Divorce: One Man's Journey - What You Must Know Before and After You Do It

By Bowe Hunter

Thinking about divorce and/or wondering what it’s really like? Then you’ve come to the right book! Why? Because Divorce - One Man’s Journey is unlike any of the other divorce books out there and is a deeply real and emotional account of what you will experience every step of the way and what you really must know before and after you do it. Via my journey of divorce from its insidious beginnings; to figuring out how to tell my wife and kids it was over after almost 27 years; and to the physical, mental, emotional, and financial difficulties that it has wrought over 12 years thereafter. This and including a chapter on the mysterious world of Family Law and the covert legal truths surrounding alimony that cost me $5,000 to ascertain the cryptic legal and financial realities. Truths that will plague you and also affect your future relationships! So sit down right along with me, buckle up, and take the most critical ride that you will ever take! For it is indeed my sincerest hope that it will keep you and your family whole, change your marriage, give you a new lease on life, and will be the best money that you will ever spend!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bowe Hunter
• Release date: Jul 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463863190

Book preview

Divorce_Cover

Divorce: One Man’s Journey

What You Must Know Before & After

You Do It

by Bowe Hunter

ISBN: 978-0-578-51761-2

Printed in the United States

Text Copyright © 2019 Bowe Hunter

Photo Copyright © 2018 Bowe Hunter

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic, graphical, or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author. The only exception would be by a reviewer who may cite short excerpts in critical articles or a public review. The author may be contacted at [e-mail].

This nonfiction book is based on my personal experiences with the divorce process from beginning to end and 12+ years beyond. All statements, speculations, facts, and opinions are my own based on my direct experiences with the family law system. To the extent practical, I have changed names and locations to provide for anonymity of the involved parties. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Why The Bridge You Might Ask? Well this particular span, the Rocky Creek Bridge, and the primeval, nostalgic, foggy, ocean-skirted Otter Crest Loop that it joins together has always represented a very special place on Earth to me. And of its sole purpose to so beautifully connect the Loops winding now one-way path as it transcends the often rippling and flowing waters that cascade beneath it and downward to the nearby Pacific Ocean. As such, I feel that it really best symbolically represents the purpose of this book - that being to carry the reader to metaphorically and safely look down into the chasm of divorce and experience the many rocky, circuitous, and often turbulent paths and aftermaths. So that they can emerge unscathed on the other side and proceed towards the higher headland awaiting them with a reinvigoration of their love, a new lease on life, and a new commitment to their spouse and family.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Many Insidious Beginnings to Divorce

Chapter 2. I Decide To Divorce

2.1 Disclosure

2.2 Procession- The Divorce Conveyor

Chapter 3. Divorce Law

3.1 The Divorce Agreement

3.1.1 Alimony

3.1.1.1 The 2019 Tax Reform Alimony Hammer

3.1.1.2 Managing Your DA/Alimony

3.1.1.3 Changing Your Alimony

3.1.2 Sharing Expenses - Alimony’s Hidden Chokehold On Your Future Relationships

3.1.3 Child Support

3.1.3.1 The Basic Child Support Guidelines

3.1.4 Divorce Law Conclusion

Chapter 4. My Very Unexpected Move and Departure

4.1 My New Life

Chapter 5. Demons and Ghosts

Chapter 6. Remarriage

6.1 My New Family: The Grass Ain’t Always Greener

6.2 Money and The Pre-Nup

6.3 Harmless Medications? – A Painful Revelation

Chapter 7. The Never End

Chapter 8. Take Good Care

Photo’s:

Figure 1- My New Apartment

Figure 2 – Our Former Home

Preface

This isn’t a long read nor as you can certainly tell, is it expensive. What I can tell you is that if you’re in the beginning throes of considering divorce or are even separated, it is the absolute best $9.95 you will likely ever spend in your life. Because it contains everything about the journey of divorce in its raw form that you can’t possibly know ahead of time but that you definitely need to know beforehand. By design, it will put you right in the driver’s seat so you can experience every emotion, battle, and conundrum that I did - and that I still do - 12 years later. Especially invaluable is the section on divorce law and alimony which cost me about $5,000 asking 5 different divorce attorneys 5 key questions over 4 different ways to ascertain the real truths that lay in between their covert legal lines and interpretations. So from that perspective alone, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

After being divorced for over 12 years now and suffering in many unexpected ways, I finally thought it was time for this book to be published. It was started a long time ago as a catharsis that helped me to put the cavalcade of my temporal emotions and thoughts down into words in an effort to help me usurp them from my being. As it grew over time through the many iterations that I kept expounding upon, it eventually evolved into a treatise with my hope that perhaps it could make a difference and help others to both experience and realize the unexpected difficulties, challenges, pitfalls, and far-reaching aftermaths - of divorce. Before you do it! By unexpected, I mean the many acute and chronic things that fall out of divorce that you cannot possibly conceive of beforehand because just like me at the time of mine, you haven’t gone through the process nor have you experienced the myriad issues and long-term unforeseen consequences. Consequences that will affect you financially and emotionally for the rest of your life and that will also govern many aspects of your future relationships.

The collective truth is that with divorce, you will find yourself in ongoing legal and emotional battles that never do end. And that the legal nooses over your life will be like surreal dreams that you hope you will wake up from one day but never do because they’re always right there with you in some form. This is not only my truth but are the same misgivings that I’ve heard from many of the divorced folks that I’ve talked with over the years, both men and women.

Beyond my personal divorce experiences, there will always and obviously be other aspects that are as personal to you and that may augment your situation for perhaps better or worse. But I will say that based on the overall impairment of my life and happiness that has since resulted from my quite amicable divorce of over 12 years ago, that I would have never remotely gone through with it if I had the chance to do it all over again. It simply affects too many people including you and the lives of all those that you love. And both you and your loved ones will be challenged with a wound that never really heals. That beyond you as either the initiator or participant in the divorce never truly feeling whole or the same again!

So please, read on. Experience my journey of divorce from its beginning. Feel the emotions and the trepidation. Learn from my mistakes. Understand the many covert, unfair, and frustrating facets and disparity of divorce law and alimony judgments. And ultimately, be aware of what can, may, and/or will happen to you if you go through with it.

Chapter 1. The Many Insidious Beginnings to Divorce

They say that love is a many-splendored thing and it certainly can be and is for many people. But as is love, so is divorce - meaning there are many reasons as to why it happens. In the beginning, all fledgling relationships and marriages are exciting and loving and many do stay that way throughout a couple’s lives. Those couples whose marriages last and are sustained throughout their lifetimes are indeed the lucky ones as they have something either truly very special or they are perceptive and diligent enough to work at their relationships. And let’s face it, for most of us, marriages do take work - constant work - especially under the personal expectations and job/career demands and pressures of our ultra fast-paced, constant social media/smartphone-blitzed, and global internet-driven society.

Despite the reality of marriages needing ongoing work, most marriages these days sadly get very little attention and trudge on through our existences as the interpersonal issues, career demands, personal changes, and financial pressures mount and that often go both unnoticed and/or unacknowledged. As it occurred with me, this happens because most married folks become too busy and consumed with their careers, kids, and finances and never think that anything is really wrong between them. Or, they do acknowledge the issues deep down but simply refuse to admit/address them amidst the everyday business of just getting through the peaks and valleys of life. They also think such problems happen to everybody, that they really aren’t all that serious, that they become tolerable as a result, and/or that they will just miraculously fix themselves with time. Something that of course rarely ever happens.

So left unchecked and under-worked, most marriages diverge instead of converge and decay into either benign business or roommate-type relationships with little communication/sex or marital states of disinterest and boredom, states that may eventually lead to searching elsewhere for the inevitable extramarital affair. If you are reading this, you may have already experienced the pangs of testing the waters of an affair to quell your perceived ongoing marital boredom and of both having your cake and eating it to. This often dovetails with having your physical needs met while wanting to keep the prospect of a bitter divorce at bay and further having to deal with the division the significant joint financial assets of your estate. The combination of these actions often enables one to defer, ignore, and tolerate the ongoing relationship problems although in reality, the affair ultimately does nothing but the opposite and creates even more distance and damage.

Clearly, if divorce happens to prevent acute or chronic physical, verbal, drug and/or mental abuse as well as any form of addiction, then it is