It's 3am, I can't sleep because I've been trying to pass a kidney stone and feel awful. So looking at the moneywatch advice column I decide to write this poor fellow Quentin F. what will likely be one of the worst requests for advice he's ever gotten. Here it is, typos and all since I didn't read it- and I'm about to go enjoy some more tamsulosin and another gallon of water. It reflects some of my current dilemma... which grew more complicated this past week- read on and you'll see why.
I have a quick question and by quick I don’t mean uncomplicated or succinct, it is not that at all. I need the answer before April 1 when my husband and I are scheduled to appear before a judge with our agreed upon Divorce Decree which we had drafted by an attorney, but we are Pro Se in this petition for divorce (both of us currently are unrepresented though I paid the attorney $2000 to draft this for us). Six years ago we sold some farmground that we had purchased from his dad at the going rate for land, no discount offered at all. We did a 1031 exchange and bought 88 acres with a 2 bed home in a different state. We have not maintained an open relationship with his family, mostly due to differing moral opinions on things and the stress that comes with all interactions with them. Fast forward 6 years, my husband refused to work a job in the new state and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars wastefully (I earn a 6-figure income and covered his losses on the farm with my earned income). The past 3 years I’ve constantly asked him to budget, participate in financial counseling with me, participate in marriage counseling, or at the very least begin to help out around the house and cook or clean or do laundry or watch our 6 kids a little better and stop making the oldest two act as the “parents” but he refuses. He hides money from me, he has made unilateral financial decisions in purchasing a brand new truck, two brand new tractors (he now owns 5), other farm equipment and cattle. I requested that he use an accountant because tax time each year is a nightmare as he tries to recollect from memory where all his money went- he never did until 2020 and even then didn’t use a legal accountant but a friend whom he overpaid to keep an excel file of whatever he texted. 10 months ago he changed his religion, his beliefs, his lifestyle and his moral values- and because we have kids and he knew I wouldn’t stand for his drinking around them or his addictions and problems, he moved out of the farmhouse into a friends place. 6 months ago I purchased a different home and moved out of our farmhouse 25 min away with our 4 minor children. He moved back into the farmhouse and has continued on with his midlife crisis. He has run the home into the ground. The addition he started building 18 months ago remains unfinished and there is no heat or a/c in the kids bedrooms, doors are not installed and even exterior doors have no knobs on them so the racoons come in and out as they please. He canceled his garbage service and won’t remove the trash from the inside of the home so the smell is horrendous. It’s liveable, but barely and when our kids visit him they don’t shower or use the indoor bathrooms at all- they all go to the bathroom outside, all the time. He’s suffered several mental health crises in which I’ve called the suicide prevention hotline 4 times, called 911 three times and at the last time I told him I’d not do that again because he refuses to get help. Since then the police have been to his place 4 times at his own request and on at least one occasion they’ve given him a brochure to a drug and alcohol rehab in town. Police have also been there to wake him up in the middle of the night to get his cattle off the highway, help him catch his horses, and this continues to happen repeatedly. Most recently, last week, the police came because two days after an incident at my home when he wouldn’t leave and had me backed into a corner and was in a catatonic state hollering my name for five minutes straight, I opened my locked bedroom door with the intention of pushing him out of my home and he got in my face to scream at me and I punched him. This was a first, I’ve never been physical with him ever. Two days after this happened his girlfriend breaks up with him and he has yet another nervous breakdown where I came immediately at his request to look at his head where I punched him since he refused my repeated attempts to have him get checked out- and he called the police to force me to leave though I was unable to because he’d thrown my keys on the roof of the farmhouse and wouldn’t get them down or help me get up there to get them. The police came, yet again, and all they did was make him get the keys, I left and later that night I found out they wouldn’t file charges so he drove to my town and went to the police department and filed assault charges for me punching him in my home. The officer who came asked me over and over if I’d like to file charges on him for trespassing when he wouldn’t leave my home and I refused to do that but did give a full statement. He told me he would request that the DA drop the charges and I asked if there’s any way we could force a mental health evaluation or a drug test because I worry about sending our kids to visit him. My kids continue to see him every other week for two nights only and we have one child (11yo son) who refuses to go at all. The situation there is that him getting a girlfriend while we are still married is something we just don’t believe in and he has justified to the kids that this isn’t against the commandments because we aren’t “married” even though we are. His family, which are all the same religious background as me have supported him and told him they’re proud of him and say he needs to get away from me because I’m “controlling” which I admit I’m glad they’re on his side because that means he’s not yet committed suicide. He’s not getting the mental health help he needs, he’s not shown that he is capable of earning an income enough to pay the house payments and currently has been paying the mortgage using a cattle loan line of credit that he took out after we separated but before we filed for divorce. He has $250,000 in new debt since then. I’ve paid down our marital debt by about $30,000 as well as made 3 house payments a month on my new home. We came up with a divorce decree that was drafted with a whole lot of emotion on my part- in an effort to keep him in the home so our kids have something to visit and he can continue farming because he says he’ll die if he doesn’t. The farm is worth at least $900,000 and we owe $200,000. I’ve made every single house payment on that farm since we bought it- right up until we moved out in late 2020. The agreement says I get full custody of the kids, he pays $100.00 a month in child support (I believed he had no income when we wrote this) and he will give me $110,000 as my share of equity, which is not nearly enough any way you look at it. The attorney who drafted it thinks it’s not at all responsible and not in my best interests and is having me sign a waiver holding him guiltless for drafting such a terrible document. He recommended that I get another attorney’s opinion before taking this to court and he says the best thing to do is just go to court and fight for what is rightfully mine in order to protect me and the kids best interests. The only real value we have is in the farmground which has appreciated since we got it and the home if we sink another $10,000 into it to complete the mess of an addition. The cattle he has are all mortgaged and I doubt there is much value in them. The equipment he has was all purchased brand new and he’s upside-down in nearly every piece. His net profit and loss statements are usually false when he applies to get more cattle loans- something I recently pointed out to him as possibly being financial fraud that could get me into trouble because he was married when he applied for these loans. He lied on an application that I accidentally found in an email to the tune of $85,000 in assets and a $700,000 whole life insurance policy which doesn’t exist. He insists these were errors put in their by the banker taking care of his application and that it’s “not what he told the guy” however it is what he signed on the application. My husband is incapable at this point of being honest- he is a habitual liar and is addicted to alcohol and possibly drugs, as there’s been a 100lb weight loss since May 2020. This actually happened mostly in the first 3 months and is possible that anorexia is part of it- he is trying hard to get attention but refuses help when doctors have tried to intervene. He’s on a fast track to destroying his life and me giving him all my equity seems to not be the best idea, particularly when his parents and his bar buddies are saying that he’s earned the home free and clear because he is the only one to materially participate in farming it (as I was working multiple jobs to try and keep the power on and stop our auto insurance from cancelations which happened all the time). He is so unrealistic with finances that when I showed him what the tax guy who researched it showed me- that his farming, ignoring depreciation all together, has been in the negative $20,000-$30,000 every year since we moved here- he went hysterical on me yet again and cried for hours. His mismanagement of money and multiple financial betrayals have been very damaging to us as a married couple and have put us in horrible positions many times. I was often pregnant these past six years and working so hard that I miscarried multiple times (we were not able to have a baby at all since we moved) and I was skipping meals at work to save money when he was out buying $14/day in tobacco that I didn’t know about because it’s against our religion and he hid that habit from me for 15 years. I’m a fairly intelligent woman, I’m 44 and have $300,000 in student loan debt that was incurred mostly to finance our household and support us while I went to pharmacy school from age 36-40. Having this equity from the sale of this property would help me considerably and get the kids and I off to an even start after this divorce. I do however, have a good source of income and an education that ensures we will never go hungry. My husband prior to moving out away from his parents worked construction and was a very good provider. He says he’s unable to go back to that life because he’s 42 and it’s hard on his body- that all he is willing to do now is farm. His 2020 financial statement shows that he thinks he made $99,600 in farming after expenses and ignoring depreciation. I doubt very much that this is true but since it’s what he is claiming, the $100/mo child support for 4 kids that live with me and 2 in college that I support as well seems a little inappropriate. I know that I could use a lot more than financial advice- but I’m working with a counselor to help me and the kids and I see a family counselor each week as well. My financial question is- what would my tax liability be if he gives me $110,000 (assuming he can get a loan) since we did a 1031 exchange when we bought the place, it is actually deeded completely in his name though the mortgage is in both our names. I’ve included in the decree that he has 90 days to get a mortgage in his own name- which his dad is willing to help him get, so I believe he should be able to accomplish this as long as he can complete enough of the addition to get the appraisal the bank will require. It looks like on the surface here, to most reasonable people who look at this situation, that I should just go to court and get a divorce like any other normal woman. I don’t want to hurt my husband mentally any further than he’s already hurting. He was severely abused from age 8-11 by a neighbor man and has never recovered from that trauma. Every 3-4 yrs of our marriage he would have a breakdown, these grew more frequent after we moved out of state- perhaps because he was now 21 hrs away from the perpetrator and his mind and body felt safe recalling the events, I don’t know. I just know his family denies that it happened, he never got counseling or help in any way to deal with it and the abuse was of a sexual nature and involved death threats. He is saying that the trauma he now suffers if from 20 years of marriage to me because I tried to control his farming and wouldn’t let him do what he wanted to. His family corroborates his warped theory that his stress and anxiety now are all my fault, mostly because this is an easier thing to deal with than realizing he was hurt by the family friend and they failed him by not protecting him or getting him any help in the aftermath when as a 12yo boy he became addicted to tobacco and started using alcohol regularly.
Any advice you could offer will be much appreciated.
S_______ T________, Payne County, Stillwater, OK (court records are all online at oscn.net)