Angel -- did you go ahead and file? Put the house on the market?
No and no.
Regardless, she filed the next week, and I was able to keep the house because the interest rates had dropped enough to enable a refinance after she took her "share" of the equity out. The D settlement was 50/50 across the board, so there was nothing to debate/argue in court. The case never even made it to court.
A lawyer told me to be cool around the house and don't make things any worse, don't argue, yell, etc because the settlement I got was so fair, that he "couldn't have argued in court for a better deal." (Or words to that effect). When word got out to some of my friends on the D deal, they commented that they never had heard of such a thing--that D's were always contentious and the guy always gets screwed.
In my case, the only thing I could have done differently was to file and file hard, asking for the kitchen sink. Because I'm in a no-fault state, I could not have done any better than what I ended up with. It would have been a complete waste of time and would have fed the legal system with money I didn't have--and possibly would have resulted in losing the house.
My hand was called...and in retrospect, a sustained carpet bombing campaign of shock and awe could have made things worse.
Like a good poker player, you got to know when to hold em and when to fold em. I folded, kept my legal costs down to a relative trickle, and got a decent settlement.
I remember thinking at the time also that this marriage must end--that the basic premise was so contaminated and vile that it didn't deserve to exist.
Having said all of that, however, I do agree with you Bystander (as ususal) that following through on the shock and awe, if you pursue that strategy, is requisite.
What is important when you are at this stage of the game, for all of us that didn't pursue TN, is that you have no regrets about not doing so...you can't change the past any more than you can predict the future.
