Picking Your Champion For Combat

I had my first consultation with one of two law firms today. Overall it went fairly good, I only dissolved into a sobbing mess for a quarter of the call. A pretty surreal way to spend the 14th of February.

In the end, most of the consultation was informing the lawyer of all events over the last several weeks, answering questions, etc. I was advised that in many counties in our state, that the moment a divorce is filed it comes with a Temporary Restraining Order on both parties to stop the sort of behavior that my spouse had already enacted, and that this alone was significant evidence to support that my spouse was operating w/out legal guidance. They also noted that, had my spouse enacted this behavior just seven days earlier, that they would have an arrest warrant issued for them. The lawyer felt that my spouse had likely been planning this for a while and had only been looking for the right moment to enact all of this. I was also reassured that the courts would not look kindly on any of my spouses actions, regardless of the age of our youngest.

I also informed them that, after my spouse had emptied our finances, I had opened a new checking account and had started the process for shifting my direct deposit to go to the new account. The lawyer confirmed what I had already read, that because my spouse had left the property that we were informally separated and all future funds were mine and no longer community property, though I would likely have to pay some spousal maintenance, and that moving my funds to a new checking account was the right decision. I was also advised that, given my spouse’s behavior, that I should likely make certain that they can no longer use any credit cards still in my name. Basically, I was free to protect myself financially, and nothing in a standard Temporary Restraining Order required that I allow my spouse to increase our shared debt.

On the subject of moving forward with the case, I as advised that I would need to prepare 2 years of tax returns, 6 months of pay stubs, current balances of all retirement accounts and 6 months of statements for all checking accounts, savings accounts, and credit cards. Further more, considering we did not know the current location of my spouse and none of our children were responding, that there was the possibility of needing to hire a private investigator. I was also advised that, considering the scope of actions my spouse had taken, that there was a good chance that I could be awarded some damages, but that any such reward would be as a court ordered judgement. In the end, I would need to pay all the fees up-front and look to the court to order my spouse to reimburse me. It was also possible that any such judgement of award could be manifest as a reduction in the amount of maintenance I may be ordered to pay.

Once the call was over I found myself free of anxiety for the first time in 4 days. Just being able to talk, to be heard, and to be listened to. To have someone whom has worked with these sorts of situations before confirm to me that the actions my spouse took were not normal for any situation, and were not tolerated for any situation. That even if our youngest “chose” to withdraw themselves from school, that my spouse had demonstrated incredible irresponsibility in even allowing them to do it, particularly just a few months before highschool graduation. Confirmation from someone who has been in the trenches, whom has seen this before, and they confided in me that every time they had seen this behavior in a case that there had always been some untreated mental problems in play.

Considering the level of emotional comfort and support I felt after talking to the lawyer, I may likely never laugh at a lawyer joke again.