YOU NEED TO SEE A LAWYER.
If you have no agreement, then why are you paying 2K a month? Out of guilt? You can do a Child Support sheet that tells you LEGALLY what you owe. Your affair has nothing to do with what you owe her…nothing. She is guilting you to pay up and you’re doing it.
Believe me, the emotional aspect of divorce is hard. If it is YOU that wanted out, then you can be made to feel guilty by the other spouse. “Look what you did to our family”, “Look what you’ve done to me” “Why should I suffer for your mistake”. All those comments are made to beat you down.
You made a mistake. Nobody is perfect…only Jesus was perfect so they say. You acknowledge your mistake, ask for forgiveness, forgive yourself and then move on. You are NOT responsible for others’ feelings. Do NOT shoulder the guilt anymore-you’ll self destruct.
If you decide to re-do your money so that you are indeed supporting your kids as the law outlines, then do it. SHE will have to take the next step legally to change it otherwise (ie: agreement). You can file for divorce if you’ve been apart for a year and one day. Do so with a lawyer. File for ED and divorce. Do not continue to wallow is guilt-life is too short. Move on with your kids.
I agree, you need to speak to a lawyer as soon as you can. Run the calculator with the current child support guidelines and see what you should be paying. If you feel it necessary you can offer more but legally, that is all you are obligated to pay. Let her know in advance in writing that the amount you are paying her now ($2000) per month will decrease to $X and give a specific month start. Go to DSS web site and you can do printable version of the worksheets. Include a copy in the letter and keep a copy of the letter and the worksheet for your records. This way you are informing her of your intentions. Equitable distribution means that you are equally responsible for 1/2 the marital debt while being equally entitled to 1/2 the marital assets. The affair that you had has nothing to do with this LAW. Now, were you trying to get alimony, yes the affair would have some merit but considering that you and your wife continued to live together as husband and wife for two years after she had knowledge, the affair has been condoned in the courts eyes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your divorce or what you owe her.
It’s time to stop letting this woman play with your emotions. If she told you 4 years ago that she wanted a divorce, then to me steps should have been taken for that to happen then. It sounds to me as though she’s been leading you on in order to make you feel guilty and to continue to get money from you. Without knowing details, I’d be willing to say that this isn’t the only man in her life since you moved out…but I may be wrong. I just know human nature and I believe that there’s no way that a woman who’s husband cheated on her is going to wait 4 years after finding out to see another man herself…
You are paying for what you did. You ran the risk of losing your wife and marriage when you had the affair and unlike a lot of people, you are paying that price. Get an attorney to draw up an agreement or to file ED and Divorce.
The cliff notes behind why I am asking: I had an affair (which I regret to this day) in the fall of 2001 and spring of 2002. My wife after months of collecting evidence with detectives had a request for divorce sent to me at work. This was of course a huge wake up call to me and changed my life forever. I have said sorry a million times and tried everything under the sun to make things right but nothing I did was enough. For the next two years we continued to live together and I thought we were working things out. Every few months she kept asking when I was moving out which continued to surprise me. In Oct of 2004 I finally moved out due to her threat of leaving and taking our two kids with her. I did not want them to leave the only home they knew so I left (this I now know was a huge mistake). For the next two years I still thought we were working to try and fix our marriage and due to this I agreed to so many things that now due to knowing that she had no intentions of getting back together was a huge mistake and all because I felt sorry for her and what I had done to wreck our family. A few weeks ago I was dropping my son of at her house as I do all of the time but this time when I walked in she had another man in the house. I then found out she was actually dating this man and it was someone we both already knew and at the time he was separated. This is when my world came crashing in and I knew I had been a fool and even more so been taken advantage of. I now know I have wasted over 4 years of my life waiting for someone to come back and fix what was broken but it clearly will never happen. Just over a year ago I was let go from my job buy I continued to pay her the $2,000 each month since again I felt sorry for her and did not want to see out kids suffer. This of course has now left me broke. We have no separation agreement filed and nothing at this point in writing. I now know we need to see someone to help us split what we own and file the divorce papers to end our failed marriage. I know I do not have the money to hire a lawyer at this point and really I am just looking for someone that can help facilitate the process of going thru our money and assets and helping us to split things in a fair manner knowing there is no legal advice. I am hoping that this cost will be low enough that we can then agree to use this process and get thru everything. It is very emotional for both but we now need to get things split and get the amount in writing that I need to pay each month and for how long. I know she will be mad either way but I also know we cannot do it ourselves since she keeps asking for things that I know is not fair and now I need to move on and have at least some money to start over again. Yes she does work but wants more money than I can afford and simply claims that I should give her more due to what I did now over 5 years ago. Yes a lot of info but really just wondering if anyone can suggest how we find someone that I can then discuss with her about and see if we can agree that no matter what we both think and need that at the end of the session we will both agree and it will be done. I really think it may be some type of counseling service with a separation agreement/divorce doc with the details as the outcome. We already have a doc that years ago her lawyer created but now it is now good and truly even back then was a terrible doc. We just need to work on some of the details as to child support and division of our assets.