I live in Pa. My wife of 8 years has been having an affair for the past 1 year. We have two children 6 and 3. I have provided well for my family, nice house, car, pool, etc. My income allowed her to be a stay at home mom while I worked 12 hour days. She decided to start tending bar a year ago, which by the way she is paid under the table for her hourly wage and her tips. Unfortunately this is where she met her "boyfriend" who flips burgers twice a week, has no job, pays no child support to his own children, lives in an apartment under a pizza joint basiclly a real loser. We have had a great marriage, no arguments, great sex, never thought she would do this. She stays out all night and comes home just in time in the morning so I can go to work and she can take care of children. Weekends she is gone from Friday night to Monday morning. I am about to lose everything and she will not be accountable for nothing. My kids mean the world to me and they never want to be with her, but my lawyer says the law will side with the mother. I have to sell my house because she is moving back to Maryland, pay 76% of child care, give her half of my 401 K, half of the money when we sell the house, (which by the way I used my own money that I saved before meeting her as the down payment). I just am at my witts end and dont see how the law is fair when I did nothing wrong. I think they should reform divorce law instead of health care. I am 45 and going to be sunk into poverty because she is and adulterous. HELP Oh please dont look at the Ravengirl and think I am a woman. This is my sisters account and she let me use it to ask for any opinions, thoughts, or wisdom. Thank you.
OK. For starters, spend some time researching the rules in your state. And definitely talk with a different attorney.
There are a number of issues you need to look at:
- If you had assets before you met and used them for the downpayment on the house, you may be able to recover that. PA is an equitable division state when it comes to property division, so you can ask the judge for greater than a 50% share of marital property to make up for what you brought in.
- Similarly, if you had retirement funds before you married, you shouldn't have to give her 1/2 of the pre-marital amount. Only 1/2 of the MARITAL value of the funds.
- If you can demonstrate that she wasted marital assets on her affair(s), then you can ask the judge to order her to reimburse you from her share of marital assets. You would have to show that she dissipated marital assets, but it can be done.
- The law does not side with the mother in PA (not in any state that I can think of, for that matter). It DOES side with continuity for the kids. The fact that she stayed at home while you worked is to her advantage, but not her sex. It is very difficult to overcome that presumption. HOWEVER, the fact that she wants to move out of state should work to your advantage. It would not be impossible for you to get primary custody in order to keep the kids in your state. A lot will depend on how much time you are currently spending with the kids. Since it sounds like you're spending the entire weekend with the kids, it's entirely possible that you could win custody and keep the kids in PA.
- You didn't mention alimony. For an 8 year marriage, there probably shouldn't be any in PA, although a couple of years wouldn't be unheard of. However, PA does allow the judge to consider adultery in determining alimony, so if you can prove the adultery, it would even further reduce the risk of paying alimony.
- You've been married for 8 years. Given recent real estate price drops, it is unlikely that you have much equity in the home (other than the downpayment you put in - see above). You might not have to sell the home. If there's no equity, you can ask for her to sign a quit claim deed in exchange for being removed from the mortgage (if the bank will let you do that).
- You can ask that she be imputed an income for purposes of child support calculations. The court will typically impute minimum wage. If you can show that she's working and she tells the judge that she isn't, she may get slammed even harder. In fact, if you can prove that she's working and not receiving a W2 or that taxes are not being reported, you can report her and the bar to the IRS. I don't remember if the IRS still has a program where you get a fraction of the taxes they collect in cases of discovered fraud, but at the very least, it would document that she's working and lying to the judge.
Now, I don't want you to get excited, but there is a chance that with a good attorney, you could end up with:
- Kids stay with you and spend every other weekend with Mom
- Mom pays child support to you
- You keep house, pay Mom 1/2 of current equity less the down payment you made from pre-marital funds
- You give ex only 1/2 of MARITAL value of accounts
Now, it would take a good lawyer and a couple of breaks for that to happen. In reality, chance are that you'll end up somewhere between this best case and the worst case that you've presented.
There's more, but you need to spend some time researching divorce and custody in your state via Google. And definitely talk with at least one or two more lawyers before making a decision if your attorney did not discuss the above items with you.
