Sorry for reposting as a similar subject, but after going through so much in the last few days with my "future ex-wife", I think I now have the right questions to ask now that the situation has developed more and gotten much more complicated and hard to put an end to.

An amicable agreement seems more distant than ever, and I'm so exhausted and stressed with this whole situation. And this is starting to affect even my job.

I also apologize for the long message, but there's a lot relevant context to this that I have to disclose as well to provide more context for opinions and a more accurate assessment.

My situation seems to have some unusual nuances that I'd like to share. I'll try to organize it with numbers so each point can be addressed or commented separately:

  1. Spousal Support + Child Support (California)
    1.1 My wife's particular situation:
    I make 8k net monthly.
    My wife only works part time and feels entitled to say she will not work full time - in part it is because she had a back surgery Aug last year and still feels pain in her leg (well, guess what, I have two herniated discs and work with pain constantly too). She's never been on disability and I do not think any doctor would put her on disability. She goes to the gym every day and works out aerobics and weights, so it would be interesting if I took pics or recorded her doing that to show that in court in case she tries to argue she "can't physically" work full time - which is obviously not true.
    1.2 Kids situation: I have two kids 13 and 19. The 13 year old daughter will be shared 50/50 so technically I'm entitled to only half of child support.
    19 year old has a special circumstance that does not allow him to work so he must fully provided for, which characterizes a hardship on me (at least is what I'd be asking the judge to consider). Do you all think this would be considered by the judge though?
    1.3 13 year custody + Child Support: I talk to my 13 year old and she says she wants to live with me 50%, but my wife tells me over and over again she doesn't want to and says she wants to live with her 100% (I'm assuming because that will bring her more child support income). Anyway, this might have to be decided by the court and my daughter will probably have to say what she wants in court or to a mediator herself. This also might go down that way.
    Anyways, I used a CA child Support online calculator provided by my local county here and figured half of child support (assuming I'll have my daughter 50%) is around $530.
    1.4 Spousal Support calculation: this is where it gets more tricky. I've been trying to come up with figures for spousal support but nobody seems to understand this quite well. The general rule for CA is the spouse gets 40% of the husband's net income - (minus) 40% of the other spouse's net income. So the first issue is that my wife only makes $1,000 or less, so that doesn't help in the calculation. Like I said, she's reluctant about it and thinks she's entitled to not work full time like any regular human being. I understand it doesn't matter what she thinks, and I don't know whether she'll try to pull a "I had a surgery and can't work" type of thing in front of the judge, but she's definitely capable of working full time. IF she works full time, that's over $2,600 a month at minimum wage, which makes the calculation much less harder on me and lowers my spousal support. However, it seems I would have to ask the judge to impute her a full time income instead of what she's going to pretend to be (a poor girl that only makes $800 a month). If the judge imputes her full time wages that's really good for me. But will he/she?
    1.5 Spousal Support Calculation => 40% of my net income is $3,200 minus 50% of hers as a full time ($1,300) = $1,900 (and that without considering the hardship with my son, which would potentially make this amount even lower).
    1.6 Proposal: I proposed the following to my wife after much back and forth and various failed attempts: $2,000 in Spousal Support + $500 Child Support = $2,500 total but she told me a big resounding "NO" saying she wants more money.
    She even said she is going to spend all of her equity in lawyers if she has to, just to get what's "just" (of course she thinking emotionally and trying to compensate her pain in resentment through money - which never really will... but that's how she thinks now).
    1.7 Potential New Proposal: I honestly don't know if I should, but apparently there are many cases where the man offers the wife his equity on the house in exchange for never paying spousal support but only child support. Will the spouse take the deal? I do not know... Do I want to give her the only liquid asset I have in life in exchange for not paying Spousal Support? Maybe... not sure what to think yet... even if she accepts that. The thing is that I do not want to propose that out of impulse, because I can't take it back, and once I open that can of worms....
    Any insight on this is very welcomed too!
  2. Inheritances:
    2.1 Her inheritance: my wife's mom passed away a long time ago and left her $7,500 so once we started the divorce she would knock on my door every day (sleeping in separate rooms at that point) saying she wanted that money back, that I didn't have the legal right to touch it, blah blah blah... So I ended up giving it back to her since it was in a bank account I own myself.
    2.2 My inheritance: the same way, my parents passed away and left me with $20k which I used as down payment on the house. Apparently, since I can trace that money back to the inheritance and prove I used it on the house, I got legal advise saying I have a good chance of having that money back. However, as you can probably imagine, my wife feels entitled to say she won't accept to pay me that money even though I gave her inheritance back to her, she won't do the same for me! Believe it or not...
  3. House: I was planning to sell the house or buy my wife out by getting a second mortgage for $100k so I could give her her 100k equity portion. Since I have a 2.8% interest rate on the current mortgage, refinancing is not an option now with very high interest rates.
    The original plan was to split the equity after I recover my 20k inheritance back, but she won't admit the idea of having that money deducted from the equity before splitting it, which creates an impasse on the house as well. I know, great right?!
    If I took the inheritance money out of the equity she would get 90k instead of 100k, which she won't accept. She wants at least 100k, which would also force me to give up on my mom's inheritance as well, so it really feels like I'm the only one making concessions here.
    Guess what? Even if I wanted to give her 100k, I can't afford it. The 10k I'm getting back is to help pay for the debts we still have, which must all be paid off once the divorce is final, so I was going to use this money for that, but if I walk away with no money...
  4. Debts + House Expenses: we're still living under the same roof, and as you can imagine my life is hell right not, so this whole situation is making a lot of pressure to be solved asap. I'm not only paying for all expenses on the house (mortgage, utilities, etc.) but also for all debt. She's getting her salary in her own account and I don't see any of it, which I don't care since it's almost nothing anyways. But I'm the one paying all her debts off for the last months since the divorce petition was filed in August, and she's not contributing on the house. I know I can ask the court for half of all the expenses I'm paying since August, but honestly I just want to end this situation. By the way, she doesn't believe me when I say I actually can and calls me all sorts of names.

I know this is a lot, but I'm getting to my tipping point with this whole thing. I've been so stressed and mad with all of this which makes me feel hostage of this marriage.

With the divorce (especially after 31 years together total), it also comes all sorts of things, so I have to endure them as well. It's not easy... we all know too well.

Thanks for your patience and I appreciate any feedback here!

Cheers!