After coming to this sub for the first time and reading, my story maybe some of the same old nothing new from all the rest. I just thought I'd share since I'm in the deepest and worst part of it the cycle, that time when there is no light at the end of the tunnel. And maybe there are other's out there that are in the same situation wondering whether it'll all end.

For the general, we were married for 13 years, all in California. That was as of 4 years ago when I got a long text from her saying she wants a divorce and is staying somewhere with the kids, then 7 and 9 yrs old. As a lot of you know, when you don't except it, it's a bomb drop that completely shocks your world.

Anyways, most of my experience has been since then. All I can say is, looking back I must've been the dumbest sucker on the face of this planet for every step I made along the way but I just didn't know anything about anything with divorce. Before then I was relatively successful, making $250/yr and she started earning more and more, ending up making over $300/yr at that point for some context.

Just after she left and said she wanted a divorce in April 2021, it was like one hit after another. I lost my job in May 2021, went unemployed for 28 months trying to find a job only in LA because there was no way I was going to leave the kids. My dad passed away in early 2022, my only sister got really ill later that year and I had to take care of arranging permanent assisted living and county care in another state just after that.

My only thing I could focus on during that time was to be the best dad I could be and I stupidly didn't do anything else. Meaning, from May 2021 until July 2023, I thought for "harmony" and the kids, I'd try to find the least costly and most cooperative way possible to end our marriage. And that entire period, that means we hadn't filed or anything to start the process. I was unemployed and completely drained all of my liquid accounts to live and could barely get any type of support from her. For some reason, I couldn't get things to move forward either. She also was becoming more and more successful, so while I was pulling in zero and applying to hundreds of jobs, she was making up to $450/yr.

Then in July 2023, the next bomb dropped and she filed for the divorce out of the blue. Through a lawyer. A lawyer I had no idea she even had or that ever existed. Everything that happened in the two years before was almost too much for me to handle and then it got worse from that point forward. I come to find out that she had the lawyer since before she sent me that text and left. That lawyer has been involved and retained the entire time while we made no progress but didn't file and while I had to drain all my accounts with her give almost no support, just something here and there. If you know what it costs to live in LA with 2 kids that doesn't throw them in the worst part of public schools then you know that I was easily plowing through $150/yr just for costs/expenses.

Since then, I find I've got no hope for recouping any of that period of time for back support in anyway because of the courts here and never formally filing. I finally got a job in Nov 2023, at many levels below what I was at and at a significantly reduced salary. Didn't matter anyways, this lawyer once they were revealed, has been burying me in an avalanche of filings, actions, things that require responses, deadlines, actions, whatever they could do. Why? Because anything they do required me to engage a lawyer that I finally hired once I found out she had one. And that gets expensive. So everything I made and more from that job went 100% to lawyers fees and those expenses I had. I saved nothing, didn't recover anything at all lost the previous years and went even deeper in the hole.

The kids? Well, leading up to today, they've gone from 7 and 9 to 11 and 13 yrs old. They've gone from being as happy and stable as could be until July 2023, to thrown into the middle of this hell. I've been the room parent, coach for my sons teams, the dance dad for my daughter, volunteer at school and there every day. She's traveled more than 200 days each year for her job and because she has a relationship overseas so you can imagine how much actual parenting she's done at all.

The purpose of the burying with endless things from her lawyer is it blew us out of costs and, more importantly, we could never get started with our own actions like filing for temporary support or getting them to disclose anything that was require. It has literally been like getting buried in an avalanche that won't end.

So here I am today. Completely tapped out of liquid funds. Laid off again as of May due to the company going into bankruptcy. Over 50 now with no job prospects and trying to find any job I can. We've gone through two mediators, I've spent $200K in legal bills and we are not even to trial. Trust me, I would have settled and moved on a long time ago but the reason mediation and we're here today is because the terms were to get there, I would have literally been left penniless. Trying to take my retirement from before our marriage without basis, no support, nothing as the terms. I'm finally able to get a temporary support filing filed but that might take a while since they've even filed saying I should support her and cover all of her attorney's fees as another tactic. I'm about to move into a two bedroom apartment because I can't afford anything else. I'll give the kids the two rooms while I sleep in the living room to be close and keep joint custody.

I'm hoping we get to trial before the end of the year just so we can move on. I've been told by multiple lawyers, good luck recouping any previous support. I've been told good luck on child support and spousal because i'm the man and the bar is high because of that. My career, after one job for 20 months out of the total 51 months we've been separated, is in ruins. I get an unemployment check and CalFresh benefits and she/her lawyer is saying they are being generous by "volunteering" to give me $1200/month right now. For context, rent for that 2 bedroom apartment in LA is $2800/month alone.

Oh, I'm probably going to get jammed when the time comes as well. They've hired a vocational examiner which I'm supposing will try to make the case I can be imputed at my salary at time of separation in 2021, or based on this last job that was a minority of the last 4+yrs. All of a sudden, all of the briefs and filings coming from them are also trying to establish some story of child endangerment and abusive behavior. That to me is one of the things that is the lowest and worst things I never expected in my life. In all this darkness, I could at least stand up and say I'm a damn good dad, there everyday for them, part of everything they do and to make it feel like they're not sacrificing while she's gone or because of the money situation. I've been told by my lawyer, they can do this because it creates benefit of a doubt for her as a woman, it requires pulling in friends and people that know what kind of dad I am into this mess, it costs more money to do it. And, to really tell the truth, it requires pulling the kids into it, which I will not do to them.

I just want it to be over. I just want to keep what I've got set aside for retirement that I made before we were married. I just want to keep whatever half of things during our marriage that exists, nothing more, nothing less. I just want some support to be able to stay close to the kids until they get through high school while I figure out what I can do to find a stable income after almost none the last 4 yrs.

But it seems like it'll never end. That I'm always having to prove more than I could have ever imagined because I'm the man in this situation. That we're always reacting and this continues to get dragged out. And I'm just tapped out with a few thousand left in the bank, a loan to cover upcoming legal costs through trial and spending on my credit cards driving around in a broken down 14 yr old truck.

The stress is never ending and I don't even remember what life was like when we lived a comfortable life. All it seems like is I've made mistake after mistake, have to prove myself against straight up lies and I have to do it while trying to keep the kids as little impacted as possible. I never thought life would end up this way.