My ex-husband tried to financially rob me through the divorce

What if your marriage was just a financial scam, and the divorce turned into a financial robbery? How do you come to terms with the fact that the person you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with never wanted the "everlasting"?

My ex-husband tried to financially rob me through the divorce
Photo by Zhao Yangyang / Unsplash

The first number my ex-husband demanded in the divorce was an amount he could never earn in his six years in New York. Yet, there he was, asking me for it after just a 20-month marriage.

His demands continued to grow in the process. He wanted alimony. He wanted the apartment. He wanted his attorney fees reimbursed. He wanted to turn everything that’s mine into his. 

He hates me, yet he wants my money.  If murder weren’t illegal, he would have killed me already and stolen the money. 

I felt a paradox of feelings. On one hand, I didn’t want him to walk all over me and I wanted to do everything to stand up for myself. On the other hand,  I felt bad for failing his money expectations. I wish I had the money he wanted. I wish I had the abundance that I could just write him a check he wanted and say, “good luck and have a good life.”

Both my ex-husband and I grew up poor. When we met, we were both trying to make it in the big city. I thought because we shared a similar family background, we would share the same dream to build a better, more robust financial state than our previous generation, and we would be able to provide financial stability we never had to our next generation. 

The irony was that our income was similar. The difference was he’s a spender and I’m a saver.  I was able to save and pay for the entire downpayment of our apartment by myself, while he had tens of thousands of dollars in personal debt. He believed that I had the money to pay off his debt, so I should. It was an unspoken expectation that I wasn’t aware of. Later his expectation grew into deep resentment toward me and exploded in the divorce.

In a complete plot twist, the financial discovery showed that he actually doubled his income through his side business and paid off his debts. All this time, he was making good money while pretending to be “poor” in the divorce to maximize his gain. 

It’s a sad divorce. The only winners are the attorneys. Wherever you are in your divorce, I hope the following could help you ease the pain a bit and get to the next chapter in life a little faster.

Don't bypass the financial discovery process.

It's tempting to choose the easiest path. Given that my ex appeared to have minimal savings, it was tempting to settle on an assumed "fair" amount. I nearly skipped the discovery, convincing myself to just give him some money to end the case. Luckily I didn’t and I gained valuable insights into my ex’ finances that ultimately turned the tables in my favor. In a divorce, trust is already broken, so trust no one but yourself. Conduct the financial discovery, verify the facts, and make your own decisions regarding the settlement terms. It’s a tedious and expensive process that could easily run up to $10,000 in attorney fees, but you can also DIY with tools like Anew and save. You will get a full view of your finances and have a set of tools to plan for different scenarios. That will help you understand the legal frameworks and evaluate if the settlement demands from your spouse are baseless. Go to loveanew.co/truth and get your free 7-day trial.  Link in the description.

Do the math right.

There's nothing worse than fighting over imaginary assets. My ex's get-rich-quick scheme only drained his resources. It might have been his tactic to keep bluffing to intimidate me into surrendering. You need to understand your opportunity cost and never underestimate the other side.

Knowing when to stop.

Once you’ve done discovery and the math, create three sets of settlement scenarios: your bottom line, your most ideal outcome, and a middle-ground option. Use these scenarios to guide your settlement discussions. During a prolonged divorce, it's easy to become accustomed to the conflict, to the point where you might forget that the ultimate goal is resolution. Having these three sets of numbers allows you to evaluate the situation as it evolves and helps you decide when it's time to settle and move on to better, greater things.

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