SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Merry Christmas to you as well. Best wishes moving forward in 2024! You’re on the right path. Always value yourself.

she invited herself round for a coffee recently, and was quite abrasive, it turns out that she thought I was in a relationship because she had noticed a car on the drive regularly, but not all the time so she knew it was not mine, and for some reason she was upset by this.

Hey OP, this made me chuckle. My EXWW reacted the same way when she saw I had moved on. She saw me st our country bar dancing with my new GF and got quite upset. People even commented on her stomping around and frowning. Despite allbtge shit waywards pull, I guess they still think of themselves as the victims and the prize.

Good on you for taking back the holidays and making them your own. Merry Christmas

Its a great plan for Christmas Iam.
All the best with your plans for 2024, including the enjoyment of your new freedom.
So have a very Merry Christmas,
FAWH

Hi Iam,

How are you going?
Has 2024 been kind to you?

Do you have an update for us?
Kind regards,
FAWH.

Hi FAWH

Unfortunately 2024 did not start well, my cat that we have had for 17 years got ill and had to be put to sleep, very tough but he had a long happy life so I can take comfort from that. I did the gentlemanly thing and messaged her to let her know.

On the D front everything going well, I applied for a Conditional Order last week which is the next step so now just waiting for the court to approve that, I am then only 43 days away from being divorced. I also have an appointment with my solicitor next week to hopefully tie up the final details for the financial order, so that will also be over soon.

I did receive a reminder letter from the courts this week, and a similar letter was sent to my STBXWW. I messaged her to say that she could ignore the letter as she had already signed that document and I had posted it a couple of days previously.

My messages to her are polite but to the point and only concerned with the D, I have not received any unsolicited messages from her but when she has responded to my messages she has provided a narrative of what is going on in her life. She still does not understand that this is no longer my concern or of any interest. Still does not sound happy, surprise, surprise.

She understands. This is her way of keeping you engaged when you reach out to her. Time to let the divorce play out and no more heads ups.

Oh 2024 just keeps getting better and better. Finally managed a financial consultation with my solicitor this week and not only were my worst fears realised, it was even worse.

So not only do I have to pay her, or give her assets to the value of 50% of everything we own, she gets 50% of my pension because she has not been working and paying into a pension of her own. The solicitor has recommended I use pension offsetting, basically giving her the keys to the house and the money and just walking away with the clothes on my back. Unbelievable. That is not going to happen, there is no way I can walk away with nothing.

And the cherry on the top is that even though she is co-habitating, she is likely to be granted maintenance unless she remarries. So not only does she have an A, and choose to leave, I have to pay her for the privilege of living with her AP.

Feeling pretty down at the moment, and the moral of the story is, don’t get married, and if you do don’t let your spouse become financially dependant on you, make them work and earn their own pension, just in case they decide to have an A and leave.

Iamenough666, I am very sorry to hear your story. Brutal.

Unfortunately the system in the west and other places as well rewards the offender and punishes the offended. As long as it's like that, marriage is probably gonna be the last option for many.

In your case it seems your STBXW will gain at least half of your life's hard work for being a piece of s.... All best to you, man.

[This message edited by Makina at 3:04 PM, Saturday, January 20th]

Oh 2024 just keeps getting better and better. Finally managed a financial consultation with my solicitor this week and not only were my worst fears realised, it was even worse.

This is horrible. One more giant kick in the groin after all you have already been through! So unjust. I’m so sorry!

Unfortunately, this is the way the system is. One of my good friends found out a couple of years ago his wife had been cheating with her Triathlon partner for the past 12 years. He had been working for 40+ years, funding her "hobbies" (like Triathlons) and building towards 2023 when he turned 65 and retired.

His divorce was final a couple of months back. No retirement in sight. The WW lives in their 4000 sf house (with AP/BF). My friend rents a room in a house with 5 other roommates. Not exactly where he pictures himself at this stage of life.

I significantly outearned my WW over the course of the marriage and retired early. Now, I rely on her job for medical insurance. That along with giving her half (or more) of my lifetime accrued wealth keeps me in the "marriage" for now. But it is truly a "pick your poison" situation.

My friend feels his wife should have forfeited her claim to "marital assets" while actively cheating. Hard to argue with his logic. But none of this is logical or remotely fair…

The system should be designed to punish the cheaters severly. It's the only way people will be discouraged to
cheat and break up families. I'm of the opinion that full custody (cheater having limited/supervised access to kids) and everything they own should go to the offended party. Cheaters should be made to pay substantial child support and live rest of their lives regretting their decisions. In my humble opinion, once enough people are made an example of, cheating will go down.

I have tried several times over the past couple of days to think of something positive to say to you... but I get very angry when I see this situation happen, and I really can't say online what I want to say. This situation happens more often than some realize. This same situation happened to one of my brothers. It sucks.

I am truly sorry. I can't think of anything else that might be allowed to say here.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 1:23 PM, Tuesday, January 23rd]

I believe you are in England or Wales? Divorce is a terrible thing there for the financially stronger partner regardless of fault.

Might I suggest that you to focus on two things in your pending negotiations. Firstly, you want to limit the term of the maintenance award. Presumably your FW can work and get a job. You must avoid a whole life maintenance settlement at all costs. You also must avoid having to capitalise your maintenance settlement now or in the future. Having to do that and pay your FW a lump sum equal to the present value of future maintenance payments discounted at government bond yield discount rate is the biggest outrage of all. Fortunately these sort of settlements are apparently diminishing in number but you need to take legal advice on this.

Hi IAm,

How are you going?

Are you coping with the news from your solicitor regarding the financial consequences of divorce?

We'd love to hear from you.
FAWH.

Hi All. Not much happening at the moment, I have my pension figure and 1 of STBXWW, just waiting for the last figure from her then we can agree the final figures to present to the court. I have made her an offer and the final figure we are waiting for will not be large so should not alter that offer much. She is thinking about it, which is a bit rich considering she is going to be receiving a lot more than she asked for.

It was a simple choice in the end, give up my present or my future. I could give her the house and walk away (MY PRESENT), but she does not want to live here as she has moved into a new home, so would sell and I have no desire to move or live in rented accommodation. Or as I have offered I keep the house and she gets everything else, the cash, the investments, both her pensions and my pension in its entirety (MY FUTURE). This would be a pretty much 50/50 split so if she accepts, it will then be in the lap of the judge to see if they will accept it. My solicitor has already warned that because I am working and she is not, the judge may impose a different split, ie 60/40, or even 80/20, which would blow my plans apart completely. So there will be no peace until I receive their judgement.

Loss of my pension is a bit of a blow but I will cope, there is a large age gap between us so STBXWW reaches the UK state pension age in 2 years, whereas (and partly due to the pension age increasing shortly), I still have 13 years left until I get mine. So in my head I have 13 years to rebuild.

Other than that I am coping fine, had a big cooking day today so batched some ready meals up for the freezer, and coming to terms with being single by putting things into place as I have no family to assist with anything. Started planning for the Will I need to have drawn up, and looking at pre-paid funeral plans so when something happens (and let’s face it we all die eventually), everything will be organised and in place. Also have some time off work this week so painting the kitchen to freshen it up and giving my home office a revamp.

Still getting sporadic contact but mostly only when needed, except for a recent visit to collect some items from the garden, netting, canes, potting tray. Her sister brought her as her eyes are worse and she cannot drive. I got very upset after she left for the most stupid reason. It was horrible seeing her like that, not being able to hardly see, and for the last 20 years I would have been moving heaven and earth to help her, but I cannot do that anymore and that upset me. I didn’t have a problem with how I felt because it just shows that caring is still part of my personality, and this situation has not taken away my good characteristics.

caring is still part of my personality, and this situation has not taken away my good characteristics

I'm glad that you can see that you still have your good characteristics. I hope things go well for you through the D proceedings.

Hi IAm,

How have you been coping with the Infidelity Roller Coaster?
Did your WW accept your settlement offer?

We'd love to have an update.
Regards,
FAWH

Hi IAM,

Just spent a hour or so reading this thread. So so impressed with how you have moved forward in this situation. Your house sounds amazing and you are so lucky to have such supportive friends.

Just in case you are still discussing financials - yes marital assets are usually split 50/50, but if this is significant spousal maintenance should not be much, especially when no minor children. I have a friend in her fifties who divorced her WH after 20+ years of marriage and she got literally 1 year of spousal maintenance in court. I appreciate that it is the pension that is the killer for you though, and unfortunately I don’t know much about that.

I am somewhat confused that it was ‘more than she was asking for’. Good grief, if she wasn’t asking for it why is your lawyer offering her more? Couldn’t he just have agreed to her demands and be done with it?

In my experience if you have agreed and a consent order is filed the court is unlikely to intervene further. So don’t worry too much about that step.

[This message edited by Perdita1 at 8:32 AM, Thursday, April 11th]

Hi All

No further progress on the financial settlement, still waiting for 1 final pension figure from STBXWW. I know she has chased this because she forwarded a copy of the letter from the company confirming her request and reminding her that they have 3 months to provide the information. She has agreed to my offer and this outstanding figure will not be high enough to change that, so unless the court decides to intervene it should be a 50/50 split and I keep the house, which is my priority.

Perdita1, according to my solicitor there was zero chance that the court would accept our first agreed settlement as this did not include pensions, and was too one sided. They said to avoid wasting time and costs I should re-negotiate which I have done.

I have also had to deal with some additional emotional turmoil as my mother died at the end of March, which pretty much capped off a tough 12 months. It is exactly 12 months since dday and I cannot believe how fast it has passed. I was thinking about this over the weekend and realised how much happier I am than I was at that time, dealing with the uncertainty and constant belittlement.

Other than that things are going very well, house changes still ongoing, I have changed the office round and now have an empty room to decide what to do with. Still considering wall colour and what use to make of it, games room/movie room possibly. I have a landscaping company coming in shortly to start on the garden changes I want to make.

I am also finalising the practical details to run alongside the divorce as I have no close family to arrange things if anything happens to me, so tomorrow I have an appt to arrange funeral details, and have booked an appt to change my will.

Sorry to hear about your mother. Losing a parent is really hard. My thoughts are with you.

She also wanted to chit chat about things she had done this week, I just did not engage and only discussed things she was taking, I was very polite but just not interested.

Unbelievable!! Things like that anger me so much. I am sorry you are going through all this.