So, this is all a fresh wound for me. Been married going on 7 years in November. We have 2 kids 6 and 4 and then a 10 year old she had prior to our relationship. Wife has been a stay at home since our first was born. Off and on jobs the past few years but nothin longer than a few months.

I have been fighting depression and anxiety for the past few years and she has been soul searching and finding herself so needless to say it’s been a rocky road for a while but I naively thought we could make it through this, that it was just a speed bump. Last week she states she wants to move forward with a divorce.

She wants us to sell the house split the profits, separate, and then get the divorce finalized at a later time and date. She plans on moving in to a home of a friend who also is recently divorced and then gaining employment. She states she has a job lined up already. She is already planning on moving out mid September. She is determined to start her own journey. So she obviously has been planning this for some time now.

Typing this out I realize how crazy all of this sounds.

She states she doesn’t want to rake me over the coals for child support. She wants to split out custody exactly like her other sons schedule, 50/50. She says she wants to hold off on the divorce finalization so we can show the courts that we are able to function with this arrangement. She states she is willing to sit down with me, write down all of our agreements and get it notarized. And when the time comes use that paperwork as a the skeleton of the actual divorce.

Hypothetically, if I did all of this, and we met an agreement, documented this all down and then got it notarized… would that hold up on any way shape or form?

I’m afraid we get it all written down, notarized, waste all that time, sell the house and split the money, then she spend a whole bunch and I save…. Then divorce finalization comes around and she takes more.

This is Missouri.

Like verbally we agree on everything. And I’d like to get this done amicably. I fear that if I fight her timeline she will fight other areas even though we have already verbally agreed.

Any thoughts on this?

Like I said, this is all fresh, I’ve been wallowing all week, I took my self pity time, now I’m ready to push forward. Any advice?