I met a family lawyer through ProVisors and hired her to enforce my divorce decree. It is from 2006 and all of our three children are now over 18. Their father was ordered to provide the children’s health insurance and in 2010, he decided it was too expensive.
At the time, I worked for Wells Fargo and we had great benefits. I added the kids to my employer-sponsored plan and moved on down the road. Sometimes I did ask the kids’ dad to pay 50% of the out-of-pocket charges for things like braces and surgery. Dealing with him was so unpleasant I didn’t bother trying to collect his share for things like wisdom teeth removal and broken hands. I paid for all the prescriptions and over-the-counter medication.
Back in 2006, documenting my ex-husband’s behavior meant writing things down in a spiral notebook. Only the kids and I knew about the times he failed to show up, spent one of their birthday parties on the phone in the parking lot, and backed into my neighbors’ retaining wall. He took out a good chunk of it and left some parts of his car in the street. I found out later my daughter sobbed in the backseat – she knew it was wrong to just take off and we loved the neighbors like family. We still do. I’ll never forget the sweet daddy ringing my doorbell and offering me the car parts he found in the street.
Recently I interviewed a gentleman from Our Family Wizard on my radio show, Plan for Divorce. You can download episodes of the show free of charge here. Not only does that technology – an app on your phone – document no-show incidents and ask yes/no questions of the parties who use it, but it also allows users to submit expenses and pay them in the app. Lawyers, therapists and even a judge can access the app to view activity in real time. The data is court-admissible.
The conversation on the radio show was so interesting that only later did I experience a true gut punch. Had I been able to submit expenses weekly or monthly (even daily!), I would not be selling my house to pay for my last kid to go to college. I would not be anticipating a hearing date next month hoping to collect well into six figures for the health insurance premiums deducted from my paycheck twice a month. For 12 years. I would not be grinding my teeth so hard in my sleep.
My point of view is we don’t discuss the practical and critical ways an individual can prepare for a divorce or breakup. I wrote a workbook to help get that conversation started. You can download it here for $25. My lending clients often start a sentence with “You won’t believe what s/he has done …” and I reassure them I probably will. Parents both male and female can behave in ways that are devastating to their relationships. I devote the majority of my waking hours to help with the finances … and hopefully some of the emotions, too.
Brooke Benson, MA, CDLP, works with homeowners experiencing divorce and occasionally shares her personal experience with the subject matter. She is a member of Austin 3. Contact Brooke on the hub or at brookebensonlender@gmail.com.