Divorcing an abuser

ExpiredPleaseUpdate · 2025-07-03T11:39:42+00:00

>Unfortunately, I don't know if I have any hard evidence of her abuse.

I am not a lawyer, but I think that means you are out of luck.

Pretty much anywhere you have to prove such stuff before it's actionable. Otherwise it's "he said, she said".

Maybe you can provoke a recorded conversation and make her confess, if it's legal where you live.

Pleasant-Mechanic-49 · 2025-07-03T08:31:24+00:00

Oregon is a "no-fault" divorce state. ie They won't "punish" her but look at the numbers and make things "equitable." so You can't say, "She was mean, she gets nothing." BUT u can say, "Her actions caused specific, provable financial damage to our marital estate, and that needs to be factored in." Here are your main angles of attack.

Financial Abuse & Affairs = "Dissipation of Assets." u need to prove she wasted marital money on non-marital things. lke hotels, gifts, dinners, and trips for her affair partners is money that was STOLEN from the marital pot.
Her Abuse Wrecked Your Earning Power. This is a harder argumen but If you can prove the emotional and psychological abuse gave you PTSD, anxiety, or depression that has hurt your performance at work or forced you to take time off, the court can consider it. It's a factor in your "health and earning capacity." of course You'd need a therapist to back this up.

When u meet the lawyer, make sure to have questions in inverse order of importan e & RECORD (dont ask/tell). So u can listen carefully when relax. He is paid by the hour so dont make him repeat/write stuff down. U can search back at home details on whatever he said. u will be astonished on how he said things & u did not even remember it bc your brain was processing what he just said 5s ago

Todos While Your Lawyer is Busy & to help me & spend less

Financial Detective. your #1 priority. Get 5+ years of bank and credit card statementsLook forSketchy Venmo/Zelle/PayPal transactions to people you don't know, Hotel bills , resturant, ATm withdrawals you didn't make+Any evidence of secret credit cards or loans.
Abuse Log." Start writing down every incident of abuse you can remember. Don't just write "she was mean." Be specific:
- What+When she did/said: "Threatened to ruin my reputation at work if I left her in June 2022."
- How it impacted you: "I had panic attacks and couldn't focus at work for a week."
GET A THERAPIST. u need the support to heal.+ Your therapist's notes and testimony are to back up your claims about the abuse and its impact on your health and career.
Laboratory STD check 💉+DNA parental test
:⚠️DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE⚠️ unless a judge orders it or signed agreement
1. Once out, she becomes the primary caregiver
2. She wil drag this divorce out for years for Free housing and financial support BUT If you stay, she'll want to speed up the divorce
3. +You pay for a house while she brings in the new fuck buddy
4. 🚨 If she to forces you out, demand financial compensation or virtual rent since you're still paying for the property & need to pay another rent. This makes her think twice about exploiting the situation.
:Resilience: the capacity to absorb and manage difficult emotions. Fulld etails here

upvotersfortruth · 2025-07-03T07:31:20+00:00

Spousal support comes in a few flavors, usually it's either modifiable or non-modifiable, temporary or permanent. From what you've written it looks to be temporary, so the question will be whether it's will be modfiable (the default is usually modifiable). Basically, if you expect to make more money over time, it should be non-modifiable. If you expect to make less money, modifiable.

Spousal support paid over time also comes with conditions, the main one being that if she cohabitates or remarries, your obligation ends. There is a lot of game playing that goes on with this (essentially her sneaking around to avoid some technicalities), so ask your lawyer.

The third option is a lump sum payment in exchange for her permanently and irrevocably waiving her right to seek alimony. This can be a better or worse deal, depending on how you think it's going to go with her and how bad she is with money. But usually it's something around your monthly payment times the number of months and if you have a house to sell with a lot of equity, usually it can come out of those proceeds.

So you kind of need to weigh your options in light of her behaviors. And your lawyer should be able to help you with this. With lump sum, you can expect her to come back looking for more later - but she'll have no right to it so make sure you can deny her that. With her infidelity, you may be able to catch her cohabitating or taking some other action that extinguishes her right to alimony before the 8-10 years. So really, it's educated guessing and betting on which method is going to work out best for you.

In terms of reducing the amount or the duration, in a no fault situation that's difficult. But what you might be able to do is get some credit for money she's spent on her affair partners and whatnot. This is called dissipation of marital assets or wasting of marital assets, but each state treats it differently.

Hopefully that's enough to give you a few questions or things to explore with your lawyer.

Expert-Raccoon6097 · 2025-07-02T23:57:50+00:00

Oregon is a no fault state. Google the state calculator, plug in the numbers, this is what you will be paying.

No_Pace2396 · 2025-07-02T22:59:10+00:00

Do you have bruises, trips to the ER, and police reports? If not, there was no abuse.

ImpermanentSelf · 2025-07-02T21:29:59+00:00

The court doesn’t care.

NothingIsEverEnough · 2025-07-02T21:16:56+00:00

Pay a lump sum up front. Claiming abuse after the realization that you have to pay support is difficult for the court to swallow. You’re not the first one doing so, whether the abuse is substantiated or not.

guy_n_cognito_tu · 2025-07-02T21:12:19+00:00

"Financial abuse" is hard to prove, especially if you're claiming her "Abuse" is her spending too much money. Emotional abuse is equally hard to prove, unless she's been harassing you in writing in an obvious way. To prove any of this, you'd have to pursue a fault-based divorce.......which will cost you about 5 times what a no-fault divorce will cost.

Reflog1791 · 2025-07-02T21:08:24+00:00

Might have some luck carefully accounting the amount of money spent on the affairs and using it as leverage to make a more favorable agreement regarding alimony.

My advice is think in terms of game theory, optimizing your moves for your best financial outcome. This definitely includes consideration of paying lawyers tens of thousands of dollars.

If you play your cards perfectly you can probably optimize a settlement in mediation. I wouldn’t be talking with the stbxw at all until you’ve done your homework. Pitching the final settlement with the right words at the right time is worth big money.

Title	Divorcing an abuser
Author	stillemptyinside
Upvotes	16
Comments	25
Date	July 2, 2025 9:00 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1lq785c/divorcing_an_abuser/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/divorcing-an-abuser.1556190 https://theredarchive.com/post/1556190

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