that (bleepity bleep) about my lawsuit

[Zoe Girl]

So I am kinda out of steam on this however I have to say that I am disappointed in my ex still not acting like a very nice person.

In the situation my ex was still on the loan. When i could not get a loan on my own as a student he could have forced me to sell and move the children. So he stayed on the loan, then I did not get a full time job in my field after school and still could not refinance on my own. Throughout this process he was well informed by me and his lawyer. The lawsuit against me is also against him. I tried with the collection agency to show them he no longer had an interest in the house but they did not care. So this is out of my hands like the rest of the foreclosure, I have talked to them and made the best deal I could and I am taking care of it and paying it so I will be released. He told me he was having his lawyer handle it so I let him take care of his deal.

So today when I was on the phone with him for another reason he made sure I understood that if he had to pay anything on this debt he could (and would?) personally sue me for that money. Yeah great, I had just told him what I had handled and how I cleared out my reserves to do what I could do. So when he said he could sue me and i needed to understand that I answered him that 1) I only kept that house for the children 2) I made every attempt to get a job and am personally liable for $45K in student loans towards a job I did not get 3) that I lost all the payments and equity in that house while he was able to keep his equity he developed in his home. He was seeming to mellow after that, my mom says he can go for it and we will argue it back with all the money my family paid towards his back taxes and student loans over the early years we were struggling. May not work but it will make him look like a sh** head in the end.

You know what he has a right to be angry. i have a right to be angry. The head of the mortgage company still has a house and I am coming up with $5K on a salary of under $30K, (child support and extreme frugalness is important). We could agree on that, but I am not going to blame him or not take care of my part so they have more to go after him for. That is just the best I can do. You know that cliche, 'so sue me' yeah, people can really do that. I am honestly more pissed off that i cannot see this as 100% settled and free to move on with total integrity but now have one last thing hanging over my head until he settles his part. It seems like the same old pattern, when I am working on setting a boundary or being free of an attachment to him then the old behaviors spike again, and I can't even imagine he likes me. I pretty much have little respect for his lifestyle of designer things and always getting the 'best'. In the end however I have learned that he does not have the power he would like over me. each set of boundaries, not walking into the house randomly, sticking to arranged schedules, communicating so the kids were not left at the school waiting or not dropped off at school after throwing up, they all took a long time to enforce and any time I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt he did something like sell off our daughter's furniture when she didn't come over enough. So I know even if he sues me that he has lost that connection and that power, it is just another spike in the process which is his crap and not mine. I have handled mine and with some amount of grace. THank you for listening and hopefully (online correspondance is harder to read tone) I came across as more frustrated and disappointed than bitter.

[Tradd]

Wow, I'd be frustrated and disappointed too.

[Zoe Girl]

I am only frustrated and disappointed because of 20+ years of meditation and buddhist practice. I give tremendous credit to that. Otherwise I would probably still be waffling in my own anger stew about the lawsuit and therefore not handling it. About my ex, what a sad life to care more about your imported dogs than about keeping a room for your kids to visit.

[SteveinMN]

Your ex will reap what he is sowing.

[Jilly]

I have similar issues with a controlling ex, and your sharing of this is more important to me than I can express. I keep telling myself that each new assault (and they really and truly count as assaults) is simply one more proof that leaving was the best thing I have ever done. Maybe you feel the same way.

[Jilly]

Your ex will reap what he is sowing.

Not that we want anything icky to happen to anyone, no matter how heinous they are, but one can only hope. Yep.

[iris lily]

An alternate point of view:

Just consider one thing: He didn't demand that you sell the house and pay him after your divorce. Personally, I think that's pretty soft of him.

While it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback now, looking back, don't you think that would have been the prudent action? Your situation is not unique. I've seen it time and time again with single moms struggling to "keep the house for the kids" when really that becomes a slow crumbling of any financial stability. There is one financial guru (can't remember his name) who speaks eloquently about this situation and he says: cut the losses, sell the house immediately because it is impossible for either party, dad or mom, to live at the same level of housing. Both have to "move downwards" --accept the reality.

Perhaps the ex is a cad outside of this and he probably is, but in the end it was unwise to not get out from under that house immediately. Subsequently taking on a lot of student debt in a field like education that is saturated was double financial strain. Honestly, these are not the choices I would have made.

Zoe fortunately you've got lots of frugal skills to fall back on, that's helps your situation tremendously.

[Zoebird]

Shall I be honest here?

First, the mortgage company doesn't care because the paperwork has two co-signers. That means that both people are liable on the paperwork. Doesn't matter what their oral agreements were or domestic arrangements or anything else.

Second, the courts don't care about those things either. He cosigned for the loan. Therefore, guess what? He's liable for the loan.

I do not cosign on loans that I do not expect to have to pay back. I don't care what the other party says they will do or what we agree to -- if I co-sign, I understand that I am taking full responsibility for that loan. Easy enough, end of story.

That is simply how the courts and mortgage companies see this paperwork.

Now, what I don't know is whether or not *your* agreement as one-cosigner clears the debt entirely. That is what you and your ex need to find out -- in writing. Does this payment plan completely and absolutely clear the debt from both cosigners? If so, and you pay it, then you have nothing to worry about.

[Zoe Girl]

Yes it is a mess ( i tried to answer earlier and lost my work, sigh) So the divorce decree said I needed to refinance. I was a student so it did not matter how much I got in the divorce, I could not get a loan. This was after the divorce was final so yes, he did the kids a huge favor by not forcing a sale. I was almost done with school and a strating teacher salary anytime in the next 3 years would allowed me to refinance and afford the house. That did not happen. He did say I was voluntarily underemployed and that was laughed out by lawyers (I had a spread sheet of 500 applications I had turned in over the last year for teaching and even non-teaching jobs).

So it sucks, I am angry and I know he is angry. i don't blame him for that. I tried my best with the collections agency to pay what they wanted to fulfill what they wanted and they don't care. My meager payment is not enough to get them to leave him alone. They are releasing me and he has to make his own agreement, I have kept in communication with him and his answer was that he was calling his lawyer so I figured he had it handled. It is a crappy thing that happened to everyone, as much me as anyone else. I could have studied for many different careers and not got a job. Only one thing that has happened over the last 7 years has been handled by him as 'how do we do the best for the kids' and a conversation. When he lost his job and health insurance I just took it over and never asked for more money. I worked with him all the years he went out of town with 24 hours notice, just not cool.

[rodeosweetheart]

This sounds a lot like my ex, the behaviors, the wanting to live at the same level, then the bad behavior, and the job loss, etc.

While the judge awarded me the house I was afraid of him, he wanted it, I gave him the house and moved out where I could be safer with the kids. It turned out to be a good thing in the long run, I guess, although if I could have safely kept the house, it would have been financially a bonanza. So I took a big hit to get away from him safely. If I had kept the house I might have ended up dead, so I just have to figure I did the best I could and made the best decision.

Maybe you can reach that same peaceful decision, that you did the best you could to maintain stability and emotional safety for your kids? Trust me, they see what is going on , and they will be grateful to you someday, and they know you love them very much. Sometimes, that is what we get in life, and it is a hell of lot better than anger and imported dogs (and I love dogs!)

[Jilly]

Another alternative worth considering.

I am of the belief that whilst we can made stupid or careless choices, do thoughtless or frivolous things, that there are no truly bad decisions because all we have in that moment of deciding, choosing, is everything that we know in that moment, tempered with all of the emotion and stress, particularly where divorce is concerned.

I am recently divorced, and I know what it is like to make choices that are terrible, but simply the best that could be made. I had nearly all of our resources stolen from me, and I can live with that quite easily. Had our children been still at home, that would have changed everything, and even if I had heard advice about releasing the house, I most likely would have done everything possible to keep some normalcy in our lives, same house, same friends, school and neighborhood.

Just saying.