Need Divorce advice - very long drama here ;)

friesianrider

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Mon Jun-20-05 10:57 PM
Original message

Need Divorce advice - very long drama here ;)

Edited on Mon Jun-20-05 11:11 PM by friesianrider

Okay here's the deal. My Mom is a 48-year-old highly educated, intelligent, and Iby most people's standards is a very physically beautiful woman. She's also incredibly selfless and compassionate. She's married to her second husband, who is a certifiable nasty, lazy, inconsiderate, VERY SELFISH jackass.

He is 61 years old, retired. He is completely and totally lazy. He literally does NOTHING 95% of the time. He is emotionally abusive to my mother, and regularly insults the few things she buys for herself, but especially me. He loathes me, and usually complains about me at least twice a day. He has two sons, one 37 and one 34, who haven't intheir life held a job longer than a year. They both have lived with us within the last few years because once, one of them was evicted from their apartment. The other was because he made a bet with a bookie and was hiding from the mafia (I kid you not). He is emotionally abusive to me and my Mom and 90% of the burden of paying the bills and caring for our home falls onto my mother's shoulders. I (not his child) am in college full-time and he does not support me either financially ot otherwise in any capacity whatsoever (Mom pays for all my expenses, food, clothes, and college costs ENTIRELY on her own). The mortgage is $2,000 a month, and she and him split that. ALL other bills she pays, including all costs for my full-time tuition as well as home improvements/maintanence and household bills. She also does 99% of all of the housework. He regularly spends 1-3 days a week at the home of a woman friend of his. I have no proof of infidelity but it is a possibility and a big insult to their marriage none the less - particularly because so much must be done around here to maintain the house and property - but he literaly doesn't care at all about this home. He loves to "flea market" and brings home all kinds of disgusting, useless crap like old air conditioners, old furniture, old tools...and just leaves them lay around the house and property until I or my mom moves them.

When he retired a few years ago, it was approximately $150 for survivor's benefits for my mom if something happened to him - he refused to pay it. He has spent his entire $200,000 pension already, has gotten himself into between $25,000 and $30,000 in personal CC debt, and when it came to pay almost $3,000 in taxes this year, my mom solely paid for that as well. He is horrible with money, but now wants my mother to pay for the refinancing of the farm so he can take out the $80,000 or so in equity and build himself a "workshop" (interesting, considering he rarely does anything but watch TV). We bought the farm we're living on now 2 years ago. My Momand I have single-handedly made tens of thousands of dollars of improvements to the property. We also own a shore house in New Jersey. The home we live in now (the farm - our primary residence) is worth more than our shore house, but it is the farm where we keep my horses. We do not care about the shore house in any aspect whatsoever, but desperately want to keep the farm if it is in any way possible - particularly because of the horses. Honestly I am not sure my Mom would go through with a divorce if she knew it was probable she would lose the farm. I realize nothing in divorce is guaranteed, but he knows the farm is what we care about most and although he has no interest whatsoever in the farm (he would want the shore house much more anyway), he would go after it only because he would know we would want it at all costs.

I honestly have no idea what she ever saw in him, but she is considering leaving him. Since she is still working and makes close to $90,000 a year, will she likely have to pay spousal support to HIM? Do judges ever take into considerating the past behavior of a spouse, even if infidelity can't be proven?

Thanks for reading all this and anyone's ideas on this is much appreciated.