I don't know what to do.

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So I'm divorcing and I've lost everything. My wife broke my heart when she cheated on me with my best friend and cousin. I've suffered that dizzying humiliation. Now I live with my mother. I have no one to talk with much less go do things with. I'm broke, I mean that literally. I tried going and taking classes and what not but as a means to garner new friendships that didn't work in fact all it did was put me that much farther behind financially. I travel to a job that's going no where. My license to practice is outdated, since I don't need it for this job. Out of habit, I look forward all week to make to the weekend. Then the weekend comes and I'm miserable waiting for it to get over with. I'm not doing well. If it wasn't for mom I would be actively courting death. I'm just not making it.I invested myself to heavily in my marriage and foolishly let all other connections go. I regret that now.I seriously wonder if this the pointlessness elderly people feel when they say, everybody is gone I'm ready to die. I know the response is to shake things up in a big way. I've told people that myself. But for some that just isn't a possibility. Moving to L.A. to live in cardboard box isn't exactly a bettering of my situation.I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm pathetic. I'm a loser and I can't seem to pull myself out of it.

What to say... Your situation sucks.. I'm sure there is a "grieving" period if you can call it that with any divorce especially if it wasn't by your choice. Why do you think you would live in a cardboard box if you made some big move? It seems to me that you need to get out of this hole you are in now.. If I remember you live out in the middle of nowhere.. Seems like you need to move somewhere with some more activity and a change of jobs.. Yeah I know.. all easier said than done.... Hope things pick up for you.

If my marriage folded I'd be in a similar position with connections, so don't feel bad about it. I think it's pretty normal for divorced men.

It's usual here in divorces for the marriage assets, including the home, to be split 50:50. Would a lawyer be helpful in this case?

Would your skills be needed in another country? Third-world countries are often keen for educated professionals - some have a substantial expatriate community - and set-up costs are much lower.

Salaries on oil rigs for people without ties are astronomical.

I feel better today, extremely enraged but not wanting to die. Ya don't need to read the rest of this, I just needed to write it.Making a big move is complicated. First of all, I don't want to move. It would be a move of necessity. That aside, mom isn't well and I don't want to be to far away, she has no one but me. Above all, I don't have the money to set up a new life. I have, outside of what I have set aside for gas and car payment, $8.00 to live out the month. If it wasn't for mom's help I wouldn't be making it at all.It's the same here Pete. The house would normally be split 50/50 but I don't want it, she can have it. Besides its not worth anything. A couple years back the city dug a thirty foot deep trench in front of the house for a water main. They didn't hire and engineer to pack the soil back properly. A few months after they were done the soil settled and caused the foundation to shift and crack. All the award from the resulting court battle did was cover our legal expenses. There was nothing left to fix the foundation. So, long and short while the house is fine to live in it is worthless as an asset. It would cost more to fix than the value of the house.Last spring my boss, due to the recession, cut everyones wages in half. It was obviously an excuse. Oklahoma has been, for the most part, unharmed by the financial crisis. He's not hurting. As matter of fact, he had to hire extra part time help to deal with the abundant work load, which I am sure is the real reason for the cut of salaries. I has asked about when our salaries are going to be reinstated and he said when he feels "all financial danger is passed." In other words no time soon and I would bet my left nut it won't be back to what they were. Besides his bullshit greedy reasons for cutting salaries, I hate my boss because this crap only added to my marital problems and I think was what maybe pushed my wife over the edge and made her not like me anymore. While I know a woman in her mid to late thirties getting bored and looking around outside the marriage is as common as a man doing it in his forties, I think no small part of what happened, her cheating on me, was because she came to see me as a loser who couldn't take care of her or even help her maintain our life. I blame my boss for that almost as much as I blame myself. Almost as bad as cutting salaries, the boss changed my hours. I used to get off at 4:00 now I have to work till 5:30. Which puts me home at 7:30 just enough time to eat and go to bed. I'm really angry about that to the point... well lets just say beyond words. I use to get home in time to go to the gym. After sitting at a computer all day I need that. Well now I don't make it home in time. I'm getting fat and that's just adding to my depression. I try to exercise but it doesn't work most of the time. An hour and half may sound like something but somehow something always seems to get in the way of finding time. Something as simple as getting gas becomes a chore when you have that little time.I was trained as an architect but I have never practiced and and have been out of school for, what, 14 years now. I've been a foodservice consultant, I design institutional restaurants basically. I like it, I don't want to change. It's such a rarefied occupation however it's not something that's easily practiced. It's not something where you can just go to a place and hang out your shingle. When I started at this 14 years ago their were only 124 consultants in the entire U.S., not firms consultants. And most of those are in Vegas. I'm completely willing to change professions I just have no skills outside of this. Beyond that, though I'm supposed to be the "head designer" the boss won't update my system. It's so outdated that to interface with other architects or whatever I have to have somebody else in the office do it. My O.S. is Windows 2000 and my cad is 2004 so my computer skills aren't even worth anything anymore. I would have to go back to school just to update them as a personal employable asset. I'm trying to embrace that which I can not change. You know take ownership and thereby control. Turning a negative into a positive, but those tired cliches aren't working. I feel humiliated when I'm at home and enraged when I'm at work. That's no way to go through life.

Men tend to be too generous in break-ups. If the house is livable in then even if it's not in good condition it saves rent and therefore has value. Besides, wouldn't the land have value more than the cost of demolition? (I know there are some places in the US where this is not so.)It looks very much as if you need to look for another employer - or talk quietly to your boss's clients whether they would follow you if you set up your own business. If your boss is so bad with his workforce his clients may not find him good to do business with either, and might like to have an alternative.I agree with you about the clichés. It's easy to say the lines, but the practicalities are much harder.

Cut your wages by 1/2??? Holy shit!!! IDK .. I would be out of there in a flash (if I could). So everyone just took it and is staying put? How many people work there?

There's only three of us here and one guy use to own a fab shop that he sold for a fortune. I think he just works here for something to do until retirement. The lady who works here is even more stuck that I am. The shitty part about this industry is that once you get in it you're pretty much stuck here. It doesn't really translate well to anything else. That's generally not a problem for most, because their employer eventually brings them into partnership and the money is pretty good then. That was supposed to happen with all three of us that work for him but my boss just can't let go of control. Someone told me that he said he won't train anybody to be a partner cause the last time he did that person went out on his own and is now his competition. I don't know if it's true or not but it's what I was told.On other fronts shit just keeps getting better. Last night I went to talk to my wife about the divorce. She revealed to me that she has incurred over the course of our marriage $50,000 in credit debt and she wants me to pay half. My name is on none of her account we always kept our shit separate but it blew me away. I talked to a lawyer and I'm not liable but if I don't pay up I'm afraid she's going to drag me through the mud in every way possible. I have this nightmare scenario where she subpoenas my bosses IP history and how much time I kill on the net and everything I've ever said will be made public and I will lose my job. Maybe that wouldn't be totally bad.

Talk more to your lawyer, Scotty. I think your boss's history is perfectly safe - you can't subpoena things just because you want them: you have to convince a court that they are significant evidence in the case. US courts are strongly against what they call 'fishing expeditions' - you need to show that what is sought is important evidence, not a mere probability (even a high probability) that you will find something. Character evidence is hardly significant in a case like this, anyway.

Originally Posted By: OldFolks She revealed to me that she has incurred over the course of our marriage $50,000 in credit debt and she wants me to pay half. My name is on none of her account we always kept our shit separate but it blew me away.I heard someone at work here talk about someone who complained that his wife screwed him up on the tax return because she did something on "her" tax return which messed up how much he could have gotten back on "his" return.... ??????You say you two kept your stuff seperate.... ??? That doesn't sound like a marriage to me... just some "conveniance" factor? I never understood this.. Anyways.. I don't see how what you do at work factors in with your divorce.

Hey guys I could use some advice. Ya know my wife is wanting me to pay half of $50,000 credit debt, I was unaware of, that she encored over the course of our marriage. Legally, I am only obligated for $3,500. She claims part of that debt was spent on me... food, movies, books, NDN shit, whatever and therefore I should pay half. I want to be fair but I feel blindsided by this. I mean, had I known she had such debt a few years ago instead of buying cars, trucks, clothes and whatever else I wasted my checks on I would have helped her. I'm not saying I would have liked it but had I known about this five or six years ago, when I bought my first non-clunker car, I could have helped and maybe her debt wouldn't have gotten so out of hand and maybe she would have seen me as a partner in our marriage rather than whatever negative light she did/does see me in. I don't know what she spent money on to get that in debt. She bought a lot of shit for her classroom and a lot of books, tons and tons of books but that can't account for all of it. I don't know what it was spent on. With regard to the house, I fully admit she paid for most of it. She was the one who came up with down payment and the first few years, when I was making next to nothing, she made the payments. The last half of the mortgage, once I got a pay hike, I did help with. I want to be fair, mom says don't give her shit because she cheated. I feel like if she had ever told me about this I could have helped her and maybe the whole cheating thing never would have happened. I honestly feel like the cheating was a symptom of her debt because I imagine (now) that she, on some level, felt I abandon her to all these problems. And, even though she never spoke to me about this debt resented me for not helping her with it. On top of just wanting to be fair, I know my judgment is clouded by this inane notion that one day, as long as things remain amiable, we may get back together. I know I just need to let go but that isn't easy, but I am getting better about coming to the realization that my life as I knew it is gone. I am supposed to give her counter-proposal tomorrow night about settling our debt. She was wanting me to give her $500 a month for the next four years. I don't really know what to propose. I want to be fair but I feel like it wasn't fair of her to let this fester to this point then just hit me with it when she doesn't want me anymore. Any suggestions? ...please?

I don't know a whole lot about divorces but from my perspective I think you are screwed with this debt... Like I said.. I don't understand this whole... my finaces & your finaces being seperate... that's not a marriage to me. Do you not have a laywer to represent you or at least advise you? Does she?

I do have a lawyer. He said I'm not responsible for debts in her name alone and she's not responsible for debts in my name alone. The only bit of our finances, outside of tax returns, that were joint related to the house.

I guess what I'm saying is legally I'm only on the hook for 3500.00. Morally, I feel it should be more. Since I'm making no claim against the house and this debt was allowed to fester I'm having trouble coming up with a "reasonable" number.

Interesting....IDK what to tell you.. If you are obligated to 3500.. then why would you want to pay 24000?I say to hell with any "moral" obligations.. What's the cost of her "moral" cheating?Unless you think that putting your foot down and saying NO will create bigger issues, then I would stick to paying your own debt.But I'm not in your shoes.. so this is just an opinion.

I think if person A runs up a huge debt and spends it on person B, without person B's knowledge or approval, person B has no moral obligation to pay the debt. You only have a moral obligation for things you had control over, and person B had no control over that debt.

But I don't even think that is the situation here. I doubt that much of the debt was run up for you, Scotty. I rather suspect it was for your wife's lover.

And I doubt that if you had paid into the debt earlier that your wife would not have cheated. I think that's denial. She might have stayed longer, but only to funnel your money to this other man - as she wants to do now.

Your counter-proposal should be that you pay nothing, and if she keeps the house that she pays your rent, plus an allowance because she makes more money than you. Remember that the final settlement will be in between the two proposals, so you need to harden your heart and be firm - and let your lawyer do as much of the negotiations as possible.

Forget about getting back together and be realistic.

Hey Scotty,Aren't you of American Indian decent? Can't you turn to the tribe for assistance and help?

No, none of this relates to anything tribal.

I'm dreading tonight. I'm supposed to meet with her and discuss what I think should be done about this debt. On the advice of my attorney, I'm going to offer to take over and pay in full the two joint accounts we share. That puts me in at about 7,000. The rest is off the table. She's going to be pissed and want to get nasty with this shit, I can feel it.

Just to be clear, she makes about a third less than what I do, even with my reduced salary. And, I'm 90% sure most of her debt was just incurred over the course of our marriage. I can't imagine any significant amount was spent on her boyfriend (my former best friend and cousin). So I feel like a heel leaving her with it. But I will say I don't think it's fair to never discuss this debt problem with someone while married to them then hit them with a $24,000 bill once you don't want them anymore.

Jesus, I'm pathetic. I'm riddled with guilt about leaving her a huge ass bill instead of being pissed at what she did. What's that say about my self esteem. I think it says I'm not dealing with my feelings... or just that I'm a fuckin' pussy. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Shit.. I know a couple of people who went on spending binges over years and racked up big credit card debts... This one gal and her BF racked up debt left and right.. He ended up getting deported and she was left with the bills... OH My what to do... Bankruptcy... wiped out her debt.. she got rid of her gas guzzling Jeep and bought a newer but used Toyota.. married her deported husband and brought him back.. Someone totaled her Toyota.. Insurance payed out on her car and they went and bought a 2006 Mercedes 320 SUV.. I mean WTF???So Yes... WTF is wrong with you? Why are YOU feeling guilty?

Probably because its easier on me emotionally to believe I let her down than it is to believe someone I love so much let me down. I invested myself in her so much and the belief that she wasn't like other people I cared about, who've stolen from me or lied to me, that letting go of what I thought I had is just to painful. I'm use to being a disappointment to myself and I'm just tired of everyone I care about fucking me over. Its fucked I know but its me. I guess it comes down to sometimes it easier to blame yourself because at least Then you can muddle along in the belief you had some control.

That makes sense in terms of cognitive dissonance theory. It's like the well-established result that people consider more highly things they paid a lot for or went to a lot of trouble for, even when their intrinsic value is no higher.