I’ve Been Watching the Market for a Long Time
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As this journey progressed, I had become increasingly convinced that she had planned her “escape” for at least a year prior to now (March 2, 2004). It was the little things she’d do or say. The credit card secret and subsequent run-up all happened in the prior 12-months (roughly), lying about her earnings and what she was doing with the money. Then there are comments she makes like the one that is the title of this post. She’s been “watching the market for a long time.” Well, given that, at this point, we were only in the house less than 3-years, one could assume that there was only one reason for her to be doing so. At times, I allowed myself to get extremely paranoid, I would wonder if a future divorce was the reason behind her insistence on moving from my prior home shortly after she moved in. After all, she wasn’t on the deed and she didn’t contribute to the mortgage, therefore she wasn’t going to be entitled to much, if anything, had we stayed. It was a pre-marital asset and that fact is one that would be a bone of contention during the course of these of proceedings. As such, the profit on my prior house, which was used as downpayment on our (at the time) current house, was a premarital asset (mostly). This will be explained later.
Another early discussion regarding the marital home and living arrangements…
PEW: if we sold for $280k…..our proceeds would be $83k after closing costs…..NET. The house won’t sell for $280K, and I refuse to discuss the matter with you. If the appraisal indicates otherwise, then we’ll go from there. if it sold for $260k….the net would be 63k. i’m sorry it upsets you
LM: It doesn’t. If it sold for 260K. The closing costs and transfer tax alone would mean we’d net 58K. That accounts for no other closing costs.
PEW: ok. i guess we can just wait
LM: A rough figure to go by is 10% total costs (including everything). At $260K, we’d net approx. 50K
PEW: well i’m not going with rough figures
LM: I understand that.
When I was trying to arrange and prepare for a buy-out offer, I did so based upon what the expected net-proceeds would be if we had no other choice but to sell the house. This approach would be one that exposed who was really “all about the money” as things progressed. She expected that if I were to buy her out, closing costs and necessary repairs that would be required to sell the house be excluded from the offer. Literally, if I didn’t offer her more than what would be the net-proceeds of the house, she would attempt to force the sale of the home through litigation.
PEW: i used a proceeds calculator
LM: That’s why I said that after the appraisal comes back, call a realtor and we’ll ask him to figure in all the costs.
PEW: just based on what is available in [our area] right now. a 4br 2ba home. goes for $285k
LM: You’re not correct.
PEW: i’ve been watching the market for a long time. ok
I’m certain that was true. Given that around this time in 2004, the real estate market was just in the beginning of it’s radical upswing, it started to become clearer to me that this would be her best opportunity to cash-out for the maximum possible amount.
LM: They may LIST for that, but they’re not selling for that.
PEW: look for yourself. ok. we’re done
LM: The list you left up for me a few weeks ago showed that homes in our area have sold for an average of around 240. With a high of the 270 that you showed me. That’s the reality.
PEW: that wasn’t even a current list
LM: I sorted by homes that sold most recently.
PEW: the lastest sales shown on that list were spring last year
LM: In the last year or so… They’ve ranged from 174 - 270
PEW: ok
LM: Most were between 220-250 And us talking about it doesn’t matter. So why bother?
PEW: i know
LM: We get the appraisal, we figure it out, and then we go from there.
PEW: silly me….i’m trying to plan my life
LM: It’s pretty cut and dry.
That she was. HER life. She was trying to plan HER life. I was trying to plan OUR life… that is, my life and the children’s life, and even her life partly - in that keeping us close enough to minimize the impact on the children was a high priority for me. In addition, so was keeping the school system, the neighbors, their friends, the proximity to work, the logistics of it all.
PEW? All she wanted was enough money to get her own house. She would ultimately get her wish but literally would spend more litigating the situation (as would I) than she would get out of the forced sale… and she would also not consider what a mess the fall-out would create regarding the children.
She was never one for planning nor foresight.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Oh, LM. You simply would not believe how common this is: when calculating spouses (usually, the woman, but I have seen it go the other way as well) have the divorce all planned out way in advance, and have calculated exactly what their “take” in the marital assets will be. And they refuse to stop litigating until they get that amount… which of course is unreasonable, and so the fight goes on and on — much to the delight of the attorneys on the case. I swear they jump up and down with glee whenever they see someone like your PEW walk in the door. They even joke about the poor schmuck who is about to get taken for a ride. Your PEW has not stopped yet. She has only taken a breather from the legal tack, and has discovered and invented new ways to get her “pound of flesh” out of you in the meantime.
I once advised one of my clients to walk away from $286,000. Just walk away (in this case, there were no minor children and $286k represented about 95% of the net marital assets after debt, etc). My client was flabbergasted at first.
I told my client “you can either let your STBX get their ‘pound of flesh’ out of you right here, right now, and pick up and move on with your life, or you can fight and pay out that $286k many times over in aggravation and grief”. I explained to my client that, because of discovery, both attorneys knew exactly how large the asset pile was, and they would be quite happy to extend the fight until every dollar was gone. Then that would leave the ex-spouse still unsatisfied, and guess who that ex is going after? Not the attorneys. Nope. That ex is coming after my client… and will not stop until they’ve gotten either $286K in assets, or $286K-worth of satisfaction in giving my client untold grief.
My client wrote the check, got cut-off clauses written into the decree, and moved on with life. That $286k was re-couped in about 1.5 years.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Yes, there is an awful lot of 20/20 “hindsighting” I’ve gone through since this whole debacle began.
I would have easily saved myself $50,000 had I just cut off all contact and let the court decide.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Hi there..I just began reading your blog recently and I wanted to ask you, have you ever had your ex try and find you on here? The reason why I’m asking is because my ex’s new wife always seems to find me when I blog (I’ve had to begin new blogs every other month!) and starts to leave comments.
I’m ready to talk about what I’ve gone with with my PEB (Psycho Ex Boyfriend) but can’t get past the fear of repercussions…
Any ideas?
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Gemini Girl,
A lot of prayer and finger-crossing. That and sharing the blog (originally) with NO people who could remotely breathe a word about it to anyone, anywhere, anyhow it might get back to her.
Now, a few close, very trustable people do know about the blog and who it’s about.
Beyond that… just a lot of hope.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Thanks for the advice LM…I guess I just need to get my thoughts together about how to start. It seems like a daunting task to begin at the beginning.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I feel like you’re telling my husband’s tale with his psycho ex-wife. And 6 plus years after the divorce, she’s still trying to get into his wallet. Personal Confession Time: Before I met my husband, I always sided with women in a divorce, because I actually thought they came out on the short end more times than not. I admit it, I admit it, I admit it … I WAS WRONG. After having met my mans ex, and reading just the vile emails she sent him (not to mention hearing her lies in court) I now see how sick, evil and manipulative some women can be. I love my step daughter (child of the psycho ex) to bits, but her mother is a maniac. I pity the poor soul she corners next. Lola
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Lori, your observations are spot-on, but I don’t place the blame at the feet of malicious women (or malicious men, for that matter) - I blame the system that is “ripe for the pickin” - abuse, corruption, favortism, pandering…
…take the parts of the system that allow exploitative people to exploit… and you go a long way towards reducing/eliminating the contentious issues.
Of course, with so many livelihoods at stake… and so many in the legal community with the desire and ability to extract the maximum amount of funds out of the contentious masses… we have a long, long way to go.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Gemini, search your computer for keyloggers and any kind of spyware. Just to be safe.