Short marriage, 1 child - some advice?

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WI

Well we got married for the wrong reasons, had a child and thought we were doing the 'right thing' by it

It's been less than a year but we are in agreement that it is not going to work.

We are both pretty level headed and are going to try to do this w/o lawyers.

On my end, she has bad credit and has been an authorized user on my CC accounts for over a year now. We've racked up about 30k in cc debt!

Since they are my accounts how will the judge look on this? Will he count any money spent before we got married? We were together for about a year.

That's my only concern really, we are going to sell the house and split up the possessions, we didn't aquire too much together in the time we were together, the house I bought before the marriage but after realtor fees and whatnot I don't think there will be any money there in this market anyways.

So my big concern is her being responsible for the debt that was racked up.

Any ideas?

Thanks

You can ask the court order her to be responsible for 50% of the credit card debt since she was an authorized user on the account. HOWEVER, the creditor does NOT have to abide by the court order and can still hold you 100% responsible if the other party does not pay.

Why are you selling the house? Is she on the deed and/or mortgage? She would only be entitled to half the equity which it sounds like there is none.

So it is reasonable that a court would order her to pay 1/2? I figure she won't pay, I understand the creditor will want the money from me.

So basically, if I get a court order - and pay off the 30k myself, can I sue her to get the other half? Because I do have a feeling she won't pay (her credit already sucks)

I was guessing the court would make us sell the house, but is all in my name, everythings in my name, cars, house, cc's - only 1 joint checking account. Also should mention I bought the house when we were together, but just not married at the time. Not sure if that matters.

Also we are planning on joint custody of our child, I know there will be some income offsetting which I don't have a problem with (I'm no deadbeat), but how will the court determine who will carry medical/dental for the child?

And hey I apreciate the freeadvice!

johndew said:

So it is reasonable that a court would order her to pay 1/2? I figure she won't pay, I understand the creditor will want the money from me.

So basically, if I get a court order - and pay off the 30k myself, can I sue her to get the other half? Because I do have a feeling she won't pay (her credit already sucks)

I was guessing the court would make us sell the house, but is all in my name, everythings in my name, cars, house, cc's - only 1 joint checking account. Also should mention I bought the house when we were together, but just not married at the time. Not sure if that matters.

Also we are planning on joint custody of our child, I know there will be some income offsetting which I don't have a problem with (I'm no deadbeat), but how will the court determine who will carry medical/dental for the child?

And hey I apreciate the freeadvice!

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The court will NOT make you sell the house since it was premarital. You would owe her the amount of equity that accrued during the marriage which most likely was nothing. Were the cars bought during the marriage? The checking and savings accounts would be split in half if they were funded with marital funds -- income from jobs or the like. It matters that the house was bought before the marriage and is just in your name. The person or people who has/have medical/dental available at a reasonable cost should quite frankly carry insurance on the child. Best situation is BOTH parents have the child insured.

johndew said:

So it is reasonable that a court would order her to pay 1/2? I figure she won't pay, I understand the creditor will want the money from me.

So basically, if I get a court order - and pay off the 30k myself, can I sue her to get the other half? Because I do have a feeling she won't pay (her credit already sucks)

I was guessing the court would make us sell the house, but is all in my name, everythings in my name, cars, house, cc's - only 1 joint checking account. Also should mention I bought the house when we were together, but just not married at the time. Not sure if that matters.

Also we are planning on joint custody of our child, I know there will be some income offsetting which I don't have a problem with (I'm no deadbeat), but how will the court determine who will carry medical/dental for the child?

And hey I apreciate the freeadvice!

Click to expand...

Her half of the debt being $15k, I would keep all marital assets AND her half of the debt and tell her to take a hike.

Bali Hai said:

Her half of the debt being $15k, I would keep all marital assets AND her half of the debt and tell her to take a hike.

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Well two things there really, there isn't many martial assets - most things we aquired before the marriage. Our marriage wasn't huge so most gifts were pots and pans and crap I don't really care about.

Also I am trying to keep it civil for the sake of our child and if I start getting snippy she might just turn and hire a lawyer, then I hire a lawyer and things gets ugly from there. I still have to be around her for the next 18 years so I want to be fair to her, but don't want to get screwed paying her cc bill either (she did most of the shopping).

We are in a pretty good place now and I don't wan't to jeopordize it.

She makes good money, I would be happy paying off the debt if the court ordered her to pay me the 15k in some fashion. If she didn't pay I imagine I could just sue her and eventually they could garnish her wages or somethings.

johndew said:

Well two things there really, there isn't many martial assets - most things we aquired before the marriage. Our marriage wasn't huge so most gifts were pots and pans and crap I don't really care about.

Also I am trying to keep it civil for the sake of our child and if I start getting snippy she might just turn and hire a lawyer, then I hire a lawyer and things gets ugly from there. I still have to be around her for the next 18 years so I want to be fair to her, but don't want to get screwed paying her cc bill either (she did most of the shopping).

We are in a pretty good place now and I don't wan't to jeopordize it.

She makes good money, I would be happy paying off the debt if the court ordered her to pay me the 15k in some fashion. If she didn't pay I imagine I could just sue her and eventually they could garnish her wages or somethings.

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Your original question is "how will a judge look at this"? If your wife is as "level headed" as you say, you shouldn't need to worry what the judge thinks.

Your starting point is 50:50 debt and assets.

johndew said:

Well two things there really, there isn't many martial assets - most things we aquired before the marriage. Our marriage wasn't huge so most gifts were pots and pans and crap I don't really care about.

Also I am trying to keep it civil for the sake of our child and if I start getting snippy she might just turn and hire a lawyer, then I hire a lawyer and things gets ugly from there. I still have to be around her for the next 18 years so I want to be fair to her, but don't want to get screwed paying her cc bill either (she did most of the shopping).

We are in a pretty good place now and I don't wan't to jeopordize it.

She makes good money, I would be happy paying off the debt if the court ordered her to pay me the 15k in some fashion. If she didn't pay I imagine I could just sue her and eventually they could garnish her wages or somethings.

Click to expand...

If the court orders her to pay and she doesn't, you would file a motion to show cause or contempt motion. The court would then find her in contempt or not of its court orders.

johndew said:

So basically, if I get a court order - and pay off the 30k myself, can I sue her to get the other half? Because I do have a feeling she won't pay (her credit already sucks)

I was guessing the court would make us sell the house, but is all in my name, everythings in my name, cars, house, cc's - only 1 joint checking account. Also should mention I bought the house when we were together, but just not married at the time. Not sure if that matters.

Also we are planning on joint custody of our child, I know there will be some income offsetting which I don't have a problem with (I'm no deadbeat), but how will the court determine who will carry medical/dental for the child?

Click to expand...

If she doesn't pay and you pay off the debt after she is ordered to pay 1/2, you can go back to court to order her to pay. I suspect you have to wait to see if she's not going to pay it first, though.

As you've been told, you only owe her 1/2 of the gains in the home value while you were married - which is probably near zero.

There is no clear guideline on who has to carry medical/dental, but it would presumably be whoever can provide the best coverage at the lowest price. If one of you has a work policy and the other does not, that would probably settle it. In most states, anything you spend on medical can be used to offset child support payments. I didn't check yours, though.

I am going to back up OG on a few things, and talk about reality on some others.

The house was purchased prior to the marriage. The only thing that she could possibly be entitled to regarding the house is 1/2 of the equity that accrued during the marriage, and since the marriage is less than a year old, that's peanuts at most, and nothing at least. A judge certainly cannot and will not order you to sell it. The most a judge can do is give her a credit on her side of the marital financial settlement.

The credit card debt is a problem because its in your name only. You have to plan to pay that debt off yourself to preserve your credit. You can certainly get a judge to order that she is responsible for 1/2 of whatever debt accrued during the marriage, (minus 1/2 of whatever marital assets you keep in excess of 50%) but unless she makes decent money, you cannot expect to ever collect from her. Unfortunately that is reality.

Even if she makes decent money, you can expect to fight her tooth and nail for every payment.

If she gets primary custody of your child, you can expect to pay child support. If you get 50/50 custody and you make more money than she does, then you can still expect to pay some child support. Whoever ends up providing health insurance for the child will get a credit towards the child support calculation. Ideally, if you both can get health insurance through work at a reasonable rate, it would be wise for both of you to provide health insurance.

HOWEVER...if the child is the only child for both of you, and is a generally healthy child, with most employer plans it would generally NOT be cost effective for you both to provide health insurance. It would generally be far less expensive for one of you to provide health insurance and for the two of you to split uninsured expenses...assuming that your respective employments are stable.

Hey I appreciate the feedback!

We (well I) am shooting for 50/50 custody; her insurance is quite expensive so I will likely just carry him on mine.

If it does work out this way there will be some income offsetting because I do make more money, not a problem.

I do plan on paying off the credit myself; I have the capability to not fall behind on payments etc. My main concern of course is her being responsible for her half, even if it’s just on paper – I understand I may never see a penny from her.

The good news is that I won’t have to sell the house, thanks again for all the feedback.