[Magdalen] your ongoing prayers, please

[Marion Thompson]

Yes, current family law supports all that you have said and all that 
number crunching has been done.  The evil X factor in my situation is 
the agreement that was signed in Nov 1991.  We had been living together 
10 years, we both worked at  U of T (Jim as a full professor) .  Jim 
thought we'd have "a happier healthier life" in the country and we 
bought this house.  He put up the down payment and, as I understood it, 
I signed this agreement that he worked out with our lawyer friend to 
protect his  stake in the house.  Fair enough.  Now, Our lawyer, not My 
lawyer, was a trusted good friend, Colonel of the Regiment and all that, 
and we were in his living room having a scotch while we did this 
business.  Verbal review of the contents.  Sign sign sign Have a drink.  
Of course in the cold hard light of day farther down in the document 
what the agreement also says is that, should the relationship break down 
for any reason including death,  neither party will pay or claim support 
from the other.

This is the crux of the matter.  They claim this agreement is valid, we 
claim it is not for a whole whack of reasons.  If its validity is held 
up, too bad, so sad.  We have done horse-trading, but always with his 
position moving farther away from acceptable until now this.

As a personal conundrum, to me there was a world of change in state 
between   knocking around and living together (never a pooling of 
resources) for a total of 20 years and moving into marriage.   I meant 
what I vowed.  In the ceremony how we all laughed at 'for richer for 
poorer' and 'with all my wordly goods I thee endow'. Hey-ho!

Two lessons from this:  Take nothing for granted and read the fine 
print.  And ALWAYS have your own lawyer to look out for your interests, 
even if you are certain your friends, however close or loved, are 
trustworthy.
Maybe three:  Never be reluctant to talk.  Communicate!!! and insist 
that the other talk and communicate truthfully.

Sorry, people,  if this is too much information.  Talk is my therapy.   
Feel free to delete.

Marion, a pilgrim

On 10/8/2014 7:34 PM, Molly Wolf wrote:
> In Ontario. You are entitled to half of the common assets, including half of the value of the matrimonial home, half his pension, and half of anything he's salted away since your marriage.  He is entitled to half of your pension, etc.  Each of you lists what you've got, and then it's horse trading:  you get to keep the house, he gets to keep (some of) his pension, etc., until the property held in common (which means pretty much everything acquired since your marriage) ends up 50-50.  So don't fret.  He may propose an unequal split, but you don't have to accept it.
>
> Have you got a separation agreement, or is this what you're negotiating?
>
> Molly
>
> The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. -- Mark Twain
>
>> On Oct 8, 2014, at 3:14 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Time will tell!  We have maintained a very civil facade, never ever mentioning the legal stuff, but on Nov. 4 we both have to appear in court at some information session where we are told how everything works.  I guess the camel will truly be in the tent after that.
>>
>> Marion, a pilgrim
>>> On 10/8/2014 12:16 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen wrote:
>>>
>>> In a message dated 10/8/2014 12:02:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>> mcepeda514 at gmail.com writes:
>>>
>>> divorce  when it is easy. My prayers......>>>
>>>   Is it ever easy?
>>>   I thought mine would be easy since it was simply deciding on
>>> the details of a 50-50 split.  We were on fairly amicable  speaking
>>> terms, and I thought we were out of the woods.
>>>   Then my ex was referred by a mutual "friend" (actually the wife of
>>> one of my fellow dermatology residents) to a person I later found
>>> out defined the word,"misandry".  This "advisor" radicalized my
>>> ex to the point that conversation was impossible, and it was through
>>> lawyers (at $150 a crack) that even the simplest communication
>>> occurred.
>>>   I do hope things are better for you.
>>>     David Strang - 30 years divorced and counting.
> .
>