Steen719 Posted April 21, 2012 Posted April 21, 2012 (edited) So, briefly, I was married for 22 years and XH cheated 2 times that I know of, the last time after I had cared for him through an extended illness and transplant. We had a lot of financial burden after all of this and the years preceding the divorce kicked me in the butt. My son left for college (only child), my XH became ill, my brother died while XH was in the hospital, XH was hospitalized three times, we moved temporarily to another city to await transplant, facebook, cheating, discovering, and finally divorce in Oct. 2011 and I moved out Jan. 2th 2012. I stayed in this area to provide a home for my son to come home to when he wanted. He s 5 hours away and he will be staying here this summer. I wanted to go home, another 1100 miles, but made the decision to do this for him (my decision...made freely). XH quit making payments on the house, so now we are facing foreclosure if the house doesn't sell and I have been told that after 3 months of non-payment, decisions about the sale will be made by the mortgage company. We have not paid since January 2012. I was advised by attorney not to pay if he didn't (divorce agreement said we both would and I was willing). I imagine I will be facing bankruptcy. XH would not let me stay in house alone and pay for it and he was actively dating; I had to leave for my sanity. Son wanted me to leave XH, felt that he did not treat me right and wanted me to be happy. He has lost a lot of respect for his dad. Sorry for the length. Anyway, the truth is that I have always been more responsible than XH and have contributed more financially to the home. It didn't bother me then. Since all of this, I am the only one helping my son. He does get scholarship money, student loans and has offered to work, but he is in a pretty difficult engineering curriculum, so I was trying to avoid him working until graduate school. I help him with rent and living expenses and anything else he needs. My XH has not paid house payments, he is not paying at least some of his credit cards. I guess he is spending all of his money on going back and forth to see his gf and spending money on her. i have always spent on both of them before me. I am not greedy and I was always fine with that. My XH changed the locks on the house. I have to pay his insurance for one year (I did this in lieu of my having to pay him alimony and him getting part of my annuity). I have the papers for him to sign and he is out of town, so I said I would leave them at the house. I had gone one time when XH was not there to get the taxes (which I paid half to file) as I had asked him 2 times for them. I needed them for my son's financial aid request and I told him that. It infuriated XH that I went in without him there. Anyway, when I said I would leave the insurance papers, he finally emailed me and told me that he had changed the locks. He did, I checked. Writing back and forth, I convinced him that an attorney would be contacting him if he did not change them back and he relented. My son was trying to decide what to bring home for the summer and what to store. He called and I told him about the locks being changed, so if he was planning to leave his drums off there, he needed to get with his dad to get in. He told me that XH told him and when I asked if he was going to get a key, he said yes. So, he knew and no one told me, ME, who has paid more for the house than anyone, ME, who is the ONLY one paying for son's expenses. It really ticked me off. I expect that treatment from the azz XH, but I am so surprised that my son did not even tell me. I don't think he said anything to his dad but OK. I don't know this for sure because I just told him that I couldn't really talk about it right then. Am I being ridiculous to feel betrayed here? I am not asking to choose sides, but at least tell me? So, now that I have typed all of this out, it seems silly to worry about this, I guess. But I have typed it all out, so I am going to submit it. Maybe someone has some ideas. Thanks for reading. Edited April 21, 2012 by Steen719
andyg99 Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 Steen I hear we you are coming from - you are still in a place of hurt and being the responsible one of the two I'm sure it feels unfair. As for your son he probably didn't say anything because he thought nothing of it... it had nothing to do with you. It's hard when his dad is a prick to you for you to look past these things. As soon as the house situation resolves itself your moving forward will speed up. I lost my first house to a short sale after my divorce, I took the tax hit, my ex did not - once I got past the anger I realized that getting on with my life and giving my children stability was worth all the pain and financial issues I went through.... 2
beenburned Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 steen, Nothing about your life's situation has ever been fair or just! You have the right to be pi**ed off over everything that has happened! Your son probably didn't think anything about the lock situation. I don't think he deliberately withheld the info from you. You have been his rock and support throughout his life! Don't let any problems with your XH interfere with the great relationship you have with your son.
shayla Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 Oh, I'm sure your son just didn't think to mention the key situation and didn't set out to not tell you anything. He knows who has been looking out for him and who hasn't. you'r ex husband has been a jerk throughout all this and it has not gone unnoticed, believe that. And good on you that you only have to pay his insurance for one year and didn't get hung out to dry with alimony and all that other nonsense.
findingnemo Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 Please realize that your son doesn't understand how much you contribute. He probably sees you as his rock and some kind of superwoman. So don't take it like that. He would never betray you over something like that, if ever.
Author Steen719 Posted April 22, 2012 Author Posted April 22, 2012 I lost my first house to a short sale after my divorce, I took the tax hit, my ex did not - once I got past the anger I realized that getting on with my life and giving my children stability was worth all the pain and financial issues I went through....Hi Andy. It is nice to "see" you. My heart sped up when I read your post. What tax hit? Oh oh....I guess I need to check into that. I thought that maybe if a short sale happened, I might be responsible for the deficit and therefore may have to file bankruptcy, but never thought about taxes. Oh crap! I am paying everything else on time, trying to have nothing bad on credit except for the house, but of course, that is the big one. And you are right; I still hurt, a lot, but I am getting better...very slowly. Again, it is nice to see you. You were someone who tried to help me when I was first going through this. I want you to know I appreciate it. You have been his rock and support throughout his life! Don't let any problems with your XH interfere with the great relationship you have with your son. beenburned, you are right. I had thought to say something to my son, but you are right. I do not want it to interfere with my relationship with him. We have had a great relationship through his whole life (except for his Junior year in high school...lol...tough year, but we got through it). I have to be careful not to ask anything about his dad...it is hard, but most of the time, I am able to manage it. And good on you that you only have to pay his insurance for one year and didn't get hung out to dry with alimony and all that other nonsense. Shayla, I knew that once he stopped feeling any guilt, that he would get mean, so I pushed the divorce through and made this concession so that he would sign. I was right; later he was so pi**ed off at me; screamed at me at the top of his lungs one night when my son was home. He called me a f***ing bitch and said he would take me back to court (never went) and get my f***ing annuity and I would have to pay him alimony. Then he told me that he could not believe I did that in front of our son (I had held up my hand and said I do not want to talk about this...that was it!!) and called me a f***ing fruitcake. My son and I were stunned, but I knew right then that I had been right to be worried about what he might do. One year of health insurance is a good deal compared to a lifetime of support for a cheating, lying SOB! Please realize that your son doesn't understand how much you contribute. He probably sees you as his rock and some kind of superwoman. So don't take it like that. He would never betray you over something like that, if ever. findingnemo...I think you are a voice of reason to my ears, always, when I read posts. He probably does not realize how it straps me to help him. I am very careful with my money. One thing he has developed since this is my values about money. Prior to the divorce, he was trending towards his dad's gluttony for things. Ok, it's good I ran this by you all. I was going to talk with him about this when he gets home for the summer in a couple of weeks. I'll let it go. Thank you all for replying. I appreciate it.
beenburned Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 Steen, I am not familar with an annuity. What is it? Is it the same as an IRA, 401K, pension, or stock?
Author Steen719 Posted April 22, 2012 Author Posted April 22, 2012 beenburned, It is my retirement annuity (pension). I worked for the federal government. For as long as we were married, I had opted to take less retirement monthly in order for him to get an annuity if I died first. This was to help him with my son. I had to get him to agree that he would not go for this in the divorce and I could receive more monthly and he would not be eligible for any of my annuity and he would be in a different category to get health care insurance. I can provide health insurance under temporary continuance of coverage instead of providing it forever. He is eligible for Medicare (2 years disabled) in November 2012, so I said I would provide insurance until then. His guilt worked in my favor.
beenburned Posted April 22, 2012 Posted April 22, 2012 Steen, Thank you for explaining it! I took early retirement due to my bank being bought out. I had my profit sharing and pension rolled over into an IRA until I reach true retirement age. I also got severance pay, but used it to pay off my car loan. It was a blessing in disguise, as the grandchildren were born at that time. I keep them for my grown children to work full time. Now if I only had their non-stop energy, I would be doing fine!
Author Steen719 Posted April 22, 2012 Author Posted April 22, 2012 Hey beenburned, That's great for you. Sometimes thinks work out just right. I took an "early out" from the job. I stopped working on Friday and started working somewhere on Monday...lol...I have always worked! Now I teach online for a University. Anyway, because of the early out, I get a reduced pension and I did not want to have to give him any! I have no grandchildren yet and it may be quite a while. My son wants to get his doctorate degree so, it might be delayed. That's OK! I don't want him to wait too long, though.....I want to be alive to see them! I hear they are the best thing since sliced bread. 1
andyg99 Posted April 23, 2012 Posted April 23, 2012 Hi Andy. It is nice to "see" you. My heart sped up when I read your post. What tax hit? Oh oh....I guess I need to check into that. I thought that maybe if a short sale happened, I might be responsible for the deficit and therefore may have to file bankruptcy, but never thought about taxes. Oh crap! I am paying everything else on time, trying to have nothing bad on credit except for the house, but of course, that is the big one. And you are right; I still hurt, a lot, but I am getting better...very slowly. Again, it is nice to see you. You were someone who tried to help me when I was first going through this. I want you to know I appreciate it. when we did the short sale there was a taxable event that I was not aware of - I heard it varies from state to state and I heard the laws have changed... my short sale was about 16 years ago so I doubt my situation and yours are the same.... keep hanging in there, once you get this behind you it will continue to get better...
Author Steen719 Posted April 23, 2012 Author Posted April 23, 2012 So, I checked and from what I can tell, although some things have changed since 2009, I might still have to pay taxes on the deficit from the short sale to value, as they count it as income. There is at least one loophole. Both foreclosure and ss hit your credit, but short sale more. One major issue I have is that XH thinks we can make more money than I think we can and he will keep trying to sell it for that. Well, I'll keep hanging on as you say and only the future will tell me what happens next. I don't want to have so many financial problems after working all of my life, but it looks like I can't avoid it. I'm glad you mentioned that, Andy, or I would not have had any idea. Thank you.
Author Steen719 Posted April 23, 2012 Author Posted April 23, 2012 oops...I meant the foreclosure is worse....sorry!
jaymz Posted April 23, 2012 Posted April 23, 2012 Stuff like this is horrible but from what you have said before about your Son, I think its more a case that he didn't think to tell you rather than take sides. I get little things like that with my kids and its hard NOT to take it personally. You are doing well though, proud of you.
Author Steen719 Posted April 23, 2012 Author Posted April 23, 2012 You are doing well though, proud of you. Yeah, he is a great young man. You are probably right. Thank you, Jay. You, too.
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