Divorce and splitting finances.

[AndrewF]

My spouse and I are separating and he ended up setting up a Chase Bank account a while back without me noticing, and they were just taking $15 for themselves every month and they had managed to wipe out all but $10 of his initial $100 deposit.

We finally settled down after months of arguments and agreed to be reasonable, and one way that I helped him was by shutting down Chase Bank and opening a new account at Fifth-Third with a $350 account bonus coupon.

He was never particularly interested in the ways I handled things, and so he didn't know to stay away from Chase Bank, especially if you don't qualify for one of the ways to avoid their fees. In their case, they not only have fees but they tend to be some of the highest in the banking sector, even for ones with physical branches.

There's still a couple of branch banks out there that have plain no-nonsense free checking accounts and the two in the area that I know about are Fifth-Third Momentum Checking and Huntington Asterisk Free Checking.

I moved most of my stuff to Fifth-Third after dealing with online-only banking since 2009. It's just not convenient for me when certain situations arise and I don't have access to branch banking services, and Fifth-Third has a lot of branches in the Chicago area, especially the suburbs. There's one near my new apartment and another one right next to the Sam's Club I will be going to for gas and home goods, so this worked out to be more convenient for me than Chase Bank. 

I got a $400 bonus from Chase earlier this year and as soon as my direct deposit hits Fifth-Third I'll get another $350.

I told my (soon to be ex-spouse) all about how banks try to make off with all your money a little at a time and how to dodge that.

He doesn't know how to do much in this country because he handed all the finances to me. I don't want to be vicious or unfair to him. In many ways, he's lucky that it was me and not some of the people he could ask for a divorce. I've seen some truly horrible things like when my mom got divorced from her second husband in 2008, and ended up filing bankruptcy over it in 2017 over a mortgage foreclosure, and then having to stuff her divorce lawyer from the third husband in it too because she ran up such a balance when he sued her trying to get half her pension over a marriage that lasted three years.

The second husband flouted a judge's order to take her name off the mortgage by deliberately buying a Harley-Davidson on finance then applying for a refi so that his debt to income wouldn't qualify. Even though the judge knew what he did there, he just shrugged and told my mother "I can't control what he buys!" when it was a very clear case of contempt of court.

So as far as the second husband went, the judge turned out to be a paper tiger.

Then the judge ordered her to put part of her paycheck into a joint account to finish paying the IRS, but then he did not notify her they were paid off and started ransacking the account for beer money, years after their divorce.

Finally he died in January 2017 and the mortgage went into default because his 6-7 adult family members that were living in the house wouldn't pay $500 a month, so now they all have to rent apartments that start at twice that and go up in rent every year.

Mom was panicking because the bank was going to come for her over some people that were living there and refused to leave. She couldn't even take the house back. So I told her "File bankruptcy. The sheriff will get them out." and she ended up disposing of some more IRS debt and the divorce lawyer from the third husband and all kinds of bad things.

Point is, I know how these things tend to spiral and go on forever. Divorce judges can rule whatever they want, but if they don't enforce it, who cares?

My spouse has spent the last few years being mean to me, like when my shoulder was broken into three pieces and the biceps and  rotator sheered off of it, and I was in horrible pain and the first two surgeons I saw were incompetent and wouldn't tell me it was broken even after taking MRI scans.

I was in a lot of pain, so much that I had "thoughts" that I will not go into, because the pain was making me crazy. I was essentially bedridden for all the time I could possibly sleep, I got addicted to pain pills over the constant stabbing and burning pain, for years while the surgeons wouldn't help me. (I haven't taken a single pain pill since October, the week after my surgery. Other than the very occasional celebrex which is similar to ibuprofen.)

I would get out of bed at 5 PM, I was living on Disability income, and I didn't want to sleep until 5 PM because of being lazy or even tired, it was because it hurt so bad to be anywhere but bed and asleep. Then I'd wake up and still be so tired I could not think, staggering towards the coffee machine at 5 PM.

On his days off he'd be sitting there at the kitchen table in his underwear going "Leche ka! Talaga! Putang ina mo! Hayup ka! Pangit! You're lazy! You're useless! You're ugly!" while I was trying to make coffee. I never learned more than about a dozen words in Tagalag, the ones he called me.

Then when he demanded a divorce last year I was a couple weeks out from my shoulder reconstruction surgery. I ended up spending those two weeks in bed crying. I had that on my mind and "What if this surgery goes wrong and my arm goes from like 50% functional and a lot of pain to "amputation". Yes, "amputation" was one of the things they told me could happen while they had me out for surgery.

I had an excellent surgeon at Froedtert in Wisconsin. But they have to tell you everything that could possibly happen even if it's a remote chance.

It took six months to recover and heal from that. My shoulder got two pieces of bone removed and replaced with a donor graft, and they reattached the tendons, and it's back to like 98-99%, which was as good as it could possibly get.

Medicare covered most of the bills and most of the pain is gone. I made the mistake of using one of those gas nozzles that extends to the other side of my car at Sam's the other day and my shoulder let me know it didn't like that.

For the move I'm hiring movers. I'm too old and especially after this I need to be careful not to wreck my shoulder and end up in surgery again.

In my 20s I would have just pulled up with a U-Haul and had someone help me with the couch and a mattress in a box and stuff, now I need deliveries because even though my arm is functional again I'm reluctant to end up screwing it up and ended up back where I started.

Even though my spouse treated me terribly, I still feel "responsible" for whether he lands on his feet or not.

I told him what it would cost us in lawyers, what it would cost him in IRS bills, what would happen to his credit, what would happen to mine, if he gets nasty and starts fighting me. I told him, "If we get nasty, we both end up with less, not more. Sit down with me and we can draw up the papers and file them without a lawyer. Your alternative is to pay a lawyer and they start at $5,000 and if you go over like 10 hours, they'll take more, and there's simply not enough to argue about. I will be as fair to you as you are to me."

I started dating again while I was trapped at home in October after the surgery. So I'll be moving in with someone I've known for about 8 months. He's never said an unkind word so far or let his temper slip.ust doesn't strike me as the "usual" that I've experienced in relationships.

The "usual" meaning they start out acting like they're your best friend, but they leave without warning when you have a life problem, even if you were always there for them.

That's how this marriage went. I personally did at least $8,000 worth of lawyer stuff for my spouse at USCIS so we didn't have to hire anyone for certain phases of that process. I made sure he got his surgery so he wasn't deaf anymore. I made sure that he could get in with a dentist, and paid about $5,000 on top of maxing out his dental insurance for two years in a row.

I've learned a hard lesson that love should be expected or you shouldn't be with someone. Don't tell yourself that you will ever do "enough" that they will "love you eventually" or you will just lose years of your life and end up in a mess.

[Realist]

Quite a lot of information in this post.  Lots of seconds, thirds, trial and errors, and hardships.  Divorce in and of itself, makes no one better off financially, nor wealthier.  Often times, more poor than where they once were.  That is an unfortunate side effect.  I'll provide some information, free of any remarks directed towards you.  General FYI questions or comments I would ask or state to myself.

Unfortunately, I can't help to not feel much empathy for those on their second, third, fourth marriage.  I strive to always keep the first marriage working.  Else, one risks bringing the same failures that didn't work before, into the potential next relationship(s).  Even in the workplace, the higher one elevates, the less rings on a finger.  At some point it becomes a choice.  At what point does one consider that perhaps it's not the partner, but rather themselves I ask?  I might even suggest that drama, and unneccessary attention in life, is directed at those that have that difficult life balance.  And yes sometimes, it really is self induced.

I can respect the wanting to keep things as civil as possible, and easy to manage as possible.  Adding in lawyers adds unecessary complications that can add up to financial turmoil.

At the end of the day, life is a learning curve for everyone.  You can only identify and do what you can to grow within your own life.  The race in life is not you against anyone else, it should always be you against yourself.  In our life, it's our in-laws, that are trying to race against us.  I feel a great sorrow for them.  That's not what it's about.  They are competing in a game that we aren't even trying to participate in.

You should do what you need to do, and be happy about it.  I do wish you all the best.

[AndrewF]

Thank you.

I hope I do not turn into one of those people that ends up in failed marriage after failed marriage.

Eventually, after some lumps, my mother listened to me that "If you can't find anyone better than these, maybe it would be better to just live a happy life."

I discussed with my spouse some more how we're going to wind things down. He came to the conclusion that this apartment is going to be unaffordable to him, unfortunately without my income most of them in the area will be. 

I advised him to consider moving into a YMCA in Evanston. I said it was about four miles down the road from where I'd be living and I would even help him move and everything, and I'd be around if he needed help in an emergency or something.

I don't hate him and I don't wish any harm to him. I spent the evening paying off his credit cards. He's always had me managing things for him, which is why he has very good credit, but he was always so disinterested in the boring details of home economics.

I told him how dangerous credit cards can be if you don't use them perfectly. The conversation started with him asking me what the difference was with a debit card and a credit card. That's how basic his understanding is.

I explained what each one is, and how banks try to get fees off of you from both. In addition to setting up his Fifth-Third account, I turned off all the bank's "profit centers" which like most banks, hit up people who have no money with fees for being broke, like "We may honor a check or a debit card transaction, even if you have no idea you're out of money, and it may cost you over $100 a day in fees."

Overdraft "service". The bank account, on its default settings, is "free until you make a mistake, then it will cost you dearly".

I explained to him "affordability ratios" in housing, like how "ideally you should not be spending more than 33% of your income on all your housing costs, which includes the rent or mortgage payment, utilities, and insurance".

I told him, "If you move into the Y you'll be at 15-20%, depending on how nice of a room you get."

I filled out an application for housing at the Y for him to get him on the waitlist while he was here with me and said that was okay.

I hope he gets it. I've always tried to build him up and give him a good life. Even though he has not always been kind to me, I hope that he is okay when I leave. I know he had a bad life in the Philippines, and he has no family left except a sister who is financially abusive and if he has to ask to stay there, the rent will become "Give me your whole paycheck." and they'll barely even feed him.

It won't be because she's family, or because she loves him, it's because she's drowning and being sued by her own creditors and she needs all of her husband's money, and all of her brother's money too.

She blackmailed us, blackmailed us during the green card process. We needed her as a co-sponsor and she told me if he didn't give her all his money from work, then she'd get him deported, and she went and paid a lawyer $2,000 to try to sink our case.

I told him "If she did THAT to you, why in the hell are you talking about living there again? If I was you, I'd rather live in an outhouse than in her spare bedroom."