Marriage and the Power of Divorce

Ok, I've never been divorced before and I have a question. First, little background.

Wife and I married for almost 10 years. Great marriage (so I thought) never argued, living well, in our own house 3 dogs, no kids. She falls in love with her coworker, I come home to an empty house and the dogs are gone. Turns out she drained the bank left me with nothing ultimately ends with me being homeless for a year. Fast forward to Monday this past week.

7 years later, with an amazing woman, 3 dogs, a fan-fucking-tastic job, life is good.

This past Monday June 23rd. I get an email from the ex. The email consists of a tiny message and a favor. She's clearly not happy and has attached paperwork for me to sign and notarize for divorce.

Question is this; aren't supposed to be getting served by a lawyer?

I've read everything in the paperwork and it specifically states because we don't have any debt, house, money or kids together that both parties aren't getting anything. It's literally just paperwork stating that we've been separated for 7 years and just formality I guess.

Do I go through with this or should I request a lawyer?

I know jack and shit about this stuff.

OU Ariakas said:

Also, you're going to have to spend some time on a post telling us why you never divorced her in the intervening 7 years and how your current girl is OK with it.

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Ok.

It's all due to not being able to afford divorcing her. It's not a great story but here it is...

After I came home from work one day in 2018 I walked in and wasn't greeted by 3 dogs. I immediately noticed half the shit was gone, which I didn't care about but the dogs not being home fucked me up. I started drinking vodka like it was water, losing the house was my fault ultimately. I would drink to the point I would wake up naked on the kitchen floor. I realized this as a problem when a coworker found me passed out in my kitchen napping with my vodka bottle friends. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. My life literally turned into a fucking country song. I lost the truck, I lost the house and the only thing I had left was what was on my back and what I could fit in my rucksack.

So, for a year I lived between buildings out of view of the public. After that year, I finally saved enough to get a piece of shit car and eventually renting a room. For the next 2 years I saved up when I could,when I wasn't fixing the fucking car or paying rent for a room that smelled like fucking weed. I ended up leaving that place because the owner of the house was a fucking druggie and I got tired of the needles and pipes and one day his dogs got fleas and they quickly took over the house.

I found another room to rent and went about my days working and saving. Then comes everyone's favorite pandemic... My job at the time was dealing with ghost tours in New Orleans and of course it was one of first things shut down because the majority of the tours included bar hopping. The guy I was renting from wouldn't let me stay with no money (for good reason) but at the time, neither one of us would know what the pandemic would end up being.

Fast forward through the Covid and I eventually land a stupidily great paying job with insane benefits and now I'm once again saving.

It's not an exciting story but it all comes down to not being able to afford a lawyer.

What's funny, is last week I called around to different legal firms inquiring for divorce lawyers just to get this email from her Monday.

Fogel said:

Did she take the ice cube trays too?

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We had an ice making on the counter and yes, she took it.

Cad said:

What you got sent is probably a waiver of service/answer. Read it carefully and if it just proposes a complete walk-away, no splitting of assets or payments in either direction, its probably a good idea to just get it done. Theoretically if you are still married she's entitled to half your assets now (and you're entitled to half of hers.) Since you actually have some assets, I'd try to get out of this.

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Every single line where it says " BLANK name is entitled to: Nothing or Not Applicable for the kids portion. For both her and I we are entitled to Nothing across the board according to what she sent me. She already took everything.

Fogel said:

Did she take the ice cube trays too?

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What kind of sick bitch takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?

moonarchia said:

Skip the marriage. Full stop. Any lessons to be learned were learned when you and their mom got divorced. Putting your ass in the crosshairs of another shitty divorce is just going to teach them that 1) marriages are shitty, and 2) you are an idiot who doesn't learn from experience.

Do something different. Be an honest and caring partner who also protects himself. Do not cohabitate. Do not commingle finances.

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Don't care what you say. This isn't the don't cohabitate thread.

This is the "marriage as an institution has been corroded and is functionally broken. How can we fix it and restore some semblance of a stable family unit for society" thread. Or at least it is for me, and it is for my life.