<p>Things got ugly. We talked about divorce few weeks ago, then quiet for a while. Last week, he didn’t came home for five days and show up tonight with a letter from his lawyer and want me to sign. Of course I didn’t.</p>
<p>I just realized I should get a lawyer for myself and should fight to get what I should get.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who has experience about divorce. I need help and hope someone here can give me advices.</p>
<ol>
<li> Where I can find a trustful lawyer?</li>
<li> How much I need to pay the lawyer?</li>
<li> He is from a rich family, basically the family gave us full financial support for the past 5 years (he didn’t want to get a job, that’s the main reason for this divorce). I’m a stay at home mom, no working experience at this country, no hidden pocket money. What should I do? I feel so unsecured.</li>
</ol>
<p>Bigbear: can’t give any advice, but I wanted to say good luck. I suggest you try to find a lawyer somehow. Call around in your area, since states have different laws. Talk to your religion person/minister/rabbi/priest as one start. Ask your friends for a name. </p>
<p>Be sure to protect yourself. Sounds like you’re not a US native, so it could get complicated.</p>
<p>Try calling the Bar Association (the licensing board for lawyers) in your state, and asking for a referral - many states, counties, and cities have free or low cost family law services.</p>
<p>Bar ASsociation is a good place to start. Legal fees can be paid out of community property. In Los Angeles, and I suspect in other places, we have the Harriet Buhai (sp?) Center which offers free legal help to women without money.</p>
<p>As far as the legalities go, every state is different. </p>
<p>Good luck. I am so sorry that this happened to you and your family.</p>
<p>As a child of divorced parents and the wife of a child of divorced parents, I would advise against using visitation with children as a bargaining chip. My husband’s mother did that, to his and his brother’s great detriment. Children need to have access to both parents, not to be used as pawns in a property settlement.</p>
<p>If you live in a city, often there will be local publications that have lists of top divorce lawyers, etc. At least around here, those tend to be decent, and would be much better consumer advice than just calling up the Bar Association or a women’s resource center. Best of course is to find a friend who has a lawyer she likes.</p>
<p>Generally in a divorce the lawyers wind up getting paid by the party with income/assets, but it sounds like in this situation neither of you actually has income or assets in his or her own name – it’s all your in-laws’. That’s going to make things very challenging, I fear. You shouldn’t do anything your husband wants you to do until he gets you a lawyer of your choice and agrees to pay for the lawyer.</p>
<p>As for holding kids hostage – of course that’s a horrible strategy long-term. Short-term, it may be your only source of leverage.</p>
<h2>Figure out what’s meaningful to him and use it as a bargaining chip. Does he want to stay involved in his kids’ lives? Then name your price. ~ Classof2015</h2>
<p>That is disgusting. It shows zero respect for the children and will only make a very difficult situation worse.</p>
<p>This is why divorces get so ugly. The “adults” (I use that word casually) just go gutter-sniping and try to hurt one more than the other, often using children as ammunition.</p>
<p>^Agree with BeB. Don’t make the child(ren) suffer because you and your hubby plan to divorce. It will probably be painful enough for them already without using them as weapons. I work in the school system and am amazed at some of the things children tell me about their home lives. Children of all ages see and hear a lot more than we think they do. As much as you and your husband may dislike one another, I encourage you to take the high road and avoid speaking badly of him, especially in their presence. Using them as leverage is not only wrong, it may very well backfire in your face. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>You could probably get better advice if you mentioned how long you had been married/how old your children are.
A child advocate might be appropriate or perhaps the children are old enough that they can make their own voice heard- but I would rather see a family mediation before things get drawn up with sides.</p>
<p>So for the past five years at least- your family financially supported by his family?
So were you or he in school? You need to have something arranged - at least for the short term- to take care of the bills etc- which is where a mediator should come in handy- you don’t want to lose any assets as a family just because you can’t agree with anything.</p>
<p>To all of those getting sanctimonious about using children as a bargaining chip:</p>
<p>You are right, of course, that children need both parents, and need to feel they have a good relationship with both parents. But there is a huge difference between using the children as ammunition in gutter sniping, or as a way to get the ski lodge, and insisting that you have a lawyer and that your rights are being protected in the divorce. Also, one can do the latter and never say a bad word to the kids about their father.</p>
<p>It’s a really delicate thing. Yes, many times parents try to fight with each other through their children, and that’s wrong, wrong, wrong. But it’s not wrong to insist on some semblance of equality in the process, and all too often it’s all the economic power on one side and access to the children on the other.</p>
<p>There should also be a Legal Aid in your state – your state’s bar association should also be able to help you access them. They also provide low or no cost legal services for people who need help.</p>
<p>I agree that you should turn to others in your community who may have resources and information that could be helpful to you–your church, others from your country of origin who are successful.</p>
<p>I moved to this country 15 years ago, I have green card but not citizen yet. I don’t know this will be more complicate for the divorce.</p>
<p>He will has the kid, good for the kid I think, at least financially. Daughter is a high school senior now. So far, she got acceptance from state university (TX) and U Illinois Urbana, Stijl waiting for some RDs. I talked to her before I made decision to go divorce, she seems ok and seems calm. I won’t fight for the kid, she is 17 and will leave home soon (hope I’m right about the kid).</p>
<p>I think it’s better for me to have a lawyer who speak Chinese, that will be easier for me to understand.
All the money are from his family, some joint venture accounts, I guess, not even sure. He is the one doing tax every year, I don’t even allow to look at the paper. It was ok for me then. But now, I need to face the world by myself, don’t even know what kind of job I can get at this bad recession period. Will I have enough income to cover all the expenses? I really don’t know. </p>
<p>Find a good lawyer with experience of non native resident divorce is the first I have to do now. Thank you guy for all the helpful info and support.</p>
<p>Also, those of us who are being sanctimonious were responding to this quote, which is pretty ugly.</p>
<p>“Figure out what’s meaningful to him and use it as a bargaining chip. Does he want to stay involved in his kids’ lives? Then name your price.” ~ Classof2015</p>
<p>Ahh, yes…you want to be a father to your children? It’s gonna cost you bucko!</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with being sanctimonious. The mother should get good legal representation, she should get everything to which she is due financially, but that should really have nothing to do with keeping kids from the other parent. I’ve seen the emotional devastation which comes from this kind of thing and it isn’t pretty. I also know what it’s like to be a child of divorce who was never kept from her father while the divorce settlement was being negotiated, never had to be used as a bargaining chip, never had to endure being put in the middle of problems between the two human beings I loved most.</p>
<p>Kids are always the ones who are hurt the most when they are used as leverage, no matter how justifiable it seems to other people.</p>