I should have listened

Old-Macaroon8148 · 2023-09-09T12:48:42+00:00

I haven’t finished mine but in the same boat - she gave 50/50 custody immediately because she wants extra time to travel with the guy she’s been seeing. Wife & I are trying to negotiate and settle prior to spending extra money on mediation but her offers are like 25/75 and I’m not going for it.

Others have mentioned on here that men consider 50/50 a win and women consider 50/50 a loss. It’s difficult man, stand your ground I know I am.

ijustdontcare74 · 2023-09-09T14:32:25+00:00

When they say that they’ve “lost themselves” it usually means that the method of “finding herself” is by jumping onto as many dicks as possible. It always amazes me that the preferred method to heal from a broken marriage is to sleep about.

captainchippsixx · 2023-09-09T12:56:42+00:00

Get another mediator. They are supposed to be neutral.

Lumptbuttcat · 2023-09-09T15:38:02+00:00

I’ll just offer what I learned from personal experience:

If you are getting advice on reddit regarding assets, need to make sure advice is in context. In the US, there’s community property states and equitable distribution states. Makes a very big difference.

Need to understand the objective of a mediator. They are considered successful if they get a settlement. It doesn’t mean fair or equal. They also do not project or communicate how a judge will likely rule. In fairness, neither will an attorney. However, they will communicate the risk.

All judges have one thing in common. They hate getting straightforward and clean divorce cases in their courtroom. My lawyer told me straight, up at our first meeting, that most all cases are settled at mediation. If they don’t settle, it’s because one person is being unreasonable. In most every case, the unreasonable person loses more in court, than they would have otherwise settled for at mediation.

Either_Evidence_1986 · 2023-09-09T13:30:03+00:00

Bro I couldve wrote this myself. Dealing with the exact same thing. It feels like I'm negotiating against my ex and the mediator. I want nothing more or less than 50/50 of everything yet its getting pushed and altered with the mediator favoring my ex. My mediator has not negotiated with my ex in regards to one thing I want. Which is true 50 50. Its infuriating. I also am paying for an attorney on my own dime. We've gone through 3 rounds of mediation and blown through half of the retainer. I'm hoping to finish up before the retainer is gone but losing hope. My attorney says well just file in court if we don't have an agreement by then.

I ordered a home appraisal for the home. That way there was no question what the value was.

I wish you the best of luck. Stay strong.

prepend · 2023-09-09T17:42:35+00:00

I’d keep some of my stuff and my retirement

It seems unlikely that any judge would let you keep your retirement. It's a community asset and will be split 50/50. Even if you are the only one who paid into it. Even if you funded other stuff that she keeps instead of retirement.

One thing that helped me is to create a "marital balance sheet" that lists all assets and debts. Unless there's some special circumstance (it's a pre marital asset, it's inheritance and your state breaks that out), it's getting split 50/50.

It's an easy way to evaluate her lowball offer. If she's offering 60/40 for her, then that's lowball. If she's offering 50/50, then that is normal.

It also helps get past the hundreds of arguments that come up. Somebody wants the $10k grandfather clock, then just take $10k out of some other asset, etc etc.

techrmd3 · 2023-09-09T15:58:35+00:00

>> I’ve lost almost 50 pounds, feel great, working with a therapist and building myself back up for the benefit of my kids. Once this shit is settled, I’m going to launch off and become a bad ass MF. Im working on me.

this is really great for you!

For women it's the FOMO fear of missing out. They are losing you as a future meal ticket so they grasp like a drowning woman at everything.

Ride it out if her numbers are way out of line you can go to a judge and he will equal it out. But note... your retirement will be fair game.

ThunderFan462 · 2023-09-09T18:01:59+00:00

Did you marry my ex? This is literally how our go at mediation failed. Except mine said she wouldn’t pay me at all for the house lol.

Set a court date. It set the tone we weren’t playing around anymore and were willing to let a judge decide her fate. Funny enough a week prior to court she gave me 50/50 custody and was willing to pay for the house.

dadplup · 2023-09-09T22:33:56+00:00

Mine wanted everything, I mean everything, custody, cs, 401k, alimony, all the belongings, she felt entitled to every single thing.

Sometimes people let others fill their heads with ideas that are not logical, I tried to negotiate with mine on good faith, which wasn't easy, she refused to meet in a public place with witnesses around and recording the meeting, I sent a proposal to get for an equal division, I even volunteered to buy her off the things that she wanted and to buy her engagement ring wedding band set to give to our daughter ,as I knew she needed the money more than the actual stuff , but she rejected it off hand and demanded everything threatening to go to the cops if she didn't get it, and she did call the police, and cps for our daughter that was staying with me, she was old enough to decide that on her own.

What she didn't know or cared to know, was that I would've gave her anything and everything just for a cordial custody agreement, not that I wasnt gonna fight for the kid, but I knew my chances were small until she was older, 2 I never expected her to accept my proposals, but instead I put them out there to have a record showing that I was trying to be reasonable, had she taken them I would've follow thru and signed,I wanted out, I was playing both sides against the middle knowing that I was gonna lose no matter what, it was about minimizing the damage.

I documented every unreasonable demand, every text, every threat, every time she canceled the meeting we had set up, agreed to her conditions of bringing her friends over to said meeting, had police reports of the times she called them and the cps report too, by the time we went to court I had a stack of papers that my lawyer was ready to present the judge, the ex knew it and she decided to not show up to court for the custody hearing or for the prove up hearing, she never answered the divorce papers either ,by the time it was all said and done, she got nothing except the clothes on her back and what she took when she left the house, I got custody and she was placed on cs for about a year until our daughter turned 18 , which she only paid a couple of months.

I was willing to give her every financial consideration and split things without being greedy, not that it would've mattered as the judge would've done that for us anyway all I wanted was a fair custody agreement that's all nothing more than the standard schedule that courts use ,

Sorry about the rant, my point is this document, save and maintain your composure, she will try to use that too probably claiming abuse so never never ever met her in private or without your lawyer, always in public places and with witnesses that are not related to you or her, protect yourself at all times

EnvironmentalAd3558 · 2023-09-09T22:45:02+00:00

Negotiations are tricky. I learned that you can not cut to the chase and offer at first what you think is fair. In fact you should make every effort to get her to make what she wants in her settlement demand first. Most likely it will be excessive and if so you know to respond and do so with a low ball but still significant offer. Then you can go back and forth to reach something in the middle. Even if her first offer is reasonable and something your might accept find something small to negotiate on to create this back and forth.

From a psychological standpoint we need to think we got the best deal that we could get. That is why you need to go through the negotiation process to finally reach that point.

There are of course exceptions to this like when she is still greatly under the fog of an affair when she just wants out.

Many husbands using their logic, offer too much up front and go to a first offer of some form of 50-50 just to get it over. That does not usually work out well especially if she is unrealistic. Her demands prior to the foot steps of the trial court will remain high and even if the judge goes 50-50 or she accepts 50-50 at the courtroom steps you are out a lot of legal fees, time and frustration. If you made this mistake do not push for negotiation and make her come to you with her demand and then respond with something less than 50-50 (like 5-10k less). Make her work to get you back to a 50-50 split. If you don’t settle just repeat the next go around with even less of offer the next time.

A good settlement is anything equal or better than what you would highly like get after trial after considering the costs of going forward and other risks of litigation on you.

Mangrove43 · 2023-09-09T22:50:01+00:00

It all sounds good until you talk about money

Title	I should have listened
Author	Classic-Ad8157
Upvotes	39
Comments	47
Date	September 9, 2023 12:34 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/16e4n20/i_should_have_listened/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/i-should-have-listened.1231165 https://theredarchive.com/post/1231165

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