Things my Nutjob Ex-Wife Says
Jul 25, 2011 14:43:41 GMT -5
Post by Attitude Adjuster on Jul 25, 2011 14:43:41 GMT -5
For those of you who don’t know, my wife moved out of the house in January, after admitting to me the previous May that she had put roughly $30,000 on credit cards because she has a spending addiction. Being the nice guy (read: sucker) I am, I thought we might be able to work through her addiction, even as this was the second time she’d done this in the seven years we knew each other.
Over the past month, she has said and done so many ridiculous things that I’ve really wanted to repeat. But doing so would only drag me into the gutter she’s already decided would house this battle, and probably just open me to errors in judgment. After long thought, however, I’ve decided to share this with you all.
Kristine moved out in mid-January, to her Mom’s house, even though she knew her Mom and step-father would be moving to Wyoming in a couple months. She took the dog. Months later, I realized that hurt me more than her leaving. The dog didn’t spend money and then hide it from me.
A quick backstory: Before we got married (and when the economy was good), Kristine came to me one day and told me she had spent about $10,000 on credit cards. She knew she had a problem, and wanted to get better. We rolled that money into a refinance on the house, and she paid off the debt through the house loan. She went to Debtor’s Anonymous; and got as far as three years without using a credit card. We bought a new house, her credit was improving, all was good. Then apparently, like an alcoholic, she thought she was OK.
Unbeknownst to me, she started applying for credit cards and buying stuff. Mostly clothes, I found out later. Then she’d max out that card, and get another to pay off the first one. Max that out, get another, repeat. Take out a cash advance to pay off another. She was taking master’s courses, and I think was getting loans beyond what she needed to pay off credit cards. When she filed the divorce papers (a story in itself later), she listed $60,000 in student loans along with her $30,000 in credit card debts.
So she moves out, blaming me for her spending problems because I was angry and drank too much. Both theories, while holding a bit of truth, were so far from reality it was ridiculous. She overly dramatized everything, and not just in our relationship. She never had a boss who ‘liked her,” because she didn’t take criticism well and assumed people criticized her because they didn’t like her. No one liked her, but it was always their fault. Not hers.
Four days later she calls to tell me she got laid off from work. Yeah. So now she’s in debt to the tune of $90,000 and out of work, and living with her Mom.
She went from “I’m not in a hurry to get a divorce,” to “Have you filed divorce papers yet?” in a couple months. Her reasoning was that if she filed bankruptcy (for the second time in her life) she wanted me to be protected. OK, that’s nice. But then she got mad at me when I didn’t do it quickly enough (because I was working through keeping the house on only one income—something far more important to me), and filed herself in May.
To this day I don’t understand what she was thinking when she moved stuff from the house or when she filed the divorce papers. There was probably guilt involved due to the spending. Regardless, she left a lot of good stuff at the house (well more than 50 percent of the property), and in the divorce papers took responsibility for all her debt (which, while all the credit cards were in her name, she could have forced it to be split). In essence, I got the house, my car (and the final year of that loan), and a touch of credit debt. She got no house, her old truck and $90,000 in debt. I silently said “Thank you” and did not respond to the settlement except to say I’d received it. I wanted it to be recorded as entirely her decision so she couldn’t claim I made those choices.
In April her Mom and step-father moved to Wyoming and puts the house up for sale. So now she’s divorced (and just turned 40 in February), in severe debt, without a job and living in a house that’s for sale. Around that time, she lost a flash drive and soon after started getting harassing phone calls. Not coincidently, the house was also broken into while she was gone one day. (My guess is someone hacked into her Facebook, or followed her on Facebook, and knew exactly when she would gone.) Most of what she owned (which she took from me) was taken from her. Perfect karma.
End of June she finds a job in Wyoming, sells the truck, buys an SUV (increasing her debt) and moves to Wyoming to live with Mom. About this time she starts asking when her name is going to be taken off the car loan (a second on the house) and the house loan. Her reason: She’s either going to buy a house or declare bankruptcy.
I’ll let that settle in for a moment.
Yes, apparently she thinks those are her ONLY two options. And she wants her name off the car and house loans so she can either get a home loan or—if she declares bankruptcy—“they” won’t go after the house or car.
So I call an attorney. The car is in my name only (only the loan is in both our names), and the house loan was just restructured through an assistance program (because I’d lost half my income). After some opening discussions, the attorney asked if I was still making payments on the loans. Yes, I am. Both of them. Promptly. With that, she said a bank or court would never go after my property because they’re getting their money. Case closed.
So I told that to Kristine. Talk about not happy. She tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about (in less than kind terminology), and even goes so far as to e-mail my Mom to see if my Mom would “talk some sense” into her son. Needless to say how that went over with my Mom. That certified Kristine as nuts with her.
Oh, and Kristine tells me the same day that a mortgage company pre-approved her for a home loan. To which I call bullshit. By conservative estimates, her debt-to-income ratio (once she starts working on August 15) is already at 20-22 percent. Home loans are structured at no more than 31 percent of your income, with a max debt percentage of 44 percent. The math just doesn’t work, no matter how cheap houses are right now. Especially since she has no downpayment and will have to include mortgage insurance in her monthly payment, thus adding to her debt.
She sends me a final note telling me I’ve learned nothing from this entire scenario, and that because I’d “broken my word” to take her off the car and home loans—something I never said I’d do unless it was beneficial to me—all further communication would be by mail or through the courts. She believes “the courts” will force me to take her name off the home loan. Not true. She gave up all right to the house with a Quit Claim Deed and through the divorce settlement she wrote.
Finally, about an hour before she sent me the “all further communication would be my mail or through the courts” E-Mail, she asked about a $47 auto insurance rebate I received when she took her truck off the insurance. She wants that money. (You know, she can afford to get a house, but needs $47.) About three days later, she sends me another E-Mail asking about the insurance rebate. I reminded her that she wanted all further communications in the mail or through the courts, and that since keeping a person’s word was so important to her, I thought that might be important.
Again, she was not happy. She sent me an E-Mail stating that wasn’t what she meant, and asked if I wanted that written into the divorce settlement. That confirms to me she has no idea what she was doing when she wrote the divorce settlement, or how final it was. Or that she’s will to pay $395 to open and rewrite the divorce settlement for $47.
And that’s where I am today. Ahh, that felt good to get off my chest.
Over the past month, she has said and done so many ridiculous things that I’ve really wanted to repeat. But doing so would only drag me into the gutter she’s already decided would house this battle, and probably just open me to errors in judgment. After long thought, however, I’ve decided to share this with you all.
Kristine moved out in mid-January, to her Mom’s house, even though she knew her Mom and step-father would be moving to Wyoming in a couple months. She took the dog. Months later, I realized that hurt me more than her leaving. The dog didn’t spend money and then hide it from me.
A quick backstory: Before we got married (and when the economy was good), Kristine came to me one day and told me she had spent about $10,000 on credit cards. She knew she had a problem, and wanted to get better. We rolled that money into a refinance on the house, and she paid off the debt through the house loan. She went to Debtor’s Anonymous; and got as far as three years without using a credit card. We bought a new house, her credit was improving, all was good. Then apparently, like an alcoholic, she thought she was OK.
Unbeknownst to me, she started applying for credit cards and buying stuff. Mostly clothes, I found out later. Then she’d max out that card, and get another to pay off the first one. Max that out, get another, repeat. Take out a cash advance to pay off another. She was taking master’s courses, and I think was getting loans beyond what she needed to pay off credit cards. When she filed the divorce papers (a story in itself later), she listed $60,000 in student loans along with her $30,000 in credit card debts.
So she moves out, blaming me for her spending problems because I was angry and drank too much. Both theories, while holding a bit of truth, were so far from reality it was ridiculous. She overly dramatized everything, and not just in our relationship. She never had a boss who ‘liked her,” because she didn’t take criticism well and assumed people criticized her because they didn’t like her. No one liked her, but it was always their fault. Not hers.
Four days later she calls to tell me she got laid off from work. Yeah. So now she’s in debt to the tune of $90,000 and out of work, and living with her Mom.
She went from “I’m not in a hurry to get a divorce,” to “Have you filed divorce papers yet?” in a couple months. Her reasoning was that if she filed bankruptcy (for the second time in her life) she wanted me to be protected. OK, that’s nice. But then she got mad at me when I didn’t do it quickly enough (because I was working through keeping the house on only one income—something far more important to me), and filed herself in May.
To this day I don’t understand what she was thinking when she moved stuff from the house or when she filed the divorce papers. There was probably guilt involved due to the spending. Regardless, she left a lot of good stuff at the house (well more than 50 percent of the property), and in the divorce papers took responsibility for all her debt (which, while all the credit cards were in her name, she could have forced it to be split). In essence, I got the house, my car (and the final year of that loan), and a touch of credit debt. She got no house, her old truck and $90,000 in debt. I silently said “Thank you” and did not respond to the settlement except to say I’d received it. I wanted it to be recorded as entirely her decision so she couldn’t claim I made those choices.
In April her Mom and step-father moved to Wyoming and puts the house up for sale. So now she’s divorced (and just turned 40 in February), in severe debt, without a job and living in a house that’s for sale. Around that time, she lost a flash drive and soon after started getting harassing phone calls. Not coincidently, the house was also broken into while she was gone one day. (My guess is someone hacked into her Facebook, or followed her on Facebook, and knew exactly when she would gone.) Most of what she owned (which she took from me) was taken from her. Perfect karma.
End of June she finds a job in Wyoming, sells the truck, buys an SUV (increasing her debt) and moves to Wyoming to live with Mom. About this time she starts asking when her name is going to be taken off the car loan (a second on the house) and the house loan. Her reason: She’s either going to buy a house or declare bankruptcy.
I’ll let that settle in for a moment.
Yes, apparently she thinks those are her ONLY two options. And she wants her name off the car and house loans so she can either get a home loan or—if she declares bankruptcy—“they” won’t go after the house or car.
So I call an attorney. The car is in my name only (only the loan is in both our names), and the house loan was just restructured through an assistance program (because I’d lost half my income). After some opening discussions, the attorney asked if I was still making payments on the loans. Yes, I am. Both of them. Promptly. With that, she said a bank or court would never go after my property because they’re getting their money. Case closed.
So I told that to Kristine. Talk about not happy. She tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about (in less than kind terminology), and even goes so far as to e-mail my Mom to see if my Mom would “talk some sense” into her son. Needless to say how that went over with my Mom. That certified Kristine as nuts with her.
Oh, and Kristine tells me the same day that a mortgage company pre-approved her for a home loan. To which I call bullshit. By conservative estimates, her debt-to-income ratio (once she starts working on August 15) is already at 20-22 percent. Home loans are structured at no more than 31 percent of your income, with a max debt percentage of 44 percent. The math just doesn’t work, no matter how cheap houses are right now. Especially since she has no downpayment and will have to include mortgage insurance in her monthly payment, thus adding to her debt.
She sends me a final note telling me I’ve learned nothing from this entire scenario, and that because I’d “broken my word” to take her off the car and home loans—something I never said I’d do unless it was beneficial to me—all further communication would be by mail or through the courts. She believes “the courts” will force me to take her name off the home loan. Not true. She gave up all right to the house with a Quit Claim Deed and through the divorce settlement she wrote.
Finally, about an hour before she sent me the “all further communication would be my mail or through the courts” E-Mail, she asked about a $47 auto insurance rebate I received when she took her truck off the insurance. She wants that money. (You know, she can afford to get a house, but needs $47.) About three days later, she sends me another E-Mail asking about the insurance rebate. I reminded her that she wanted all further communications in the mail or through the courts, and that since keeping a person’s word was so important to her, I thought that might be important.
Again, she was not happy. She sent me an E-Mail stating that wasn’t what she meant, and asked if I wanted that written into the divorce settlement. That confirms to me she has no idea what she was doing when she wrote the divorce settlement, or how final it was. Or that she’s will to pay $395 to open and rewrite the divorce settlement for $47.
And that’s where I am today. Ahh, that felt good to get off my chest.
