"AITA for wanting to bankrupt my ex-wife?"
My wife and I legally separated two years ago and filed for divorce last year. During the divorce, we agreed that I would keep the house, refinance it, and pay her the 50% of equity owed. She was bringing in six figures, and I only made about $58k during the marriage, so she paid me spousal support.
Because she put the down payment on the house, I decided to give her an extra 10% of the equity split, as I believed that to be fair. We also had two cars that we needed to refinance to take each other off the loan. Well, none of this happened, of course, because I chose to keep things amicable between us and didn’t seek legal counsel. I filed the divorce paperwork myself.
Fast forward to February of this year. I get a call from Carmax trying to collect a debt. My ex-wife missed a car payment. We talked about it. I understood that things come up, and I said I wouldn’t mind making the payment this one time as long as she paid me back.
I was still peeved, though, as I suspected that she missed her payment for the same reason she had failed to make an alimony payment a few months back: she’s financially supporting her new unemployed, daddy-of-four, felonious boyfriend. March comes around, and I get another call from Carmax. April, May, June, and July—calls from Carmax every month.
By May, I was already concerned. I come to find out that she has accumulated an exorbitant amount of debt in one year, the length of her new relationship. Her credit is almost non-existent, but she’s buying Great Danes, guns, shopping on Temu, and traveling around the U.S. with her boyfriend and kids.
I continued to make payments on her car because I didn’t want my credit to be affected by her inaction. She was paying me back, but it was like pulling teeth. By June, I got fed up and asked her to either refinance or sell her car, which, of course, she refused to do.
I kept pleading with her, trying to make her understand how much financial stress this was putting on me, and I let her know that I felt as though she was taking advantage of me. July rolls around, and I make another payment. This time, the Carmax paper bill was sent to her house.
In the first week of August, I get a call from her boyfriend, who yelled and berated me. He demanded to know why my ex and I were still talking. I told him that she owed me money and that I needed her to get rid of her car because I was the one making payments on it. A week went by, and I hadn’t heard anything.
She had already blocked me at this point, so I sent her an email requesting to know details about the car. As usual, she was uncooperative, and it took me telling her that I would drive to her house and pick up the car myself to sell it. That did it. The next day, she sold the car.
She emailed me a few days later, demanding a timeline for refinancing the house. I told her I wouldn’t be refinancing anything until we met with a mediator to ensure that she is held accountable. This is a house, not a car. It took seven months to get her to do anything with the car, and I was still owed alimony and car payments.
The mediator would facilitate the distribution of our remaining assets, as I can no longer trust or even communicate with her effectively. She replied by telling me that she will not be “subjected” to my “demands” any longer and that she is entitled to 100% of the equity.
She also said that because she already “fulfilled” her divorce agreement by selling her car (not true—she still owes me money, so nothing is fulfilled), I am now in contempt of court because I have not deposited 100% of the equity from a house that I haven’t even begun to refinance, as I need legal assistance with it.
To make matters worse, she told me she needs the money ASAP because she’s getting married. However, she wants me to deposit the money into her account. She is refusing to go through with this the right way because I suspect she doesn’t want to disclose her finances. She is, after all, helping her ex-felon boyfriend run a business that cannot legally operate in the state.
At this point, there is no salvaging this “relationship” that I was trying to keep with her. I wanted to do things amicably, with a mediator, and come to an agreement on the house. We emailed back and forth a bit more about how I would be seeking legal counsel if she refused to go to mediation and settle this like civil adults who once loved each other so dearly.
I still do love her, which is why it hurts so much, but I am also at the point where I am ready to lawyer up and take whatever assets she has left to get my money back and legal fees paid. Am I the az^#*ole here?
Here are the top rated comments in response to OP's post:
Colestahs-Pappy says:
God dude, get a freaking lawyer already!
Boeing367-80 says:
Divorce should have been contingent on total separation of assets and liabilities. This guy was way too concerned with being seen as a good guy and far too little concerned with taking care of business.
Limp_Razzmatazz_792 says:
What a doormat. If he late a few payment, she will not hesitate to put his a%@ in jail. If you want to be ruined form someone who doesn't care about you, be my guest.
donname10 says:
NTA. Proceed. Stop doing anything for her. Keep communication through email. She's no one to you right now. Do everything legally to protect yourself. She's an adult, she can do whatever she wants and so do you. Your love for her will destroy you.
Later OP came back and updated the post with this:
Update: I scheduled a couple of meetings with attorneys next week to discuss my situation.
Edit: Just wanted to add a bit more background to explain why I feel like the asshole. My ex and I remained friends after the separation. We still sent each other funny memes and were checking in on one another. The communication increased late last year when she missed her first alimony payment.
This is when she began to tell me more and more about her new life and relationship. She started telling me that her bf was always asking for money and that she was stressed out constantly. She also said that he put his hands around her neck one night they had an intense argument. She also started telling me that she missed me and that she wanted to leave her situation but had nowhere to go.
This lasted the entire 7 months that I was paying for her car. I was worried for her. I wanted to help her. I began to piece things together and all I needed was a name and a Truthfinder account to find out that her new man is a convicted felon with bankruptcies and illegal business dealings. I asked her if she knew about this over the phone one day, and she said said no, but didn’t seem too concerned about it.
We continued to stay in contact, with her even calling me in the middle of the night to ask if she can bring the dogs over and spend the night after another fight. The relationship turned sour after the guy saw the Carmax bill and called me to confront me about it. That is when she blocked me.
Her attitude towards me changed when I told her that I was afraid that she would continue to drag out the car situation especially now that we wouldn’t be able to talk as frequently. This is when she blew up on me and told me that all I ever cared about was money, and that I was bailing on her when she needed me the most.
She told me that she felt used by me during the marriage when she was “buying me cars and houses.” For the record, she and I met in the Marines and had nothing to our names when we got out. We both worked and were full time students on the GI Bill.
For 4 years in the marriage, I made more than her, but because of her career, she moved up very quickly and was making around 110k when we split up. She now makes closer to 180k. I, however, was playing catch up in grad school (while also working a full-time job and doing paid internships) and was constantly berated for not being at her level yet which she referred to as “power couple status.”
So when she called to tell me that she had sold the car and wanted equity because she’s getting married, I was flabbergasted. I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe that she used me or is some of what she’s saying true? I don’t recognize her. I don’t know what to believe anymore. My brain can’t process this and I think my desire to rescue her is why I’ve been doing this with her for so long.