Anonymous wrote:You should’ve had a better lawyer during the divorce negotiations.

Anonymous wrote:OP, how much is your income, child support and allimony? What else does he pay for for the kids? You act like you are in poverty but has three incomes so you easily could be bringing in $150-200K or more.

Anonymous wrote:You can still have that life or a semblance of that life but you need to be creative and take initiative. Travel was also a huge part of my marital life. After the divorce I researched ways I could keep traveling. I learned how to game the credit cart points and miles options. Open a credit cart, get the bonus, close it a year later, open another credit cart, rinse and repeat. I travel all the time and pay nothing but taxes for airfare and nothing at all for hotels. I’ve probably spent an average of 50-60 nights in hotels in the past few years. All free. It took me awhile to perfect, and I do have to maintain a spreadsheet and actively think about what expense is best on what credit card. But totally worth it!

Anonymous wrote:You should’ve had a better lawyer during the divorce negotiations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My DH divorced me in a nasty, surprise way. I was a SAHM who helped him build a career that is now taking off. When we were all a family, we took fun vacations together and skiied 20+ days in the winter (we don’t live in the dmv anymore) and had a ski house that DH was able to afford to keep.

I have a few years of spousal support and some retirement and but am living very lean because it is a struggle for me to find anything close to my old career and I don’t know how long I can stretch my half of our assets. DH is making 10x my old salary or more and I’m grateful that our kids can continue to live our old lifestyle when they’re with him. I am really grateful to have a settlement that makes sure my kids are set and will not have to worry about their future- it was worth some tradeoffs I had to make for my own.

But the other day one of my kids said, mommy, I’m sad that you don’t get to ski or go to [x country] with us anymore. I brushed it off and said how much I love doing all the new things we do together.

But I am sad and miss those old things too. I’ll never be able to afford to ski again- my gear was breaking down when the divorce had happened and we were supposed to replace it that season, and lift tickets and lodging are now out of the question. The vacations to [x country] were facilitated by DH’s work travel that my flexibility enabled and the miles and points he accumulated.

This is just a vent. I feel like I’m pressing my face up against the glass of my old life. I don’t blame my kids one bit but I miss the family times I thought we’d have together.

You are delusional in thinking you have much responsibility for his success.

You picked well for a breadwinner but bad for a husband, but at least you lived a decade or so of a live that most of us never have.

So if you were so pivotal to his success, apply it to yourself and level up your income.

Not delusional at all to think a supportive spouse can make a positive difference in their partner’s career trajectory:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-couples-success-at-work-is-affected-by-partner-s-personality/

Conscientiousness seems to be the primary trait creating this positive influence. OP now needs to apply that extra positive energy to herself.

Oh for sure. Having seen it up front, the stay and home wife and mom enables the career. Not only by taking care of every facet of home life and children but also by facilitating the schmoozing and socializing. The man in this position gets everything done for him (children raised, chores done, social life arranged) and literally has to do nothing but roll out of bed and go to work, and can put 100% of his energy into the job. In most cases the wife of a BigLaw parter or hedge fund bro deserves every penny she gets.

Anonymous wrote:The arc of post-divorce life is long but it bends toward justice.

In my own family, at the time of divorce 13 years ago, my father seemed to be completely at fault and my mother the victim.

It took 6 or 8 years for dawn to break, but now we children see that my father, for all his faults, did not hold nearly so much blame as we thought. And he is now far closer to his children than my mother, who ended up more well off, but bitter and distant.

But skiing with the kids is fun. No doubt about it. This might sound lame, but it's not: where I live we can ski cross country on publicly maintained trails for free, and we have a blast doing it. Buying lift tickets for my family of 7 would be out of the question, but we love cross country.

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Anonymous wrote:Teach your kids how to be financially independent. Stress academics. Thats the lesson learned. Don’t rely on another spouse. You never know what will happen down the road, so get them to focus on a career.

That’s the tragedy. I had a great career and was independent and arguably more successful than DH for a while. But he got a nibble at something that was unique and asked for a turn: just 18 months of going hard at it and my turn would be next. We had been supporting each other mutually for several years so I trusted him.

18 months became “just 6 more months”, then stuff like saying he had left the office but 2 hours later and he wasn’t home yet, then last minute trips that conflicted with mine.

We were a team until we weren’t. My career got back burnered until it went cold. I don’t know how I could have changed that save for never meeting him.

I’m still figuring what my advice for my DDs will be. I have a had time right now suggesting they marry. I do think a portable, non-expiring credential (MD, JD, RN, DDS, DVM, etc) is very important for women.