Depo

Now here's a nice way to waste a pile of money: get two attorneys, one at $300/hour and the other at $350/hour, a court reporter and a couple of people trying to split up their assets. This would be called a 'depo'. At this particular event, one attorney (that would be Bill's) asks the other attorney's client (that would be me) hours and hours of questions while the court reporter transcribes everything that's said and the other attorney is there to protect said client. I figure this debaucle cost at least $750/hour. It was a colossal waste of time. And Money.

The first segment of the day was spent on looking chronologically at the history of how my house was held in title. First it was mine with my father, then mine, then mine with Bill, then mine again, then it was held in the revocable family trust, which of course has now been revoked. Questions were, "Why did you put your husband's name on title in 1989? Why was it put in the trust in 2001?" During this session, my attorney tells me my ex was glaring at me. I don't really know what the other attorney was trying to establish because once we got married the mortgage payments were paid out of my salary which is considered community funds, so it was therefore considered some kind of community property at that point.

We broke for lunch. Bill's attorney suggested a buffet at a hotel across the street. Really? I didn't have much of an appetite. My attorney and I went there and I ordered a salad. I knew Bill wouldn't go because he can't digest much. He's got internal bleeding of some sort and they can't find the cause of it. He has told our child the bleeding will stop on its own in a couple of months. In the meantime he is extremely weak and has to get weekly blood transfusions and I don't believe his explanation at all. I think the tumor is still strangling the superior mesenteric artery thus cutting off blood flow to the lower intestines and possibly killing tissue. He could be dying from the inside out. It would be sad if he were to die within the next few weeks, especially if he hasn't written a new will.

After lunch the focus became my checking account, also known as Grand Central Station. What comes in? What goes out? What are my sources of income? How are my dad's caregivers paid? How much? Where are those in my dad's bank statements? Am I still paying the auto insurance? Do I still have my life insurance policy? Is Bill still the beneficiary? Good news on the life insurance front. I checked the policy this summer after my attorney told me I couldn't change the beneficiary once I was in the throes of a divorce. I discovered that at some point in the past I had made Laura the beneficiary. I didn't look at Bill's face when I said that in the depo. I said that I hadn't made the change in the past few years; I quite honestly don't know when I made that change. But I'm glad I did.

The final part of the day was on the family trust and my income and expense report. According to his attorney, I make $3000 less a month than expenses I have. Was I charging my dad enough money to stay in the house? Who sleeps in which bedrooms? What's he getting at? Are they going to suggest I take a renter in the tiny middle bedroom? How am I going to make ends meet? How am I going to make ends meet????? What a GOOD QUESTION! I told the guy I honestly didn't know how I was going to make it through the summer. Cash on credit cards? How about skipping the payments to Bill?

My attorney said I didn't make any mistakes that day. But what he didn't say, and I know he wanted me to, was I didn't make more of a point of how we lived beyond our means and that I was always pulling money out of a hat to pay bills. I should have been more specific when I said that I use annual gift money from my dad to pay bills. And what did my spouse do when he got a windfall from his parents? Did he use that to pay any of our bills? If you know Bill, that question answers itself.