6 years ago, I filed for divorce in my then 19 year marriage. It was mostly amicable, finalized 6mo to the day of my filing, even though she didn’t want the divorcee label. She stopped working her excellent job 6mo after our first kid was born and hasn’t worked since - including up through today.

CS ended 6mo ago. We have the Gavron Warning in our judgement and last strategy discussion I had with my attorney was to file for a reduction of support around now, when the time is up for her to file for an increase due to the change of circumstances of CS ending.

When Covid began, I filed through my attorney for 50/50 custody. I rolled over at the beginning of our divorce because I was newly sober; she said she’d fight it (“not gonna happen” were her exact words) and when she said she didn’t think I’d stay sober I felt I didn’t have any leg to stand on and figured I’d go after a custody change later.

Well, I stayed sober and filed but the mediator recommended “status quo.” She made no secret that she was only fighting the custody change because she feared a reduction in CS.

A couple years later, she’d told me she was extremely mad at me for filing, mostly because she had to pay her attorney a bunch of money to fight it, suggesting that perhaps we could have made an agreement outside of attorneys.

So I called her yesterday, reminding her of that discussion, and said I wanted to open up the discussion about ending spousal support.

Long story short, even though she lives in a home valued (on Zillow) at $900k she owns outright, and got a fat inheritance of $200k cash in 2021, she sees this as a threat to her lifestyle (of not working) and livelihood.

She whined about how no employer will even call her, that she’s a victim of ageism, and because she doesn’t have a degree, nobody is interested. I got sucked into trying to make suggestions about taking her inheritance to start a business, and cited that she’s had 6 years to get a degree. This just made the whole convo confrontational and it took me 10 minutes to get out of the debate.

My attorney had said that it was actually unlikely to realize an actual change in support if I were to file, but the judge would put her on notice that the clock is ticking.

She tried to press me as to when I might engage my attorney, and I just told her that depended on her. I figure I’ll give her a week or two to think about it. And see if she comes up with anything. If it seems like more status quo, I’ll just file.

I had a glimmer of hope that she would be understanding and be open to negotiating an end date, but that was really just wishful thinking. I’m pretty sure she’s strategizing to try for more money rather than a reduction. We shall see.