I don’t necessarily condone divorce, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice if you want to be happy. I didn’t believe in divorce and I stayed married for over 11 years because of that. Finally I just couldn’t stay in it anymore and I changed my views on that.

I filed for divorce in 2003. I was not going to pay all that money for a lawyer if I could do it myself. I spent countless hours doing research and typing up the documents myself. I spent lots of time at the 12th floor of the court house – the Law Library. They have everything you need right there to handle your own uncontested divorce, called Pro Se. You can do the research yourself and type up all the documents or you can buy what I have already put together and just place your information in the blanks so to speak.

Why pay upwards of $1000 for an uncontested divorce when it only costs less than $200? That’s how they get fat. Chances are the lawyers will spend a couple hours getting your information and filling in the blanks of a form with that information. And that’s just what they do. You should have seen some of the divorce lawyers that were at court the same day I was. I saw what they used for their customers. They were literally “fill in the blanks” made up on a copy of a copy that was starting to turn sideways. The information was literally hand-written in the blanks on some of them.

When the judge saw mine, and that I had no lawyer present, he asked me who drew up my paperwork. I told him I did and he told me that I should become a divorce lawyer, that it was one of the best he had seen.

In order for this guide to work, you have to meet the following requirements:

1. Both you and your spouse have to reside in the state of Texas. This may work in other states, I have no idea. Divorce laws vary from state to state.
2. Both you and your spouse have to totally agree on everything.
   • Child custody arrangements (if applicable).
   • Child support payments (if applicable).
   • Division of finances, both assets and debts.
   • Division of property.

If you meet these two requirements then you can use what I have already put together. Just keep in mind the entire time that you both have to agree on everything. If there is any disagreement then it no longer will be an uncontested divorce and lawyers will have to come to the table. Money will be spent.

If you have children that are involved the process is still easy, but you have to spend more time and paper (lots more paper) to get the job done.

If you just want the information, I provide that for free. You can go to your local law library and view the examples of everything I list. They will normally let you copy it for a small fee. That way you can take it home and type it up yourself at your convenience. Most of the law libraries have computer work stations there that you can use for free. Just type up the documents that you need based on the examples they have using your information where necessary.

If you would like the copies that I made, I sell them for $25 for everything. I provide them in Pages, Word, RTF, and plain text format. Just email me what format you would like, and pay $25 to my PayPal account. Once I see the $25 in my account, I will send you the documents via email or CD, your choice. If you choose an actual CD, then you must provide me with your mailing address. My email address is walt (at) basilweb (dot) net. Use the same address when sending me funds via PayPal.You are paying for my sample documents that I created, nothing more. I am not a lawyer and cannot and will not offer any legal advice. Look at it like this: you are paying for my service of typing up your documents so that you can just plug your information into them.

Again, remember that you both have to agree on everything. I can’t stress that enough.

My story...

If you are here for the information only, then read no further. All the information you need is above, and on the other pages you get to by clicking the links above in the navigation bar. Below is just the boring details of my divorce.

The Situation

Here’s my story about how I got divorced, and what I had to do. Remember how I say that you both must be in agreement? That doesn’t necessarily mean that you both have to really agree. It’s about knowing that one of the two wants a divorce and what the other one going to do about it. Can the other one live the rest of their life knowing that their spouse can’t stand them? I know I couldn’t.

If common sense can be used, and let’s face it, sometimes it can’t, then the argument can be used that hey, I want a divorce and we can either do it and spend as little as possible, we can do it and spend as much as possible, or we can just go on living  together knowing that I don’t really like you, and there will never be the husband-wife relationship between us. Which would you prefer? Fortunately, we were able to handle it the first way. For me personally, I was married 11 years, and I never even thought about cheating on my wife because I was committed to her and didn’t believe in divorce. Even though I didn’t have the husband-wife relationship with her in my own heart, I never allowed her to know that. I remained committed to her and did everything I could to make her happy. I knew 2 years into the marriage that I had made a mistake. Other people close to me knew sooner and tried to tell me before our son came along. I didn’t listen. I truly believed that I had made my bed and I had to lay in it. By the 10th year, I realized that this wasn’t going to work, and I wanted to be able to meet someone who I could possibly have a good relationship with. What if I did meet someone and I couldn’t pursue that happiness because of my current marriage? So I decided that the current marriage had to go.

Perhaps keeping it from her all those years was mean. I don’t know. God will have to be the judge of that. In my mind though, I was doing the right thing. My reasoning went something like this: since I didn’t believe in divorce, I was stuck with her for life. The fact I don’t have that marriage relationship with her now isn’t her fault alone. I need to go on and be a good husband to her. I believe I was a good husband to her. The proof? Well, this whole thing came as a total shock to her. She truly believed that I loved her as my wife during all those years. During the end though, I kind of let her know how I was feeling. At one point, before I went to Korea I had told her that she was lucky that I believed what I did, because other people would have divorced her a long time ago.

Sometimes the person who wants to initiate the divorce has to make great concessions in order to get what they want. That was how it was for me. I wanted to make sure that there could be nothing to argue about during the divorce.  I had to make all the concessions and that’s only fair I think because I was the one wanting out. What are the big dispute areas in any divorce? Property, child custody, and child support.

Property

Since I was the one wanting out, I let her keep everything but my computer system, my car, my clothes, my tools, my military gear, and my personal items. We had 2 laptops and 2 desktop computers – All Apples. I kept the laptop that I used and all peripheral accessories. We had two cars. I had my Pontiac Firebird and she had her Cadillac Seville. I figured since I was wanting out, she should keep everything. After I filed the Petition, I moved out into a one room economy studio apartment. I told her that everything but the aforementioned items were hers to keep. I asked her to offer me anything that she didn’t want first before she decided to sell them, if she decided to sell them. She let me take my computer desk. I was grateful for that. Out of my tools, I put together a set of tools for her, so that she would have the basic home tools to use should she need them. I asked her for 2 of each dining room items – 2 plates, 2 sets of silverware, 2 glasses. Everything else was hers. The washer and dryer, the living room furniture, all the electronic entertainment appliances (large screen TV, home entertainment system, surround sound speakers, etc) - everything that one accumulates for their house after 10 years of marriage.

Child Custody

I of course told her she would have custody of our son. I would like to have the opportunity to have him for the normal periods that any divorced father would hope to have, and she was reasonable with that and still is. I love my son dearly. I know they say that for the person who doesn’t want a divorce, it can be like a death in the family emotionally.

Child Support

I told her I would give her at least $400 per month in child support, which was more than what the state of Texas would have required. She agreed with that. I also had a little bit of money saved away that I told her she would get to cover the expenses of moving and getting an apartment. I also told her that I would help her out when I could, if she needed it. I ended up paying her a little more than that in the end. The judge issued what was the state required amount of child support and it was lower than what we had agreed on, so I asked the judge if we could raise it. You should have seen the look on his face when I asked that. That was probably the first time he ever heard that question!

The Plan

Most people make realistic plans. If you know you can’t reasonably attain something, you don’t make plans to try to attain it – especially when your surviving depends on it. I had set aside about $1800 dollars (all of what I had saved at the time) for her to use for her move. I was in the Army and we lived in government housing. Once we were divorced, she would have to move out. Once the divorce was final I would not be able to live in government housing anymore because I wouldn’t qualify for it. I certainly was not going to live in the barracks, that’s why I moved into a studio apartment. It’s all I would be able to afford (even then, I couldn’t afford it at the time – I ended up maxing out all my credit cards). When you live off post in the Army, you get paid money for it, based on your situation. It takes a while for that extra pay to take effect. In my case, it took over 8 months to take effect because they kept losing my paperwork, or just not submitting it.

She had a decent job at a day care center associated with her church. With her pay and my $400 in child support she would be able to live well. I was going to keep our cell phone plan (2 phones) and pay for it, letting her keep her line, so that would be one less bill she had to worry about. Her car was paid for. The only thing left would be to move her into a new apartment. That’s where the $1800 would come in handy. That would cover the cost of renting a U-Haul truck, security deposits and the first and last months’ rent. I would help her move and drive the U-Haul. That was the plan, and there was enough money for it to have some left over.

During the waiting period between the filing of the petition and the issuance of the Final Decree, she decided that she wanted to move back “home.” I tried to explain to her that she didn’t have enough money to move back home. If she wanted to move back home, that’s fine, we’ll finish the divorce, get her moved into her new apartment, and then she could start saving money until she had enough to move. I would even help out with the saving. I gave her around $1800, and the cost of getting a U-Haul with a trailer was over $2400, and that doesn’t include money for gas, food, and hotel costs.

The Way it Really Happened

The Final Decree was finally issued and she had 30 days to move out of government housing. She was continuing to act like she was moving home. I tried to explain again to her that the money just wasn’t there. She claimed that somehow the money would show up and she would do it. I figured her Dad must be sending her some money or something. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. Out of the $1800 I gave her, she only had around 7 or 8 hundred dollars left. I have no idea where the money went. Aside from the $1800, I was still giving her full access to my account, and I had been giving them money for groceries and such. It’s not like she had to spend money out of that $1800. Plus she had the money from her job.

When the 30 days for her to move out came around, she still wasn’t ready and I had to step in and take care of it.  I had to apply for an extension of time for her to go beyond the 30 day mark. By then she had already made plans to get a small U-Haul trailer, the kind you tow behind your car, and the tow kit installed on her car. Here she has a 3 bedroom house full of furniture with a small outside shed, and she rents this little 5X8 trailer to haul behind her car. After that, there is only a couple hundred dollars left which wouldn’t be enough for the trip across the nation. She went to her church and talked to our priest and he offered to give her enough money to make the trip, and buy me a plane ticket back, if I would drive them. I agreed.

We decided on the day that we would move, had the tow kit installed, picked up the trailer and drove it over to her house. We both knew now that there was no way she was going to take everything with her. She had to pick out what she wanted the most, what would fit in the trailer. The night before the move I helped load the big stuff and left the little boxes for her to work with because she was still packing. The morning of the move, she still didn’t have everything ready. I spent a couple hours packing the final things. Between the money that the church gave her, and her selling what she could of all our household items, we managed to have just enough to drive her home and get her settled in a trailer across from her father. She separated everything in the house into two categories. Things she wanted to keep, and everything else.

I drove her home and returned. Next was the daunting task of cleaning the house to inspection status before it was signed back over to the government housing office. They are very strict about the cleanliness and condition of the house. If you clean it yourself, you will undoubtedly fail the first couple times. The soldier has 2 options: clean it himself or pay a government sponsored cleaning team to clean it. We had opted for the latter. That process goes like this. You sign the house over to them and they take responsibility for the condition of the house. You pay them about $300 and they will do this. I was able to make a deal with them, and told them that whatever was in the house was theirs. My ex-wife had made prior arrangements with them and had already paid them some money as well as promised them some of the furniture that was in the house. Well, that cleaning team received way more than $300 for their efforts. They made out big time. The only thing I ended up keeping was the large screen television. It wouldn’t fit in her trailer and she told me I could keep it.

Sometimes I feel sorry for her. It seems we got divorced and she didn’t get anything. I have to remind myself that she did it all to herself. If she had stuck to the original plan, we could have saved up enough money by now to move everything back home and get a nice place there. I still help her out when I can and if she needs it.