During my marriage I lived fancier than I have ever lived before. We rented a 5 bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, hiring a professional decorator to make our apartment a little piece of glam heaven. The 12 foot ceilings and cascading living room sunsets made me feel like a real queen living in my castle. Our daughter went to an expensive private school and our vacations were extravagant. My husband paid for it all. We never combined finances, and I never questioned where his money was coming from. He always had businesses and perpetually seemed to do well with whatever he touched.

At the Emergency Hearing the judge ordered my husband to pay for his accusation. He basically had to pay for 100% of the supervision. By the Second Hearing his lawyer was asking for me to pay for half. The judge ended up ordering a 60/40 split in my favor. Three months later I was getting threats from the supervising agency to discontinue supervision because he had never paid one of their bills.

The other major bill was the forensic. By major I mean over $30,000. The judge ordered a 60/40 split on this also. I paid my share as quickly as I got the bill so that my innocence could be proven as soon as possible. A few weeks later a letter was sent from the forensic to the judge stating that my husband was defaulting on his bill.

Around this time we noticed that my husband’s legal team was getting quieter and quieter. I also noticed that at every subsequent hearing his lawyer was sitting as far away from him as possible. He clearly wasn’t paying that bill either.

In the end I had to pay for everything – supervision, the forensic, and my own legal fees. He claimed he was broke, and he had to balls to tell the judge that I “destroyed his business”. His statement of worth claimed that every bank account was completely drained, but yet he lived in a very expensive apartment, kept a maid, and spent $400 on the Equinox gym. Our favorite joke became that the gym was the worst $400 he ever spent since it clearly wasn’t working.

My husband always had businesses related to the digital advertising industry, but he had now chosen a new career path. He decided that he was going to be a music manager for a Latin pop star, and he was going to get rich because she was basically going to become the next JLo. Mind you, my husband was an overweight white man from New Jersey who did not speak a word of Spanish and knew nothing about Spanish music until he met me. It was mind blowing. No wonder he was broke.

His actual net worth is yet to be determined at this writing, but due to his “decline in fortune” I had to deal not only with the loss of a child, but also a loss of all my savings. This was extremely difficult to accept mentally.

Like anything else, I got used to it over time. I used similar coping strategies that I used for the loss of my child. I reminded myself this situation was temporary, I let myself be upset about it, and I accepted it. I thanked my lucky stars that I had enough.

My husband has always been a hustler and my suspicion is he has money stashed. Or he is doing something illegal. He has now missed several deadlines for Discovery (supporting documents for his Statement of Worth), which clearly means he has something to hide. The extent of this is yet to be determined. Stay tuned!

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