So like many of you what started off as a supposedly amicable divorce settlement quickly turned into anything but. Cliff Notes version of the background: She cheated, I called her out on it and all hell broke loose. No abuse, both have great jobs and have 50/50 custody of the kiddos.

Anyway, despite us both having lawyers I tried for months to negotiate a settlement with her directly via email. In June I just wanted to move on and gave her a deal so amazing I thought nobody on planet earth could turn it down. Nope, she didn’t take it, I nearly fell out of my chair when I read her response. That got more and more complicated as she did all kinds of financial gymnastics / fraud to try to boost her cash portion.

Anyway long story story it became very clear that her position was less about the actual money and more about me just not having it - I’m sure some of you can relate.

So, as a compromise I agreed to a chuck of my “half” being equally put into a 529 for my 4 & 2 year old. She went for it. Point of my story is that I just paid college tuition for both my kids at a tiny fraction of what it could have cost me 16 / 18 years from now and got this shit show over with.

If you’re dealing with a rediculous STBX look for out of the box solutions that can work.