsibilities, cooking, cleaning and of course providing the bulk of our income. She works part time (5 hrs/day) and gets excellent health benefits for the family but only makes about 7k/year. Leading up to covid and during the beginning stages, she ramped up her animal hoarding (accumulated over 150 quail and chickens in a residential neighborhood). It lead to even bigger stress in our marriage as our house became filled with flies, stench, feces and became overrun with a mice infestation due to the myriad of animal feed everywhere.

At the peril of our marriage, I began rehoming animals and she screamed and yelled and pleaded and begged me not to. During the midst of this we got a CPS visit due to the conditions I described to my therapist. She is an animal hoarder. I felt that we got the house back to a reasonable state and then she requested a divorce. We separated and agreed on 50/50 custody with her remaining in the home.

Now as the months have gone by, she has gone back to her old ways and accumulated dozens of various animals. Each room is filled with stench from urine and feces. My youngest daughters room has become uninhabitable because my STBXW used the room to let rabbits run freely for weeks in the space and they defecated all over the carpet and the bed. It has been condemned since at least September and so she doesn't have her own room. Just to give an idea of what animals she now has: 2 dogs, 4 rabbits, 2 pigmy goats, 2 snakes, bearded dragon, 2 pet mice, 4 pet rats, about 30 chickens, hamster, 4 exotic birds. These are from what I can remember. There is probably more. She is unable to clean all the cages regularly due to the overwhelming quantity of animals. She lets the animals roam free in the house, including the chickens, goats and the bearded dragon. The pet birds are free to fly around and they perch on the cubpoards and poop down the edge onto the counter tops. My son reported to me that mice have infested the home again.

At our mediation yesterday, she had the audacity to request $4000 per month in alimony and 1300/mo in payments for the business plus child support and requested an additional $60K above the professional valuation of the business. On top of that she wants me to stay on the mortgage so she doesn't have to refinance. She has absolutely has no shame. In mediation, I told our mediator, we would work on the financial portion first and leave the living conditions/animal hoarding secondary. We ran of out time because she took so long trying to make a case to the mediator for her absurd requests so we never got to the living conditions. The mediator came back to me exhausted and said, it looks like we're going to have to get the attorneys in mediation for the next round. We scheduled another mediation and I think i'm going to make the living conditions be the primary discussion and request that the home be sold immediately and hope she backs off on the rest of her crazy demands.

I am just angry and at times actually feeling rage. I just can't wait to get through this divorce. She has no consideration that I'm raising our kids in a rental and I'll have no hope of home ownership for at least 7-10 years meanwhile she sits on a house that will be paid off in 4 years worth nearly $500k. She expects me to just move from rental to rental while she works part time and provides a shit hole living situation for my kids in a home that I paid for. It's infuriating.