Finishing story

[Tina Bowen]

What is the name of your state? G.A After my son was born, we got custody of my husbands daughter from his previous marriage. she was 9yrs. her mom had been incarcerated. i'm a cosmetologist and had bought a salon aug.of 95. my stepdaughter was having a difficult time in school. Jan. 97, i sold my salon took my stepdaughter out of public school and started homeschooling my children. The following year she went back into public schools and did great. Sometime,winter of 97 i found out my husband had paid to commit adultery, i found a condom in our bed. Unable to be honest about it made it impossible to find closure. My kids were still very young and now i was out of work. My stepdaughter's mom got out and after 6mths. was living with her mom and doing good. It was around oct.2001 my stepdaughter went back to live with her mom and they went to court for childsupport. It was then that my husband and i talked about having the divorce agreement written up, since we had been contemplating divorce anyway. He felt by showing he would be paying for our to children, then it might make a difference on how much childsupport he would have to pay her. So when he filed on me in feb.26th 2002. I was already familiar with the agreement. he was given liberial visitation because of his job as a fireman,he worked 24hrs.on, 48hrs. off those days he did custom cabnets. On april 24th i retained my lawyer for $500.00. We went over the agreement made a few changes. One of which was that he stated the home we lived in, his ex had Quitclaim back to him after we were married so i didn't feel it was exactly premarital property. I felt i at least deserved half the equity for the 6 yrs. we had lived there. My lawyer called his lawyer the day i was in his office, the next day his lawyer faxed him the complaint for divorce and some other papers that had been filed. My lawyer never sent me any copies of this papers nor did he ever discuss with me what they said, because around may 25th 2002, we desided to try and make another go at our marriage. I called my lawyer and ask him to put things on the back burner or whatever he normally did under this circumstances. My husband moved back in the house from his brothers. In july his family had a family reunion planned in Gulf Shores. he being from a large catholic family, there would be his 4 brothers, 1 sister, his mom and 19 grand children there. at that time we discussed how to handle our news of getting back together. I offered to write everyone a letter. He didn't agree he felt like they weren't ready and it was best if i didn't go. That's when i knew he wasn't sure about our reconciliation. So things got pretty stressful. I didn't go, the kids did. They were to return on july 20th. Which just so happened to be the same day i was pulled for a cracked windsheild and found out there was a warrant out for my arrest for a hit and run that had happened aug.30 2001. I later found out a second report that had been written in oct. 2001 said astranged husband said i had been the one involved in the accident and to put the warrant out for me. He was the one that got me out on july 22, 2002. He came back to the house and stay until july 28 th 2002. when he got up one morning and said it wasn't going to work and left and went back to his brothers. I had a family reunion i had plan to attend in N.C aug 3rd 2002 with the kids . He saw the kids on aug 2nd and brought them back around 6opm the evening of the 2nd . We left that evening and wouldn't be returning until aug. 11 2002 Sun. before school was to start on aug.12 2002. I had a friend staying at the house feeding my animals. Aug 5th i called to check on things and my phone had been oddly disconnected. I left N.C. aug 5 in the evening and got to atlanta around 12:00 am. I left the kids with my dad and had plans to meet them at Tim Ford State Park on aug 8th. Aug.6th 2002 i finally found out he had the phone disconnected and taken out of his name. I got it connected in my name with a new no. Aug 7th my husband called my mom in N.C got my new no. called me and said " I have good news and bad news". Good news we're divorced, bad news he said he had sole custody of our two children, who at that time were 7 and 5. I told him he was out of his mind. I found out a couple hours later he had called his lawyer from Gulf Shores on July 19th 2002. and told him to put our divorce on the calender, which not long after he had returned he found out the date had been set for Aug. 6th 2002. No notice had to be sent to me because i had signed the service of acknowledgement, and little did i know til later my lawyer had never filed a notice of council nor did he dismiss the divorce action. In reality he had done nothing since the first time we had gotten together and talked. They claimed they didn't know i had a lawyer even though his lawyer had faxed him those papers back on april 25th 2002. I immediately retain a high priced cobb county lawyer $3500.00 retainer to file a motion to set the decision aside an give me my day in court. I went to Tenn. to get my kids got back on Aug.11 and they started school aug12th . there was an emergency hearing set for Aug 16th 2002 . I was devasted. The final divorce decree stated I was to turn the kids over to him. Aug15,2002 i was to start paying $520.00 a month. child support, and be out of a house i lived in for 6yrs. in 8 days at my exspences. I wasn't allowed to see my kids until i did a parenting class and have a phycological evaluation to the tune of $250.00. I've got to go for right now! I'll get back with you later to finish the rest of this story. Thanks for lessoning for this long.
TEB

 

[Grace_Adler]

Tina, in order for readers to better understand your story, you need to go to the top of the page, click on search forums and look for your other post with the first part of your story. Then go to the bottom of the page, click the reply button and put this part on there. You can copy and paste this one onto the other. That way, you can keep it all together.

If you need help and would like for me to do it, just let me know.