Divorce negotiation offers.

[narwhalParticipant]

What were some of the crazy things your ex wanted in the divorce settlement? What did she think was fair that absolutely wasn’t?

I can think of 3…

(1) Because we (she) spent more money they we (I) brought in, we opted to sell some retirement funds to cover expense. We sold about 20k of her retirement. When it came time to divorce and she saw she had nothing, she thought that I should give her an extra 20k to cover it. I then reminded her that I had given up 20k of my own retirement at the same time. She completely forgot about that.

(2) We bought the house we lived in before were married. The home loan was entirely under my name. When it came time to divorce, she said that I put the loan under my name only as a way to control her. I reminded her that her credit was crap and we could not get a loan if her name was on it. She completely forgot about that.

(3) Related to #2, she wanted to remain in the house we lived in so the kids could go to the same school. I was good with that. The house loan in my name was a problem. Her solution was that she and the kids would stay in the house and ‘pay rent’ to me in the amount of the loan until our 2 year old daughter turned 18. At that time, we would sell the house and split the profits. She thought that was fair. I told her that she was asking me to be her landlord without having any legal ability to evict her, raise rates, or even maintain the quality of the property. At the same time, since the house couldn’t be considered actual rental income, I would not have the financial capacity to go buy another house of my own to live in.

Just showed me that she only remembered how things effected her, not how they effected me. As well, her idea of fair was “as much as she could get away with”.

Ok. Then do it.

[OgreParticipant 5863]

Your ex-wife sounds pretty typical. My wife doesn’t realize that even if she gets half I disappear, and she’s got to generate the other half that I’ve been supplying. She’s never made as much as that half.

Their view of the world only extends to where they stand today and what they can exploit tomorrow. Men think in at least three dimensions.

I used to have a nickname from my subordinates regarding my ability to see possible outcomes.

Most men plan, women tend to wing it… especially when their plan has already failed.

I failed to realize in my youth that I was the prize. I was going to work. I was going to earn. Little did I realize that due to feminism, that no longer meant I had to share. Road soon, Desert after.

[XSDBSParticipant 3598]

A co-worker told me that his ex upgraded herself and all three kids with new iPhone(6) right before she filed for divorce, and then expected him to pay for all of them them (the cell plan was in his name only).
When he attempted to change the ownership of the account over to her name, they refused, so he canceled the account and blocked all payments to the cell phone carrier.

[Clint EastwoodParticipant 323]

We have power tools and the ex freely admits (on Facebook) that she doesn’t know what any of them do.

She negotiated to keep a large disc cutter, a small grinder, a cordless drill, a circular saw, a large (9kg) hammer drill and a chainsaw.

I drew the line at the chainsaw. No one is gonna take my Husqavarna 350 with an 18 inch bar. No way bitch.

I also said no to the Stanley Steelmaster 18oz hammer.

There’s just some things a man regards as sacred and don’t even get me started on the Mig Welder. 🙂

Stay vigilant. They're everywhere.

[FreedomParticipant 965]

I was stupid enough to accept an offer.

F~~~…why should you negotiate…an offer is to increase her take.

It should be 50/50 down the line. No negotiation.

She cheated on me ..... my fault. I showed an interest in another woman......my fault.

[MarathonManParticipant 77]

She lives in the house…. kids are 50/50… Unfortunately the mortgage is in joint names, so it needs to be resolved as my equity is at the moment at either the mercy of her dubious ability to meet payments, or my willingness to pay half a mortgage for a house I dont even live in. At present I am covering 100% of school fees ‘cos otherwise they wouldnt happen and kids would get kicked out of school. (thats a slightly higher cost than mortgage payments, so I figure I’m being generous)

She says she wants to stay in the house – I’m cool with that. Seems great in terms of continuity for the kids.

Me: “Ok – house is valued at $700k, mortgage is $300k. Can you get a mortgage for $500k, pay off old mortgage and buy out my share of the equity?”
Her: “No – I can barely afford existing mortgage of course I cant afford to INCREASE it just to buy you out – why dont you just give me your share?”
Me: “errr…. No”
Me: “How about we draw up a complex co-ownership contract whereby my equity percentage is securely locked in and you are responsible for all mortgage payments to cover the rest of the equity. We’d need to have clauses in so that any falling into arrears triggers an ability for me to sell to limit risk of bank foreclosure. It might be tricky – but if we’re in agreement it could be done and may be the only way to affordably keep you in that house. It’d mean I cant do anything useful with that equity like buy another house, but I can live with that if its keeping my kids in a nice environment and helping keep things pleasant and amicable between us – there’s value in that.”
Her: “I dont like that – I dont want you controlling me”
Me: “Fine – lets sell the house and split the proceeds 50/50 then.”
Her: “I want 80% – Its what I deserve. I didnt ask for this to happen, you owe me that.”
Me: “So – get this straight – you want me to gift you $180k of house AND pick up the tab for your half of the $200k of school fees over the next few years? Sounds like you WANT me to take you to court and go all legal on you, cos my legal fees would be WAAAY less than $280k! and I’m pretty sure a decent lawyer should be able to get pretty close to the 50% of total asset pool and commitment to 50% of future child related costs. Make a sensible suggestion of how to do this and we can avoid paying lawyers to argue and save thousands that we could BOTH benefit from.”
Her: ….. silence………..

Not at all convinced this negotiation thing is going to work!

(*note – numbers in the above example are deliberately modified for illustrative purposes only. Conversation is not a verbatim report, but a crude paraphrased summary of conversations that have so far taken many weeks)

[narwhalParticipant]

@marathonman…sounds about right. Fair to her was whatever she could get away with.

Our house situation ended up working out fairly well. Even though the house was in my name entirely, she was entitled to around half the equity. So I sold it to her at a discount equal to her half of the equity. In order for her to have the credit though, she actually needed to use the child support payments from the court order as evidence of income. If I recall correctly, the fact that I had good credit made those payments reliable. I actually had to get very involved with her broker.

She also got great timing on this. Technically, she was a new home buyer, and Obama was giving out his new home buyer tax credit at the time. An extra $7k for her.

Freedom wrote:

It should be 50/50 down the line. No negotiation.

1 – That’s not possible unless you sell absolutely everything.

2 – No, it shouldn’t be 50/50. Not unless the income of both parties was exactly equal. If a man earn’s 80% of the income while married, then he should retain 80% of the assets acquired while married. 50/50 means that the ex-wife is stealing 30% of his wealth. That’s compounded by that fact that women make 70% of the purchasing decisions, thus 70% of the wealth is likely crap he doesn’t want anyway.

The argument that a wife is deserving of part of her husband’s income, that she contributed somehow…is total bulls~~~.

Ok. Then do it.

[MarathonManParticipant 77]

narwhal wrote:

If a man earn’s 80% of the income while married, then he should retain 80% of the assets acquired while married. 50/50 means that the ex-wife is stealing 30% of his wealth

Thats one way of looking at it. Unfortunately, the law (here in Australia at least) tends not to acknowledge that and instead opts to divide assets more along the lines of where it needs to be to support the kids. With incomes being equal and parenting 50/50 then that’d mean an easy calculation and a 50/50 split of assets. Unfortunately (from my perspective) when incomes are more like 70/30 and parenting is 50/50 then the courts are likely to conclude that in order to provide optimal outcome for the kids there needs to be a split to boost the lesser earning parent and assets may be split more like 40/60 in favour of the lower earner.

One of the justifications (that I dont buy in to) – is that in a marriage one parent often ‘sacrifices’ their career and potential earnings for the benefit of the family. When the family breaks up they have foregone career development and harmed their future earning potential whereas the other parent has been able (due to these sacrifices) to develop their career fully – as evidenced by the earnings gap. An inequitable split of assets is deemed in some way ‘compensation’ for this sacrifice.

I call bulls~~~ on the above logic. One of the main reasons my marriage failed was my wifes refusal to take financial responsibility and get out to contribute. I wanted her to get out there and work more – she refused. She simply leeched for too long, wallowing in motherhood – and it killed us. She unilaterally made the decision to wreck our finances and it P~~~ES ME OFF that she then gets rewarded by the system for her financial incompetence, whereas the harder I tried to address the balance and make ends meet the worse the ‘inequity’ looks and the more heavily I get penalised.

Sometimes I wish I could quit my job tomorrow, get this property split thing sorted (if I had zero income I’d do pretty well out of it) – and then find another job as soon as the papers were all signed. Unfortunately the employment environment does not support such a b~~~~y move and I’d be cutting my nose off to spite my face.

[MemberParticipant 323]

MarathonMan wrote:

I call bulls~~~ on the above logic. One of the main reasons my marriage failed was my wifes refusal to take financial responsibility and get out to contribute. I wanted her to get out there and work more – she refused. She simply leeched for too long, wallowing in motherhood – and it killed us. She unilaterally made the decision to wreck our finances and it P~~~ES ME OFF that she then gets rewarded by the system for her financial incompetence, whereas the harder I tried to address the balance and make ends meet the worse the ‘inequity’ looks and the more heavily I get penalised.

I have thought about this a lot. How could you stop this from happening if you could do it all over again? In my case the only way to stop it was to never date her again after date 1. Any other decision path would have led to the same result. After talking to lots of men about divorces over the years I have found that the odds are stacked heavily against us. They usually find a reason to not work, spend too much money, and generally f~~~ up the relationship at ever step of the way while expecting you to fix it all. There may be some unicorns out there but sadly for most of us the only way to have won is to have never played the game.

[GrumpyParticipant]

narwhal wrote:

What were some of the crazy things your ex wanted in the divorce settlement? What did she think was fair that absolutely wasn’t?

Both my ex-wives wanted the following.
1. Everything.
2. Everything they thought they could get.
3. 75% of MY assets
4. 50% of My assets.
5. 25% of my assets.
6. What ever the courts could get them.

I got ALL the legal costs and all the debts. As well as peace and quiet, and a life again.
It was worth it 🙂

There was a time in my life when I gave a fuck. Now you have to pay ME for it

[Anonymous 1]

MarathonMan wrote:

Unfortunately (from my perspective) when incomes are more like 70/30 and parenting is 50/50 then the courts are likely to conclude that in order to provide optimal outcome for the kids there needs to be a split to boost the lesser earning parent and assets may be split more like 40/60 in favour of the lower earner.

they even have a handy online calculator for you.. https://processing.csa.gov.au/estimator/About.aspx

[Anonymous 42]

Divorce negotiations,,, Hmmmm?

(No marriage)= No negotiations!

Simple equation!

[narwhalParticipant]

MarathonMan wrote:

One of the justifications (that I dont buy in to) – is that in a marriage one parent often ‘sacrifices’ their career and potential earnings for the benefit of the family. When the family breaks up they have foregone career development and harmed their future earning potential whereas the other parent has been able (due to these sacrifices) to develop their career fully – as evidenced by the earnings gap. An inequitable split of assets is deemed in some way ‘compensation’ for this sacrifice.

Except that the 50/50 split still applies when there are no children involved and/or there is no sign that a spouse made any sacrifices to their career. Even if those cases did apply, a spouse doesn’t have a legal right to force or deny the other spouses decision to continue or end their career. Therefore, you cannot hold one spouse financially responsible for the decisions of the other. Even if a spouse literally is responsible for damaging the other spouses career, such as a false DV or rape claim, you won’t see any financial restitution.

Beyond that though, there must be something resembling a career path before the marriage occurs in order to claim something was sacrificed. I worked in IT and turned down the opportunity to consult internationally in order to get married. My ex was a teacher, where the pay raises were based solely on longevity, not merit. Although she did decide to not work for 2 years (completely her decisions), you could not make a logical argument that career was sacrificed beyond the 2 years in missed pay.

The only sacrifice you could justify is the missed opportunity to bag a bigger wallet. Again, her choice.

If divorce settlements were more inline with contributions, there is no doubt we would see less marriages, less divorces, and less women behaving so badly. If a husband wants his wife to stay at home, then he and she can work out a compensation arrangement. There should not be an assumed arrangement.

Ok. Then do it.

[Author]

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