Strategy regret

SurvivorFamilyCourt · 2025-12-07T03:11:57+00:00

Cancel the credit cards. Take control. It’s your money.

debauchery89 · 2025-12-06T04:38:58+00:00

I have the same problem and I’m not sure what to do about it either. There’s a decent chance that the surprise may piss her off and set the time for a nasty fight. But.., is it really a surprise? You said she knows it’s coming, as does mine. What are your other options? Trying to talk to her about your strategy? That won’t work either.. I’d say to give her more time to prepare a response. I can’t help but wonder how much the attorneys prefer to strike hard to stir up an expensive fight?

engineered-chemistry · 2025-12-06T01:55:23+00:00

I don’t think you are living in reality. The temp hearing will set pendente lite support for her (temp spousal support) and temp child support. No judge is going to put the mom on the street with her kids half the time with no income from the higher earner.

You need your attorney to show you the “worst case”. Expect that. The cards will be stacked against you no matter what. Hell she could drag out the final divorce hearing for years and all that time you are paying her a presumptive amount with zero recourse.

showing13up · 2025-12-04T15:39:28+00:00

For those that are asking, the state requires at least 3 days of disclosure before an Order of Appearance. We are doing 10 days in case it takes a couple days to get her served.

A lot of the comments are a little harsh. I’ve been in this Reddit forum to see how guys get fucked in these things, and I don’t want to get fucked. So an aggressive approach seems like the most obvious. I am the sole breadwinner and know I won’t walk away unscathed financially. Hell, I don’t know how I’m going to survive after this.

I know gpt isn’t the best advice, but it’s telling me that temp orders in place will almost always result in the final decision. You guys are making me feel like I’m screwing myself.

Point is, I feel guilty at how aggressive I’m approaching this.

NohoTwoPointOh · 2025-12-04T14:45:02+00:00

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! Oh, sweet summer child!

Do you think family courts and Title IV-D give a rat's ass about fairness, righteousness, best interests of the child, or any of this sugar cookies and butt-blugs fantasy that "GPT" has provided? Yes or No...

If anything other than 'NO', here's how this works:

Who is the higher earner? This person will be designated as the NON-CUSTODIAL PARENT (NCP) and will be the one that gets financially fucked because the State can extract more from that parent instead of the other. Child support is largely a welfare recovery program. The state is compensated by the federal government for every dollar of child support they collect.

If you live in one of the few default 50-50 states (or your kids are all over 18 and out of the house)? Bravo, baby!!! You've all but hit the lottery.

If you live in the rest of North America? Strap in, baby. Logic, reason, facts... All are useless in family court, save egregious cases that can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. And if you think that's propaganda? Here are the gory details, complete with history.

I found a great (so far) lawyer that isn’t going to serve her until 10 days before the temp hearing. She will be ambushed with this and unlikely to organize in time to fight back.

Are you in the USA? Because this is NOT how service works. You are given ample time to respond to the petition against you. All the temp hearing is going to do is set ground rules on behavior, sometimes make you take a goofy class, and go over any state ground rules. Nothing will likely be decided outside of emergency orders and a few adjustments.

Her attorney (unless she's going pro se) will respond with a boilerplate asking for FULL custody (which, perhaps, you should have done for leverage towards a 50-50 split). Every percentage of custody means more money you're going to have to pay. In most states, 50-50 still leaves you paying due to income differentials. Have you run the numbers through your respective state's calculator? What did it come up with?

FUMoney · 2025-12-04T08:59:49+00:00

I found a great (so far) lawyer that isn’t going to serve her until 10 days before the temp hearing. She will be ambushed with this and unlikely to organize in time to fight back.

Serve her what? A hearing on what?

Sounds like total bullshit. Read the civil procedure rules of any jurisdiction. They have highly specific time periods, called a "briefing schedule," to ensure both sides have sufficient time to file a motion and memorandum in support, the other side has sufficient time to respond, and the moving party to file a reply.

This also is called "due process," meaning sufficient time to respond and a fair opportunity to be heard. Designed to prevent the "ambush" you think is coming.

Also, a "temporary order" allowing you to sell the marital home? Automatic denial. There will be specific rules around that too, especially financial disclosure. Unless you are in an ass-backwards country that would permit this.

Cohabitation should be comfortable.

I think you are in for a serious education concerning litigation. ChatGPT ain't it.

DancingBear62 · 2025-12-04T03:42:02+00:00

Don't feel bad. So many in this thread tried to be a bigger man, only to be screwed

Hiding_From_Ex_Wife · 2025-12-04T03:33:23+00:00

Here’s what lawyers do, they huff and they puff and they say we are gonna fo XYZ and then the other side does something else to mess it all up and they hope that you don’t ask “did you know that was going to happen?” You serve her 10 days before TO hearing and then she will find ANY attorney who will ask for an extension and they will get it because…of course they will. And honestly, they deserve the time to prepare.

My ex got sold a dream by her attorney, and frankly still is getting sold a dream, to the point where she is challenging a prenup. The commissioner already reinforced the reality of the prenup and ordered as if it was enforceable, but her attorney is still apparently contesting everything. It’s dumb…and expensive.

I don’t have advice. I don’t even know if you should play by the rules/fairly/nicely or not, I guess I write for expectation management. There are 5-6 sides to every divorce. Each attorney, each party, the kids, and the state. It all feels personal, and don’t get me wrong, it’s very personal, but if you don’t have a prenup, she will get half of everything, attorneys will be paid by the marital estate, the kids will likely go to her mostly(unless they are old enough and want to go to you), she will get spousal support for some time, and if she gets the kids, you will pay child support.

James Sexton, the divorce attorney out of NYC, says their is always a prenup, if you don’t write one yourself then don’t worry, the state has written one for you.

Car_fixing_guy · 2025-12-04T02:49:43+00:00

It sounds like you’re in the angry stage of the divorce right now and the anger is clouding your judgement. If she hasn’t worked, the court will more than likely give her emergency spousal support. I don’t know your situation, but if you look at this objectively, how do you expect her to be able to have any financial assistance? At the end of the day she’s still the mother of your children.

What state are you in? It sounds like you have a lawyer that’s going to milk you for every penny they can.

And he before you say I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m in the final stages of a 15 year marriage with a stay at home wife. I’d recommend mediation if at all possible.

WhydIJoinRedditAgain · 2025-12-04T01:35:13+00:00

Please don’t make life decisions based in A.I.

Come on man. That isn’t helpful. That may or may not be accurate. LLMs predict what a response of an input should look like, not what it actually is.

Computer programs can’t take responsibility. That rests on you.

Talk to a lawyer. Talk to other people who have been through a divorce. Jesus, don’t listen to A.I.

upvotersfortruth · 2025-12-04T01:26:58+00:00

Did your lawyer advise you she won’t have time to prepare and fight back?

Title	Strategy regret
Author	showing13up
Upvotes	19
Comments	23
Date	December 4, 2025 1:20 AM UTC (7 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1pdmnif/strategy_regret/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/strategy-regret.1568006 https://theredarchive.com/post/1568006

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