I don't see many things in black and white. I do see a lot of grey.

My hired lawyer.... I chose him originally because he's known to be a very kind and peaceful person. But his entire message was one of, be prepared to pay a lot for a long time, but that's ok because you'll have peace. You want to not go to court because that gets messy. Maybe she was abusive and possibly an alcoholic, but you don't need to dump your dirty laundry.

My friend, being my friend, jumped in to defend me. Somewhere above someone mentioned not punishing her. My hired lawyer also said my friends comments were punitive.

Were they?

Everything he said amounted to, let her be independent, totally financially independent. Your priority is the kids, now and long term. Don't be bullied, don't be rushed, don't be put out of your home. It's your kids home. He was forceful in saying it. But that isn't punitive. There's nothing there that is punishing her.

Maybe it reads different than it sounds in my head.

He was defending me, not punishing her. Letting her worry how to pay her credit card or fix her car, or figure out how to support her kids while working fulltime isn't punishing her. That's life. That's all what I did for her before.

I begged her up until 3 days ago to talk about finances, support, how much she really needed, etc. She refused aggressively, repeatedly.

Today my phone is blowing up, because I took the house off the market, and she's panicking about the money she assumed she was going to have.

As it is, I'm financially tapped out. I can't pay my lawyer anymore anyway. I had borrowed the money for the deposit on the house we were trying to buy.

Lawyers and court costs a lot of money. So, I guess we'll get there at some point.

Goodnight