I'm glad that worked out for you, freewill.

I guess a cardinal rule of what we have been practicing is that you keep the custody discussion separate from the financial settlement discussion so that kids don't become pawns in the money talk. Like, "if I don't get 50% custody, you can't get the house," etc. We have learned the children are not to be used as bargaining chips and so far have stuck to that. I hope that continues....

Thanks for the ideas, Perna. I'm curious--how long was the marriage? 15 years of alimony seems like a lot. But maybe it is not? It's good to be reminded about the importance of maintaining a life insurance policy on the ex-spouse--I'd forgotten about that.