This may not be brief, but I'll try.

I have been married for 9 years. I'm 34 and my wife is 46. When we got together I was kind of a loser. Over the course of the relationship, I finished college, started a career and have a second job I work at least another 40 hrs a week.

She started off being exactly what I wanted, but within the first two years, she stopped wanting to do ALL of the things we used to do for fun and sex became nonexistent. She became very jealous and verbally abusive. I let her handle the finances because I thought I wasn't mature enough to handle it. However, she wastes all our money and makes huge financial decisions without my consent. On several occasions she threatened to take half of everything I own and move my daughter out of state. At the time I believed her and was terrified to stand up for myself.

I wanted to leave five years ago when my oldest stepson graduated high school, but that summer my youngest stepson decided to live with us. We are very close and he has had a shit childhood were people constantly let him down, so I gutted it out another four years... he just graduated.

We had a huge blowout argument in December, and she threatened to divorce me again. The next day I called into work and talked to lawyers all day. They informed me she had NO claim to my house and 50/50 custody was quite possible. She tried threatening again and I told her that, and not to let the door hit her on the way out.

Since that day, she has tried much harder and fixed most of the little things she does that bugs me... but she is still spending both of our paychecks in a matter of days, no sex in six months (my decision now, and a whole other story), and we still have nothing in common.

My resolve is firm and I invoked the nuclear option. My direct deposit changes in 14 days and she will no longer have access to my money. However, I don't feel the animosity I did, and want this to go smoothly. I doubt this gets done without an expensive court battle,but is it possible to just use a mediator to set up asset dissolution/child support/alimony/ and custody? Or should I just lawyer up and preemptively go scorched earth?