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[quote=Anonymous]Attorney here- not an divorce lawyer but I have helped a number of my friends with their divorces. As my husband says, I know enough to be very very dangerous:

I strongly encourage you to follow the advice on this thread. As was stated, you are in an equitable division jurisdiction. This means that you are entitled to about half of all assets acquired during marriage. You seem to think it is limited to cash or investments. No! Assume he bought a BMW during your marriage. He can keep it after the divorce but must give you about half the value.

Also, you seem to have a laser focus on child support (to which you are entitled). But given the disparity in your incomes, you have a great case for additional spousal support.

If your lawyer is not telling you this, you really need a new one.

[quote=Anonymous]OP here. I'm not sure if getting a lawyer who will tell me that s/he can get me more child support is going to help me. I just figured that my lawyer is being honest when he says that he can't assure me that I'll get a lot more than $1,200/month -- he says I might, but I might not. The main reason being that courts base the proportion of time spent with each parent only on overnights, rather than on the total number of hours (so the afternoon hours during the school year and the non-camp weekdays during the summer that DS spends with me would be ignored). If we just go by overnights, then the time split is closer to 50/50 in our case. When I plug our salary numbers into the child support calculator with those time percentages, I get about $1,500/month. But the child support calcultor won't apply, because the combined income exceeds the $240K threshold. So my lawyer said that in such cases, the child support is based on meeting reasonable financial needs, and noone knows what some arbitrary judge might think is reasonable in our particular case. So I can see why the lawyer is being noncommital and is telling me that going to court is a risk, in that my legal fees may not result in a much more favorable settlement.

Even in a best-case scenario, though, I don't think child support will be high enough to allow me to add to my savings. And I'm guessing that, at best, I might get about $40K from my STBX's retirement contributions, and maybe a little extra from any other re-distribution of marital income. So I think I need to do something different, even if I get lucky and get more child support, so that I can save enough for retirement or for emergencies.

I have considered that, if worst comes to worst, and I can't find a way to increase my income enough or cut my costs enough to be able to afford to keep my current workload, then I would look for a f/t job, or take on a lot more work, so that I work f/t hours as a self-employed person. However, STBX has himself indicated that he thinks the current arrangement is best for DS (the aftercare at the school is not great). It also takes a lot off his plate, because I typically can take care of sick days, doctor visits, snow days and other days off school, arranging camps, taking care of school stuff, etc.

At any rate, for now I'm trying to think through all my options. My only ideas so far are looking for less costly rentals, perhaps sharing a place with another single mom, etc. Then again, if I further reduce my costs or manage to increase my p/t income, I assume I'll also get less child support if we go to court or my STBX bends on that front, and it will be a wash. So, maybe this just isn't doable, and something (either savings or my p/t set-up) will have to give.[/quote][/quote]

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