Okay. Things have calmed down in my life; old home sold, I'm in my new home, it's furnished, and I'm starting to settle into regular life as a single mom now.
So now it's time to work on the actual DIVORCE.
My STBX has been good with both money and child-related matters which are the two biggest things. Money-wise, he has kept to his word and transferred 50% of savings, assets from sale of our house, and all bonuses into my personal account and I am still using our joint checking for expenses until we have a child-support agreement in place. Kid-wise, I basically have full custody and we have an amicable verbal agreement that he takes our son on one weekend day whenever possible (due to all his business travel) and we are both being flexible due to one another's schedules.
So things are workable and amicable right now.
He suggested we do a Collaborative Divorce. As I see it, that is basically a mid-point between regular divorce including litigation, and having a mediator. In collaborative divorce I believe each spouse has a lawyer, the two work together, and through a series of meetings outside of court, we come to mutual agreements on all necessary matters, WITH a financial specialist also present.
Has anyone done a collaborative divorce? Feedback? Are there pitfalls to watch out for?My situation is currently very amicable which I would really like to continue with (especially for the sake of our son, and all the medical issues and decisions that will need to be agreed upon throughout his life) but my concern is that if I go the collaborative route, even with a financial specialist present, I may not end up in as good a financial position as I am entitled to if it were mandated by the courts. My STBX makes a LOT of money. We have many assets and I honestly don't even know where they all are since they are spread out amongst different kinds of accounts, retirements, stock options, physical property, etc etc. Will he still be required to be upfront with everything if we go with collaborative law?? He is a good person but I would not put it past him to conveniently "forget" about a certain chunk of money sitting in a CD or about his stock options... I do think he thinks of the money as "his" and not "ours" (I have been a stay at home mom for the last 3 years and even when I was working, my salary barely even factored into our overall income since there was such a huge income imbalance.) Even while he's transferred 50% of our savings into my personal account, after buying my new home using that money he's made a couple comments alluding to his thoughts of that being like a "gift" or something he's giving to me rather than 50% being mine in my own right. So I would not put it past him to think of things like stock options, retirement, etc. being HIS and not part of our joint assets.
(I know I'm blabbing, I'm sorry - I'm just trying to give a more holistic view of the situation.)
So my concern with collaborative divorce vs. litigated is that while it would be amicable and I think we would be good candidates for it, I don't want to end up in a worse financial position than I could be because I don't know what I don't know. But if I go the typical litigated route, not only could that sour things between us but it would also cost much more. Additionally, I do not want to screw myself over down the road on other things that could arise 10/15/20 years from now that aren't even on my radar at the present time.
I don't know if I am concerned over nothing though because we will each have a lawyer and there will also be a financial specialist at the meetings. So perhaps there is nothing to fall through the cracks?
Thoughts?
