About ten years ago, a nevermo couple I know divorced. She had gone through a mental health related period where she was cheating on her husband, sleeping around with several guys. He ended the marriage when he found out. They have two sons. Pain, anguish, recrimination, tragedy for everyone involved. For a while, anyway.

Since then, she's gotten professional help and has her sh!t back together. The boys (joint custody) have grown into fine and apparently well-adjusted teens. She's in a stable relationship with a terrific guy. The ex-husband has also been in a solid relationship for a few years. Now they're engaged.

I know another nevermo couple who've celebrated their 30th anniversary. The catch is that it's the third marriage for both of them. They didn't find the perfect spouses the first time around. Or the second time. He never had kids, but her daughter and son (from her first and second marriages) are wonderful people, adults with happy families of their own.

One of my sisters did the standard LDS thing and married her BYU sweetheart. He turned out to be an @sshole who cheated on her while she was pregnant, then he got his girlfriend pregnant. My sister divorced him. After years of doing the divorced mother in the singles ward thing, she met a guy who didn't care about her past. They've been happily married for over 40 years. Her son by the first husband has a successful marriage, happy family and good career.

Okay, so these examples might be in the minority, but sometimes divorce leads to better lives for everyone involved.

From life experience...I agree.

I don't know why Divorce has such a stigma attached, sometimes

a divorce is not the end of happiness but instead it's the

beginning.

Quit trying to make something dysfunctional work. Get the he!! out and find someone who can appreciate you for who you are, and vice-versa.

catnip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Quit trying to make something dysfunctional work.
> Get the he!! out and find someone who can
> appreciate you for who you are, and vice-versa.



Exactly....that's exactly what I was thinking Catnip.

For some of us it's a RETURN to happiness.

TG

That's true.

Q. Why do divorces cost so much?

A. Because they're worth it!

John Milton got married and within a year began work on his masterpiece Paradise Lost but then about ten years later his wife died and John Milton immediately began work on Paradise Regained

see the connection?

Why does divorce cost so much? Because clients waste their lawyers time and fight with their spouse. A lawyer bills for their time and when you the client waste the lawyers time with he said she said you get to pay for it. The more you want to fight with your spouse over stupid stuff, the more it cost. The cost for court fees is set, you run up the costs. Want to spend a lot of money? Don't get an attorney or use a friend attorney that is not a family law attorney. Don't follow your attorney's advice also can raise your costs. Your friends know more about the law than your lawyer.

The best money I ever spent went to my attorney when I divorced the broom rider.

Yeah, mine was a civilized, uncontested, no-kids, no-fault, do-it-yourself divorce. It cost less than $400.

It is entirely possible to not use an attorney at all and still make your ex spouse's life into a living Hell if that is your aim.

you mean it can be just like an exit from the MORmON cult ???

the whacked out mess that I was married to was angry that I had left THE church. She expected me to stay in the rigid role of devout MORmON male spouse and provider, while she went out and partied around and screwed around like crazy, I was supposed to keep paying for that endless party of hers that I was not invited to ......so much like the situation for MORmON leaders and their insider perks.

My ex used his tax attorney. Saved him a boat load of money in attorney costs. Made me a boat load of money because my family law attorney told him every move to make and he did what he was told. He was scared to death of her.

Get an attorney, and get one that knows the subject. Most likely, your tax attorney won't be much help.

Not the end to happiness! The beginning to it!
How can all of us possibly get it right when chosing a mate when we're 18, 19 or 20 years old? (A bit older for most men)
Some do.
Some don't, and some stay together anyway--miserable to the end.
And some say enough is enough and try again.

My sentiments exactly. Not necessarily the end of happiness, more likely the beginning. If you're miserable, get out. Pursue a life of your own.

But it's scary.

My favorite quote is, "We stay the same until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change."

It took me two divorces from the same guy (my eternal mate--thank god THAT was a hoax), before I could not imagine the pain of change being worse than the pain of staying the same. I know so many people who are at the edge, but still thinking the status quo has to be better. Whatever floats their boat. Maybe it is. I'm not walking in their shoes and have no clue how painful their lives really are. All I can do is be glad it isn't me.

In my case, as well as for my parents, divorce was the beginning of happiness. I was in an abusive marriage, and my parents made the mistake of staying married until my brother and I were grown. I do think they should have divorced years ago, as it was obvious they were miserable for years. My mom is much happier in her second marriage, and my dad seems happier staying single.

Yes. There are lots of success stories of people learning from their past, and forging a whole new kind of life for everyone.
I'm one of the minority now days, I think, as I married once for a little over 50 years before he passed away. Divorce has been part of some of my children's lives, however.

I like to hope, anyway, that divorce is a positive change in many respects that can and does, very often, lead to a better future for everyone.

IN B4 ~ statistics prove that Marriage is the #1 cause of Divorce

~0~ ~o~ ~0~

ziller: "¿ you wanna get married bae ?"

bae: "¿ why would you want to f*ck up a perfectly good relationship ?"

ziller: "good point bae. let's get some tapas."

On happiness, Frank Sinatra said:

"A man never knows what true happiness is, until he gets married.

But then it's too late."

Divorce can be the beginning of happiness. Sometimes you just have to cut bait. We don't always make the best choices when we're young and personalities evolve. Mormons get married so young, they might not even really know what they want yet other than the temple marriage, which is supposed to bring nothing but joy and happiness, and we all know that marriages have their bumps in the road.

Mormons and some others see marriage as an item on the checklist. Instead of searching for someone to fill a role so you get into the club, I think marriage should be one of the possible outcomes of a good, solid, mature relationship.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2016 12:57PM by Stray Mutt.

I got my divorce in the early 80's. I felt a sense of freedom and could live life the way I wanted to. I never remarried and enjoy my solitary life. It worked for me, maybe not all people..

I think that hard part is wondering if maybe you haven't done enough. You hear stories of people who say their marriage was miserable until they tried some great thing and it became so wonderful, and you think maybe I just need to be more assertive, caring, loving, communicative or something.

I like my ending better.

I didn't find someone else and get married again. No one gave me undying love. No one scooped up and embraced my children. No one saved me financially.

My husband's divorce cost him nothing.

He hid his assets, called me on the phone to tell me he didn't want me or our children anymore, and that he didn't care what happened to us. He completely abandoned us, and disappeared for 4 years. It took me years of asking around (pre-internet investigations), to discover that he was living with a woman, and that he had cheated on me since our honeymoon. I know the names, and who they are, and was acquainted with some of the women, personally.

My children turned out to be successful in all ways possible. We are a close, loving, happy family--without "the priesthood in the home." I shoveled the snow, did the yard work, had the career, supported my children, was father and mother both. It was hard, and often times I thought I would fail, but love kept me going. When my muscles stopped being sore, when I got used to the horrendously long hours of work, I became stronger. We thrived!

Leaving the sexist cult gave me the extra boost of confidence and pride that I needed. My children resigned with me--something we never would have been free to do, married to a TBM. I wouldn't trade anyone else's life for mine.

Studies show that single women are happier than married women!

Congratulations!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2016 08:03PM by iris.

It really bothers me when people say that they've been miserable in their marriages for a decade or more. That is way too long a period of time to be miserable. I agree that divorce is not the worst thing in the world. Judging by some marriages that I've read about on this board, divorce could be a vast improvement.

My take, as well...

Louis CK: "Nobody ever says 'My divorce is falling apart.'"

No, that would be marriage.

Divorce can be good or bad. And everything in between.
Like most other things in life.

Having the freedom to choose it, though, is as important as any other freedom. Just 30-40 years ago I knew, even as a teen, dozens of couples that *should* have divorced, but felt they couldn't because of social/church pressure. So they lived together miserably, spreading their misery not just to each other but to their kids and everyone around them.

Three cheers for freedom to choose.

You knew my grandma?

Well said! I have been married for forty years. 35 of the happiest years of my life:)

Even if I've found my happy ending, was it all worth it? I can't say that it was. I hate all the things on fb that say going through tough things makes you stronger. I'd prefer to not be stronger. No, it wasn't worth it to learn what I've learned.

My boyfriend would probably say the same. His kids are doing okay, but then they have trust funds. Neither of them are married. One wanders. The other lives with a girl for 5 or 6 years now and that's fine, but neither of them work even if they have a paid for college education and live off their trust funds.

My daughter is probably the most stable of the 4 children and she is TBM. I worry a lot about my son. I think he took the brunt of the "divorce."

I'm still not divorced. Don't plan on it. Not like I want to get married again either.

It isn't just men who found out marriage didn't provide happiness. Hell, I've never been so miserable as having a man think he has power over me or can critique every little thing I do, tell me where to spend my money. I'll never give a man that kind of power over me again. I was taught well to do so. Which is why I won't live with my boyfriend or marry him.

No, I don't think it is a minority of cases. I think this is probably the majority. I know many, many cases like this.

I enjoy the freedom and independence being single provides.

Also miss the companionship of having someone to turn to or when need a shoulder to cry on.

It's a trade-off. My grandma was married 40 years to gramps, & even before that she was always taking care of someone. Like her aunts before she married and moved away to have a family. Then children, later gramps as he became ill. She never had a life of her own until after he passed away.

She missed the closeness of companionship but learned to prize her freedom and independence more after that.

In her lonely moments she remembered how little freedom she'd had when being others caretakers, that she happily resigned herself to the loneliness in lieu of the companionship she sometimes missed.

I've been a single more of my adult life than a married, so I wonder whether I'd be willing to give up my independence were I to meet someone I could see going the distance with. The older we get the more set in our ways we become, so it would be unlikely I'd be willing to do that now.

My ex-husband is a control freak. There's no way in hell I miss that kind of companionship. He hasn't changed his ways since we parted. His current wife is miserable with him and hates him. Better her than me. I pity her and their child, but she made that choice to live with him. I made the choice not to. For me it was the beginning of happiness, not the end. There is no happiness stuck inside a miserable hellhole of a marriage.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 11:07AM by Amyjo.

My wife unleashed Hatred & False court submissions against me, which tscc endorsed, condoned, ratified & excused.

I don't think our children know the Facts-Truth of this.

I didn't commit adultery or abuse anyone.

When wife started earning More than I did, the marriage was over-done.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 11:44AM by GNPE.

I had a boss between high school and college that was old school TBM. He was on his second marriage. His first one ended he told me because his wife spent his money faster than he could make it, and he couldn't keep her satisfied.

She wanted to be a kept woman. His second wife worked with him and was his helpmate. They combined their resources to make their marriage work, and were by all accounts a happy couple.

I remember him telling me over and over like a mantra: The only two things that really matter in a marriage are 1) money, and 2) sex. Money, sex, money, sex. That was all it took to make it or break it, according to the gospel of Harold.

I didn't doubt him for a second, lol. He had lived it.

In an nutshell, I'm think Harold is probably right. Seems to be the two major issues that folks split over.

Oh so true. I look at so many people around my age who are long-time married and find only a small handful whose relationship I would like to have. Not necessarily someone I'd like to be married to, but the kind of relationship I would want if I were married. And only two of those couples is LDS. And I know hundreds of LDS couples around my age.

But I wouldn't trade my single(divorced) life for the marriage that 90+ percent of people my age have for anything. And my kids grew up just fine. They all had their hard times but I chalk that up more to the fact that I provided them with an asshole for a father and raised them in a cult, more than the fact that their parents divorced.

Or could it be... SATAN?!!

Same here, NormaRae. It isn't my divorce I'm angry over. It's the cult for deceiving me, and the early (formative) years of my children's upbringing... and their poor excuse for a father.

I know we hear over and over not to bad mouth the other parent following a divorce. Because my ex abandoned my children when they were very young, it was hard for me not to. I'm still angry at him for doing that.

He did the same thing to his parents when he left Poland before we met. (I didn't know this at the time, or I would've had second thoughts.) When I found him in 2007 he'd remarried, and his new wife didn't know a thing about his prior children because he hadn't told her he had any.

Do I feel bad that he owes for support arrearages from here to Kingdom Come? Hell No! It's hard to have any compassion for someone like that, who could turn his back on his own children. When he put my daughter out of his home in 2011 after she went to meet him and his (new) family, she had to call 9-1-1 to get her things back, and me for money to help her recoup lost money, clothes, and dignity.

I don't feel guilty knowing he'll be paying me back when he's on Social Security for what he put my children through. If I should, then that's a part of me that's gone cold. I can't cry over him, because he has no heart.

How long to court orders last? In CA, judgments are NOT enforceable after 10 years, unless you petition the court to have the judgment renewed, and then it only good for another ten years.

Be sure to check that out!

Not for child support. They run for 20 years, maybe longer. The states are unified for support and arrearages, it's a sister state system.

A typical judgment runs 10 years. For debt collectors however, they do not need to renew it (I work in debt advocacy, so have learned this through my field of endeavor.) The statute can be raised as a defense if the debtor were to sue the collection company, but again, the collection agency has the option of renewing it for another ten.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 01:58PM by Amyjo.

I paid my child support so I don't know what the rules are for unpaid child support payments. The internet found this, which does not quite line up with what you wrote:


The Rules for Back Child Support:

It is important to note, first of all, that rules on child support vary greatly by state. For example, in some states, the child is considered an adult at age 18 while other states say 19 or 21; some say the child becomes an adult after finishing high school, regardless of age.

...Any outstanding payments are still collectible provided the parent files a court order. While the debtor may not currently have the money for the payments, filing a court order means that any money earned in the future can still be collected and paid to the other parent for back child support.

Statute of Limitations for Back Child Support:

Some states have a statute of limitations on how long after the child becomes an adult for a court order to still be enforced. As such, if a custodial parent hopes to collect back child support, she should not wait too long or the claim could be time-barred and no money can be collected.

______ The spam filter wouldn't accept the URL


Family law courts will enforce, through sister state agreements, the collection of child support, including taking tax refunds, garnishing wages, among other things. But you're waiting for him to retire? Do you know how much of each SSA check of his you're going to get? 100% until the full amount is paid, of will it be the monthly amount he was supposed to pay?

The judgment was issued in 2007 and renewed in 2015 in the sister state. Family courts have told me they can run forever. But my inside information tells me they're typically good for 20 years on arrearages.

That being said, he'll be well into his 70's by the time this one expires.

If I predecease him, the arrearages go into my estate, and he will still be paying me back after I'm gone - that will be issued to my children as it should.

For SSA, it is 1/2 of what he'll collect in retirement. There was a time I might have felt bad about taking that, until he put my daughter out on the street in 2011 with nowhere to go. That crushed her soul. I can't forgive him for that.

For as much money as he owes me he'll never pay me back what he owes either. He'll owe me long after his demise. He earns a six figure salary, but is and always was a tight wad. The only reason he's paying me anything now is because the courts are enforcing it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2016 11:32AM by Amyjo.

I recently learned the SoL varies from state to state. While the child support enforcement act is uniform across the 50 states, the rules governing statutes for collections vary greatly.

In my state it is 20 years to collect on a judgement. Which may be renewed for an additional 20 years once that is up.

In the state where my ex resides there is no SoL. Which means by transferring the order from my state to his, he will owe me until it is paid in full - which is never going to happen at the rate he's paying me back now through the courts.

I wasn't so surprised to learn that Utah of all places is the absolute worst among the states for collection of back child support. It's SOL runs for 8 years, and then it expires. As usual, the women and children in Utah fare the worst, while the men make out like bandits. However if your order is from a sister state, and you reside in Utah, it supposedly will enforce the order of the sister state per the other state's SoL. I wonder how aggressive the courts are there to do that when they won't even go to bat for their own residents subject to the laws of Utah? It is the least pro-family of all the states I could see when comparing them.

When someone hurts you, again and again and again, you've got to move on, up, forward, (with or) without them.

It's all about happiness. If you aren't happy - and are endlessly tormented, belittled or criticized - forget them! The love of your life is waiting inside you.

tscc is 100% HYPOCRITICAL regarding divorce; I wouldn't be surprised if they're invested in the many online dating services that cater heavily to divorced people...

Further: an apostle said (An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton, Introduction, Signature Books, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii; see also pp. 204-240.) that women NEED a "faithful" husband to call them from their grave during the resurrection!!

On one hand, they decry divorces, saying that they're of Satan (True to the Faith, a gospel Reference, c LDS 2004),

but on the other hand, when a TBM divorces a doubter, a NOM, or anything less than a Walking Wallet/Peter Priesthood....


well, that's OK, no matter Hatred or Deceit used to clean house, take the children & property.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 04:05PM by GNPE.

When my TBM parents divorced my dad got the brunt of it. Mom kept the hotel business, dad got all the bills.

The day they signed the divorce papers (the VERY DAY,) the hotel burned to the ground, mom collected all of the insurance and walked free and clear. Dad got nothing but two teenage kids and the automobile.

The insurance company ruled the fire of unknown cause. I always suspected my kid brother who was a pyromaniac since he was old enough to walk. He was inside the hotel when the fire erupted, mom was doing her grocery shopping.

Glad to say he got out alive, but very, very traumatized. The cat died, and everything else was incinerated (minus some of mom's genealogy records she kept in a smoke free/fire proof file in her office,) as soon as they were able they collected the proceeds and cleaned clear outa town.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 02:55PM by Amyjo.

you can thank Ronald Reagan for legalizing no-fault divorce in california.

Divorcing an abusive a-hole was one of my finest moments. Never looked back; never regretted it.

from my college psychology courses, I recall the term Projection...

As I recall, projection occurs when subject A transfers some of their non-productive thoughts (such as guilt/shame, and/or a lack of self-esteem to another.

Also, some ppl are narcissistic, approaching a Total lack of empathy - concern for others. What most ppl refer to as Love can be (almost) Totally absent in their lives...

Then, there's what we call Ego, Pride, Greed and the rest of emotions we see commonly around us, almost daily.

IMHO, Divorce CAN bring out the WORST in people, it seldom initiates or enlarges Love, Kindness or any of what we call helping, friendly conduct...

What the hell is happiness?

Sometimes divorce is the only thing that saves your sanity. In my case, I knew I had to get divorced or I would go insane or die. I know that sounds very dramatic. And it was.

Now I am in a relationship going on 9 years. He bought me a ring but we have never felt like anything is broken in NOT being married. In some ways, it is less complicated. Funny thing is, my grown kids who are all still TBM seem relieved that we are not married.

My mega tbm wife of many many many years tole=d me she wanted a divorce on our anniversary.
I told her I would comply and be fair and do it uncontested. No attorneys involved on either side.
she gave me a list of what she wanted and it was unreasonable.
I guess I lied .. I told her I'd go along with and sign it if it was written up as a legal document.
I took the document and hired the best attorney I could find and gave them a hefty retainer and began the fight of my life.
I only want what was fair and she wanted more. Just like the Church. I fought back and got a fair split.

rule no. 1 never tell her what your thinking and never react.