I can't stand it anymore. I don't know how to stop this.
Since last February, my wife and I have been involved in "collaborative divorce", a process by which lawyers work together to create a settlement we all can live with.
It has been a long, drawn out struggle. All through the summer we met with the accountant, figuring out the possibilities for separating the assets. After six month of squabbling and enough money spent on lawyers and accountants to more than pay for someone's SRS, I thought we finally had a settlement in August. However, it turned out that she had no intention of doing what she agreed to do until I gave her a whole lot more. After two months JUST TRYING TO ARRANGE a meeting so that we could discuss it and even FIND OUT what she wants, we finally met in mid-October. I had just come from a session with my daughter and her therapist, where her therapist warned me that the stress from this was literally harming my daughter.
I was so fed up, I totally caved to all their demands. Despite the fact that my wife is in the same profession I am, holds more degrees, and is an intelligent, woman more than capable of supporting herself, I agreed to give her, over the next four years, enough money to fund three people's SRS. My only condition is that everything be signed and finished by Nov. 21, when my lawyer was going away for thanksgiving holiday.
That didn't end it.
When the settlemnt was finally written up, we found numerous inaccuracies and hidden payments that hadn't been agreed to, all of which were in my wife's favor. My lawyer delivered our objections, nearly two weeks ago, and they have done nothing about it. My lawyer reminded hers about the upcoming deadline. Her answer, believe it or now was, "Why does it have to be thanksgiving? Why can't it be Christmas?
I don't seem to be able to make this end. It's destroying me, sapping my energy, making it impossible for me to sleep. I've tried everything to move the process forward, but I'm totally powerless. The lawyers' bills and accountants' bills keep coming, eating up money far faster than I can earn it, and I can't make them stop. It's been nine months, and could easily drag on for another nine months. My parents left me some money when they died (a lot of which is going to my wife according to the settlement we agreed on this summer in hopes of ending it quickly then) and I'm powerlessly watching what's left dwindle like a bar of soap in the rain. I feel like I disappointed them. I can imagine my father's face were he to realize what a poor use I made of his lifetime earnings - money that came from him leaving the house before it was light and returning long after dark, as he did most nights as I was growing up.
If you stayed with my post this long, thanks for reading. I'm not looking for advice, just a place where I can express how miserable this is making me. I know a lot of you have been there. Thanks for sharing my burden.
