# Financially supporting vs. enabling - where to draw the line?



## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

I'm kind of struggling with this issue... So I'll start by giving some background that I think is relevant.

Married a long time (17 years), a separation was raised in November 2010, with the agreement that we would stay together till after Christmas. Then she (my stbx-wife) had some minor day-surgery scheduled for February, so I stayed till she recovered from that. 

She has worked for the last 6 years, part time while the kids were in school (ages 10 and 12 now) at a local coffee shop, but took the summer holidays and Christmas/Easter breaks off. My income is about 90% of the total family income. My income was finally to the point that we are relatively comfortable, especially with both incomes. Mine covered all the bills/housing/vehicles, hers was for paying down some debts faster and extra stuff.

But when she ran into some health issues over the summer (the reason for the surgery above), she ended up only going back to work in September, then took the rest of the time off from then to her surgery in February. I was perfectly ok with that, before and after the separation was discussed. She went on unemployment insurance for a couple of months, although that was like pulling teeth to get her to register for it. Seriously, you pay into something like that for 20 years, but don't draw on it when you're entitled? Because you don't want to inconvenience some stranger to give you the right forms?

Anyway... Her surgery happened, she recovered, I left the house. I continued to put in the money in our joint account for all our bills and mortgage, and I make sure they get paid. She's hasn't taken ownership of that yet, even though she's the one living in the house with the cable TV and power/gas/water/etc. I've been living at a friend's place, renting his basement. It's "cozy" but ok for now. A decent transition place, anyway. 

I find out a few weeks after I left that she chose to submit her resignation to her previous employer after recovering from her surgery, rather than go back. She wanted to go back to work in September, but she was fully able to go back to work in February. I'm like "WTF? I'd like to take the year off work too, but that's not going to happen.". But whether it's guilt, or being too nice, I push her a little bit on the fact that it wasn't maybe a good decision to do that, as it's going to be a financial pinch if she keeps this up for too long. I was prepared to cover the lack of income over the summer when the kids were out of school, but not for an extra 3 months before then.

Anyway, it's coming to the point that I'm looking for another place to live, rather than living in my friend's basement. Time to grow up a bit.  Of course, this has extra expenses associated with it. In the meantime, she's applied for 3 jobs with no success in the last 3 months.

Have I reached the point that I'm just enabling her to continue sitting on her butt and not take ownership of her own life? How hard do I come down on her to start taking that responsibility? I've got a certain amount of guilt going on, simply because it was my decision to leave the marriage. But as my friend pointed out today, even if I was at home and the last 6 months hadn't happened, I'd probably be getting pretty choked about being the sole income earner by now. I do want to continue to meet my responsibilities to my family... But this doesn't seem fair to me either.

My thinking is to tell her that starting in June, I'm cutting back on the financial support to her. I know approximately how much I will have to pay in child and spousal support, and I'll transfer that to her every two weeks. That's actually about half of what I'm currently transfering over. The problem with that is that if she doesn't bring in any money, paying for groceries and any optional things will be an issue quickly. I really don't want the kids to suffer from this...

Am I being unreasonable? Any thoughts on better ways to handle this? Right now, I'm transfering over 78% of our total after-tax money, and living on 22%. If I rebalanced things to what the child/spousal support tables suggest, I would be transfering over 40% if she's not working. If she was working at the same level as she has been (almost full-time, coffee-shop type job), they (the wife and kids) would get about 52% of the after tax money, and the after-tax money bucket is that much bigger as well.

C


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Pbear, do you guys hae a separation agreement in place at all?

That may be whereyou want to start, so it shows how the finances will be separated? From the moment H and I separated, I did not help him pay for anything and he did not help me pay for anything. We did not have a signed document til the day of our divorce much later but it just worke dwell for us.

If you guys are getting divorced, file and she will ahve to find a job...


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

JB, thanks. That's a good place to start. I really haven't been as proactive as I should be in starting to make this real.

Part of my problem though is that if I was simply to go by what my legal obligations are, her and the kids (they live with her, I get the on the weekends and talk to them daily) will suffer financially if she doesn't get her financial stuff together quickly. And I don't know if I can sit back and watch that happen. It would be easier if it was her paying the price, but not so much with the kids involved. Although I guess she does have other options; support from her family is one. But then the guilt comes back, and not wanting to be the "bad guy" in this more than I am already because I'm the one who ended it.

We're not doing anything to reconcile, so a divorce is coming at the end of separation period. One of our problems was always communication, and I guess I'm continuing that even now by not raising the issues and things that need to be dealt with. *sigh* Guess there's no time like now to start changing, right? On the other hand, you don't fight if you don't talk... So our discussions have been almost entirely through text messages, and almost always deal with the kids and their lives.

C


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Did you have to file a separation or just be separated? 

I really do think it would serve you best to get some sort of written agreement. How long before the yr is up that you can divorce by?

Offtopic: Just curious, do you feel guilty at all for ending it and the cheating?


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

If she cannot make it work financially you will need to take the kids. Harsh but true. You initiated the divorce but from what I read she made little effort to make the marriage one that was mutually beneficial. She got comfortable with you meeting all her needs while she ignored many of yours. Not your fault. 




PBear said:


> I'm kind of struggling with this issue... So I'll start by giving some background that I think is relevant.
> 
> Married a long time (17 years), a separation was raised in November 2010, with the agreement that we would stay together till after Christmas. Then she (my stbx-wife) had some minor day-surgery scheduled for February, so I stayed till she recovered from that.
> 
> ...


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

Jellybeans said:


> Did you have to file a separation or just be separated?
> 
> I really do think it would serve you best to get some sort of written agreement. How long before the yr is up that you can divorce by?
> 
> Offtopic: Just curious, do you feel guilty at all for ending it and the cheating?


JB, we can (and should) file a separation agreement. If nothing else, once there's legal documents, I can start claiming my spousal support payments against my taxable income.  But really, it's probably time to start talking to a lawyer and make things more permanent. 

I'm not sure what you mean by your second question, though. We can put together all the divorce documents, but it can't be signed and finalized till one year is up. But we could have everything together anytime.

And yes, I do feel guilty for being the one to end things. That's a big part of my dilemna. I'm doing a lot of things above and beyond what I "have" to do, like always being the one to pick up the kids and drop them off, providing more money than required, not pushing her to get a job, whatever. 

But oddly enough, I DON'T feel too guilty about the cheating. It was wrong, and I don't plan on ever doing it again. In the end, it accomplished nothing good obviously, even though I don't think anyone has been hurt by it. But by the time it happened, my marriage was over for me already. That's not fair to my wife to make that decision without telling her, of course. And I really wish I would have done the right thing and ended the marriage first, as I'll drag this decision with me from now on. If I ever get into a serious relationship, it's something I think I'll have to confess to. My current partner knows my history, and we're not even that serious. Well, in some ways we're not...

MEM, I understand what you're saying, I think... Not sure I like that thought and am ready for it. BTW, I haven't seen any evidence of her drinking when I've been out there... The bottle recycling area is clean, and she's been losing weight on the "Separation Stress Diet". But the not drinking is a relief, for sure.

C


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