Help

Help anyone. Anyone getting a divorce from a narcissistic, lazy, husband who has planned and orchestrated the entire thing behind your back for over 2 years? Including embezzling, hiding everything financial on the premise of Religion, trying to steal my business and he’s filed for alimony as the cherry on the cake?

I know there are so many women who are hurting out here. I’ve ready many threads, and I feel terrible even asking for advise and help. But I don’t know where to turn. Ive spent $65,000 on my attorney so far in the 1.5 years since he filed…. And nothing seems to be getting done, and things just keep going down hill.

I got married 27 years ago…..I was pregnant, and not with my first child. I got married because I couldn’t put my parents through this again. (Things we’re different back then). My son was 3 at the time and I was a single parent, with no ties to baby daddy #1, and no child support. He opted out. I was fine. I had a descent job, and a side hustle, selling my art/creations on the side. My side hustle turned into a full time business where I had bought a tiny house, and was supporting my son just fine. Finally decided to go on a few dates. Of course got pregnant. Beyond a fertile Myrtle. First baby I was on the pill, second it was literally during that time of the month, where you supposedly can’t get pregnant……..I made the **** lemonade. Built a house together, had baby #3…… He traveled during the week with his job, so I worked my business, in my home, and travelled to sell my goods on weekends; all while taking care of 3 children. I was the caregiver, he wouldn’t even change a diaper. I also managed the entirety of the household and all the work entailed, therefore I worked through the long hours of the night to keep my business going. Fast forward 12 years, and things went down hill. One day he just decided he would quit his job and come work for me. His reasoning “I don’t like to work….you do”. My exact response was “I would never hire you, you don’t work hard enough.” Over the next week he quit his job and secretly bought business cards listing him as President of my company. (Hid them in a desk). That began the downhill slide of the marriage.

Not only did he not contribute any time or effort to our household, didn’t pick up one chore. Now I had additional. I was required to stop working 3 times per day to fix him meals at the appropriated times, as he was hungry on a stringent schedule. His job in life became telling me what I was doing wrong on a daily basis. He was the “Baptist” head of household and the household: This in turn gave him sole responsibility for managing our finances, all decisions on our children etc. I know, big red flag. But I had been married for 13 years, we had 3 children, went to church, etc. He did have jobs: Golfing at least 4 times per week, he mowed the lawn, and printed payroll checks for my employees (10 min bi weekly). The rest of his time was spent on facebook, political websites, surfing the internet, and more golf. With nothing to do with his time, his daily duty besides criticism was making up sky is falling completely inaccurate scenarios of problems that never existed. So it was a constant in our marriage that I was trying to just please him rather than have to deal with the fallout. We went 3-4 rounds of marriage counseling, at his request even…..First was too secular, and was a woman, so wasn’t good enough for him. The next ones always resulted in his statement of “This is just the way I am and you will just have to deal with it.” I stayed to be the buffer between my children and their father. I was in a constant state of pleasing everyone, and trying to talk my kids off the ledge. Telling them how amazing they were each and every day, and they will get through this. Spreading love and positivity. I did it for 26 years. After my kids were all over 20, it got really bad. He would lock me out of my house if I spent an evening watching a movie with my mother. He hadn’t let me have information on our “investments” or our bank accounts for that matter… in 13 years, no matter how often I asked. A few years ago, told me he would divorce me if I didn’t sign papers for a $200K mortgage on our house, solely in my name, since he didn’t have a job. (I have a text to prove it.). I wasn’t allowed any passwords, (even to the WIFI!), to touch the remote, the thermostat, just crazy stuff. In all honesty, I didn’t care. I had my career, that had now become an art studio next to my house, so I would work constantly just trying to stay ahead and keep up to the tune of 70-120 hrs per week for over 10 years, literally. Frankly I was so busy, I just focused on that, not how crazy and miserable my personal life was. That was how I got through each day.

A couple years before he quit his job, he told me I needed to get an LLC, in case someone fell, or sued me, that way they couldn’t come after my business. He went to an attorney and drew up the papers. After he filed, I found out it was not an LLC, it was an S-corp, where he gave himself 50% of my company. I would be handed signature pages to sign, no documents attached. When I asked what it was he would make up some stupid thing and demand me to just sign it. But he was a “Good Christian Man” and we were married “til death to us part”…. Yada, yada, yada. So immediately after that mortgage on our completely paid off home was signed by me, I guess he started cutting himself a paycheck from my business, unbeknownst to me as I wasn’t allowed on his computer or even the passwords to get on it. I knew NOTHING was going on, until I was at a show selling my stuff for 8 weeks straight, and came home to my employees calling me crying. Telling me he had been shredding documents and burning them from my studio, and packed an additional dufffel bag full of documents and his hidden password book. After getting home, I found out he had filed for divorce over 2 months before, and was serving me that day. He left our home, because it is where “our” business was and since he couldn’t “work” or run my business, I was left temporary custody of my home and business. Unknown to me: All of my business credit cards and bank accounts he had put in his name only, he had “personal” credit cards hidden charging 2-4K per month from our personal checking, had bank accounts in his name only with funds taken from my business, had padded his retirement plans to equal over 15 times what my minuscule retirement plan looked like, I had to go to the bank and open my own account to get access to even see our joint account and account histories!, and to top it all off…… He took the dog bought as my daughters emotional support animal after counseling for depression/suicide attempt. He later emailed her a letter telling how sorry he was, but that the dog had in fact become his emotional support animal, and the dog loved him more than her.

This man set himself up over years. The temporary orders went to court where the ordered me to keep paying him a salary and to give him remote duties. There are none. He didn’t even contribute to the business while he was here! Even went so far as to make a fake list of duties that weren’t even a part of my business, that the court said, “ya, let him do that.” I’m required to maintain status quo in my business to keep working and pay his salary, his gas, his life insurance, his health insurance, his roku, his Sirius XM (that I didn’t even have he said was too expensive), the mortgage payment, all the bills, his phone, and he left with a new truck completely paid for by my business, while I got my first new car in 13 years with ALL the payments to pay! And now he’s filed for alimony. He won’t turn in his discovery info, but I’m required to to do in a timely manner, as I have done. (Over 500 pages). He’s had our home appraised. He hired another appraiser to come into our home and appraise everything…. I mean down to the can opener, a mop, light bulbs, food in the pantry, and he wants 1/2 of the coffee can change can in the laundry room.

I guess I need counseling. I struggle with how can you do this after I have literally done everything in our marriage from diapers to dishes. Love to laundry. Nothing was EVER reciprocated, but I though this was just my lot in life, and I would be happy with myself no matter what. Now I’m having to sell everything, and start over, not knowing what will happen to the business I have grown over the last 35 years. A business that is now 1/2 his and I will be required to pay him alimony???? So he can continue to golf every day with my daughters dog? Should the man never be required to work? Why?

He’s just plain awful. I mean taking your daughter’s emotional support dog and claiming it loves him more? Nutty. Sorry you have to deal with this. Is there a way to start a second business in your name only & close the first one out? I’m not an attorney but there’s gotta be a way to outplay his narcissistic game somehow. Hope things get better soon!

OMG. Thank you for replying! My attorney telling me if I start another biz, it wouldn’t even matter, because he would still get alimony because it’s my ABILITY we have lived off of all these years which means I have the ability to PAY him! It’s crazy. It’s been over 1.5 years, and he has now postponed our first mediation session for 2 more months. CALGON take me away.lol.

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