What abasket said! It is good to have a plan and know your options before making a serious step - armed with that knowledge, you can decide if you need a divorce or if you are better off with the status quo.
How about paying for therapy sessions if it’s not covered by the insurance? Going through this alone can’t be easy.
I’m thinking about therapy. Meanwhile, I’ve scheduled the dog for an appointment, which might lead to teeth cleaning. (Worse than for humans, both in cost and in the physical aspects; dogs are put under for the procedure. I’m not looking forward to my woolly friend also being woozy.)
^^ Good thinking! Take care of the expenses that will have to taken care of anyway. If there’s an appliance that needs replacing, do that, too.
Therapy can help you sort out emotional choices. That makes good sense and can help you figure out what’s best for you.
Having a consult with an attorney will help sort legal options. It could be free or a nominal charge.
Be careful what you wish for… I took the dog to the vet: heart murmur, significant weight loss, and probable infected gums. Echocardiogram this week, teeth cleaning next week. I’m seeing the dollars add up in my mind’s eye.
As mentioned by others, I would spend money on things that you need regardless - new professional clothing, home repairs and maintenance, an upgraded vehicle if you need it.
My sister had a husband who racked up an enormous amount of personal debt that he managed to keep hidden from her. When she found out, that was the last straw. But she was still liable for half of a staggering sum. Her financial situation remains precarious.
The unrecorded income earned by your husband sounds very dubious legally. Get yourself a good attorney. Your husband might be able to claim no income = no child support payments. Heck, he might even come after you for spousal support.
Good luck to you.
I don’t know enough about this to know if you’d be eligible but the IRS does have something call the innocent spouse doctrine…where the tax is allocated only to the offending spouse. Mention it to your divorce lawyer too. They can include a term in your divorce decree that he is liable for any additional taxes for past filings (but that only works as against husband and does not bind the IRS if he fails to pay).
About Post#10, if you are saying what I think you are saying, then you really need to divorce yourself from your husband’s income tax situation. As you probably know, under-reporting income exposes one to charges of tax fraud.
If, to prevent this problem, you have been reporting all of his unreported income on your MFJ tax return, and paying all the attendant tax while he gets off scot-free, then you are a nicer spouse than I would be in this situation.
I have been reporting all his income and he has paid the taxes, grudgingly. But yes, it’s a problem nonetheless. It’s difficult to be an honest person (me) married to a dishonest person (my husband) who is the child of a dishonest person (his father).
It’s possible that his parents are making gifts to your husband (and you, as half of a married couple). If so, perhaps there is no taxable income or a portion of the each year’s payments can be characterized as gifts. If so, that’s a potential $56K/year that can be characterized as gifts.
And, even if all of the payments are characterized as gifts, his parents would just need to file Form 709 to report the excess over the annual gift limit. No tax would be due but the excess amount(s) would count against the parents’ lifetime exclusions.
Characterization of the money is an issue. I fall into the “if they look like wages, smell like wages, and taste like wages, they’re wages” school. I would not feel comfortable arguing to the IRS that money that exchanges hands and is associated with one person, my husband, performing services for other people, his parents, and the amount of which varies according to the number of days he is at his parents’ house, is not income. And we have been paying taxes on the money that goes into the bank. I’ve accepted that there may be small amounts of cash that are not deposited and about which I don’t know.