Advice for a woman about to file for a divorce

Even though you may want to hire someone to break his legs, don't do it! This may potentially cause him to miss work and perhaps jeopardize his earning potential. Remain calm, refrain from saying what a no good piece of crap he is in front of your children. Be civil to him (nice if you can be). Don't inform him of your every move! Let some stranger or someone he hates serve him a pile of papers that will take him by surprise. Sure he won't be nearly as surprised as you were when you found out about his infidelity and all the his other shockingly nasty little life changing surprises but, it's the best you can do at the moment. Take everything you can, he will. If there is something that he is particularly fond of such as a boat or big man toy I suggest you take that and hide it in a friends garage. Not to be spiteful or anything but you WILL need it as a bargaining chip at a later date. You can include any items of value in this category. Now what you put on paper and what you actually do are two different things. I would never advocate keeping a man's children from him if he is a good father but on paper it is important that you give him as little visitation with the children as possible. You can share the children with him all you care to, but it is so important that you are not too liberal with the visitation in the decree. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT sign anything stating that you will remain in the county, or state. Who knows where life will take you and you don't need him dictating where you will live. Get a court order for him to pay for the childrens education 100%. This includes, home school curriculum, private school tuition, etc. including but not limited to their college education. He can afford it. Make him pay! Don't tell him anything of a personal nature, your employment plans etc. Speak only about the children. You can take or leave these pearls of wisdom but I guarantee you that you will not regret doing any of these things. I got this very same advice which I very promptly ignored and now in retrospect I can see the wisdom in some of it.

I was about to press the delete button on this draft but decided to post it instead.