I am so unbelievably happy to have heard you on Jordan Rich’s program last evening. You are, and the book is, exactly what I have been searching for for a l-o-n-g time.
My first husband was a gambler and alcoholic and left me with 4 children and 2 liens on a house and they were foreclosing in a week. I managed to pull this one off without a hitch and worked VERY hard to save the house and keep the children stable in an area they were very used to.
I have a high school education and did quite a bit of conservative modeling between here and New York before marriage and then when I went to work I knew that I had to pull out all plugs to make it and support my children. This was in the mid 70’s. I was awarded $90.00/week and nothing for alimony. Even if I had asked for it I would never have gotten it as he just gambled it away and due to his drinking I was not dealing with a full deck. He did manage to hold onto a good job, however.
I found a good job and worked my way up into the company to be an associate principal. They paid me well, sat on the board of directors, gave me a chance to pay off the liens totaling $10,000, which was a lot of money then and caught up with the mortgage. I NEVER dated as it was too important to focus on the children and get them through school and college. You can not date and bring up normal children as it takes your full time. The company took out a $100,000 life insurance policy on me, paid for all my health insurance, etc. I just focused on two things…. my job and my family for 16 years.
I then found Mr. Right with three daughters of his own. He has treated me so well and after our marriage in 1990 he moved into my house. I put the house in joint names as he said he would always protect my children (4 of them) if anything happened to me. So, we drew up our wills and they were written as cross wills and then if anything happened to both of us together, everything would go to MY children.
Now I will jump ahead to 14 years later. It came up recently as we were doing some estate planning, which should have been done way back in the beginning. He now thinks that everything should be left 50/50. I still can’t believe his thinking. He said that he had done a lot of improvements to the house which has increased the value and thinks now that some of this should be shared with his children. I said, “NO.” I worked and suffered to save this house for 39 odd years and his children have no use for me so I do not see them either. Why, I do not know as I do not have any enemies, but I’ll just let that one go. I also inherited some money and put it into the house…. gutted the entire kitchen, paid for it and my husband put in the cabinets. I put on a deck and a couple of sliders to go to the deck, etc.
Oh yes, I also bought him a new car. Out of his own pocket, he has probably spent $1,000 of HIS money for supplies plus another $2,000 for new garage doors and miscellaneous things. He made the comment to me, “Isn’t my labor worth anything? His improvements have NOT increased the value as we just had a realtor come and give us an appraisal and without the town knowing the improvements, they gave us a figure of almost $600,000. Oh yes, we did put on a small addition to which my husband is paying the mortgage on. That to me is like rent that he would be paying for me if we did not own MY house. Other than that we owe nothing except we do have high taxes of $6,000/year.
I am sick to think that I am in a position that he wants to now, after 14 years leave things 50/50 and I have lived here since 1965 until 1990 paying for everything by myself.
I am ordering your book today and after listening to you last night and mentioning the “step children”. My last hope has been to go to a mediator to help this problem. But again, I do not know where to go to get help. When I tell you that he is a wonderful person, he is one MY children adore and truly look to him has their children’s grandfather.
His children are the only ones in his family and they are being left plenty of money by their mother and my husband’s sister. My children have nothing to be left to them. In fact, their father took plenty of money from each and every one of them. I have a disabled son that is unable to work and is on Welfare and his wife is able to work part time. I have a daughter that has 9 children and her husband is a contractor, another son that is an electrical engineer and has a growing business on the internet…. Currently, and for 5 years he has been doing this so he can spend more time with his 4 children. I have a daughter who is a nurse and has 3 children and her husband was a pilot for US Air until shortly after 9/11 and was among the layoffs. My disabled son also went to college and studied wildlife management and was disabled starting with blowing a disk in his back and has been horrible pain with all sorts of treatments since then.
Sorry to have rambled on for so long, but this has affected my health in a very serious manner as I truly, like so many, never expected this to take place. My husband is a very non confrontational person, so this makes my issues very difficult.
It was rather funny as last night I had my pillow speaker on and listening to Jordan Rich in Boston and the lights were out and when he said you have a web site and an 800 number to order the book, I JUMPED out of bed to grab a piece of paper and my husband thought something drastic had happened to me..
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