When to move forward

[freetobeme]

Here's the deal... I've already retained a lawyer (Spent the $1000 I had in savings and I don't have any more$$.)
The spouse cut me off from our community funds, which I know is illegal, but regardless...I have no access. I have a little income ($800 a month from state disability) and I drained the joint savings (only $200) to pay for food, gas, meds for a little while. I also have a $400 car payment, $150 to my visa, $100 - $150 month to my therapist. Misc. is spent on extras for kids school, church, personal allowance stuff. The spouse person cut off my access and said he'd buy what the kids needed, but I would have to buy my own food, gas and meds...ridiculous! (I do all the shopping and it's my car that takes the kids to school, etc.)

Anyway, when he did this it launched me over the edge of doubt clearly into the pool of certainty that I want to file for divorce. My lawyer wanted me to do a financial disclosure first and have him served in the next week, so we could get his financial disclosure and work on getting support in place, so I can work on moving out also. (We rent, don't own.)
As I was starting to try to dig through the mess of papers he keeps with our financial records, it became apparent to me that he was hiding the true depth of our money problems. (He has never shared the financial info with me...even though I have begged him over the years to show me everything and design a budhet together.) Regardless, what I found is at least $50 - 60K in debt. But I also found that he has about $7k in savings and about $47K in a Tax Shelter Annuity.
I'm thinking that, if I can get him to look at these numbers together and agree to it, we should cash out the TSA, which would give us about $36K after taxes and a total of about $45K to pay down debts. My lawyer thinks it would be good if we could use the financial disclosure from to guide us TOGETHER to solve the financial crisis. Then, she says, things would'nt feel so desperate and hostile and he may be more cooperative or at least not so easily ticked off when I want to move ahead with the divorce.

Obstacles:
He's angry and hurt about the emotional muck of our marraige. He's not ready to look at the practical stuff, which I am.
I can't wait out his mood swings and verbal abuse anymore. (I also have young kids who are in the fallout.)
I want to move now to serve him and get things going. BUT, he's in the midst of getting our taxes prepared and is very, very stressed about our apparently being broke.  I feel like if I served him now I'd be rubbing salt into the wound.
I literally have no money now. The money in my checking is gone towards the monthly bills I already mentioned, I have no more savings. So, I have no money to buy food, gas, meds(I have serious health issues and require meds that are costing about $80/month and NO I don't qualify for medicare or anything like that yet.)
I have heard my husband say twice in our couple sessions (which haven't helped, by the way...unless you want to say they helped me to clarify my current direction) that he thinks it would be easier for him to know exactly what he will be legally obligated to provide evry month. I think he's dellusional to think that because divorce is costly, even if you do it yourself. Anyway, I think he thinks that this is a way of controlling the spending. Ridiculous again...can't he just sit down and make a budget with me? NO! Hasn't done it in alll the years I've asked, why would he now?!
Am I right that a mediator would help us sort out who gets what items and who gets what debt, etc?
This is yet another reason to file now, because the court will order mediation and we get FREE mediation here in CA.

So, what do you think? Wait till the day after our appointment to file taxes...maybe he'll be less stressed, maybe not. Try to do the financial disclosure together, which he said he'll "try" to do with me after he's done with taxes. OR just go ahead and serve him now? (also keep in mind that he is a HUGE procrastinator that can barely keep promises he's made. He pays the bills on time and goes to work on time, but if you ask him to something like have a conversation about finaces or fix something...he'll say later and later NEVER comes!)

Thanks for your input!
And I would really love to hear from Lee on this one!

[Lee Borden]

You seem nothing if not hopeful. I agree with you that it would be wonderful if you and your husband could simply agree to sit down together, talk honestly about what you own and what you owe, and work out a plan to get through a peaceful and dignified divorce. However, you've given several reasons why that's unlikely to occur until your husband perceives that he has no other choice.

I would offer your husband one last chance to sit down together (and there's no reason why this has to wait until after the taxes are done - sounds like yet another stall to me). If he refuses or for whatever reason it doesn't happen, I like your strategy of filing, serving him, and then working to take advantage of the free mediation services available to you.

It's going to be incredibly painful for you, and worse for him. Be as tender as you can with him while remaining firm.

[freetobeme]

Thanks so much, Lee. I appreciate your validating response!

[freetobeme]

Well, Lee...guess what? He started to talk to me agin. I told him I couldn't pursue emotional stuff with this horrible thing he did to me hanging over my head. (Cutting off my access to funds.) I took some constructive and angry doing from me, but in the end he said he'd pay for my food, gas and meds. (Good Lord! He's supposed to anyway!)
So now, we are talking a little bit. We have these two big issues. A financial mess with a lot of debt and a budget to figure out AND to really once and for all decide if we can tolerate living together anymore. I don't think I can, BUT I told him honestly that what he thinks of as petty complaints are REALLY important to me and I cannot continue to live with him if there is not immediate and proactive movement towards correcting those things I cannot abide.

Where do you think that leaves us? Does that put me in Limbo again, when I thought I had already decided to move on? You see, I know that we are broke and that divorce and splitting the household will be more costly and create hardship - financially and emotionally (especially on the kids). So, the practical part of me wants to work things out and stay married.
But the part of me that is emotionally and physically stressed beyond beleif has had and all I want is peace and to live alone (w/ my kids).
I'm also an Adult Child of an Alcohlic and making decisions is one of my greatest weaknesses. I am also a Taurus...determined to the end, never let go.

Help me!!!!!