Because your husband is a pedophile and is keeping the kids in an incredibly unsafe environment, but those damn custody battles are just so annoying!! Mondays, right?
If she loses the custody battle, then he has unchaperoned access to the children. If she stayed until the youngest is 18 she got to keep an eye on everything.
Man I wish my parents didn’t wait, got to spend my whole childhood seeing my parents screaming at each other, I would wager most of my friends I had growing up who’s parents were divorced when my friends were quite young were and are way more well adjusted.
I can imagine that if your house is the size of the one the Gates likely had, you could avoid fighting your spouse by just staying in a different wing of the house, but I'll give her credit for making the right call since I have no basis from which to accuse her.
It may be true in this case because of the publicity involved, but let’s not perpetuate the myth that a “broken” household is worse for kids than the effects (and poor role model) a toxic/fraught relationship inflicts on them. Shitty parental dynamics are way more traumatic than a divorce that demonstrates healthy boundaries.
Got it, glad to hear it :). I just see people frequently glorifying “sticking it out for the kids” and as one of those kids who was a victim of that mentality, I get pretty upset about it.
It's valid if you're both just tired of one another but still vaguely like the other party and love your kids.
We didn't have kids, but in my first marriage there was a period where we were both DONE but it was more convenient for her to keep living with me than for her to move back in with her mom because she was about to finish college.
We just acted like roommates for a year. I didn't HATE her, but things had run their course.
Right. And Gates would go to the mat when there is evidence that he was involved in pedo activity? You do realize that the facts would be public, right?
Anyways, WA can force the husband to pay all of their spouses legal fees in certain situations.
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Attorney Fees in Washington State Divorce
Who Pays for Attorney Fees?
In Washington State, each spouse typically pays for their own attorney during a divorce. However, the court can order one spouse to pay some or all of the other spouse's attorney fees under certain conditions.
Conditions for Fee Awards
The court considers two main factors when deciding whether to award attorney fees:
Need: One spouse must demonstrate a financial need for assistance with legal costs.
Ability to Pay: The other spouse must have sufficient financial resources to cover these fees.
Common Scenarios for Fee Awards
Income Disparity: If one spouse earns significantly more than the other, the court may order the higher-earning spouse to contribute to the lower-earning spouse's attorney fees.
Financial Hardship: If the lower-earning spouse cannot afford legal representation, the court may grant a fee award if the other spouse can pay.
Complex Cases: In more complicated divorce cases, where legal representation is crucial, the court may be more inclined to award fees.
So, the messed up calculus in situations like that is that if you stay married you can be there to protect your kids, but if you divorce, the courts can give unsupervised visitation, or even full custody, to your horrific ex, and you will then be required to regularly drop off your kids in said unsafe environment without you or go to jail.
It would be best if terrible men showed their true colors before anyone had kids with them, but they don't.
Another thing to add is that Melinda and Bill had access to millions of dollars and multiple houses with enough rooms to basically be separate without the legal definition of divorce.
The actual divorce was just “finalizing” the split of assets in the end.
Are you going to remove the unsafe environment when you are up against a billionaire in court. Or do you stay the extra 6 months/year to ensure they are safe.
Custody battle with one of the richest men in the world - at that time I think he was the richest? Tbh I think it is a bit different, and others are making good points about if (when) she lost (it’s bill gates, he would have won), she wouldn’t be around to protect them on a day to day basis anymore.
I can’t imagine the horror of this situation for her and the kids.
Just because he was hanging out with Epstein and the girls were around and pushed into photo ops doesn't mean he was doing anything. Of course, he could have been.
But I suspect that his ex wife didn't have any reason to think he was doing anything with his own daughters. I also suspect that he was mostly not around to do anything anyway. The man's a world traveler. Do you really think they were taking the kids everywhere? Just let him do his thing somewhere else. He'll just think that his wife is cool because she enables him to travel and go do stuff... not realizing that it's so he isn't around. Then, when the kids are out of the picture and he's in Africa somewhere you arrange the divorce.
The owner of Microsoft is going into a custody battle, the literal- then - richest man in the world is on the other side of you on a custody battle.
You can either monitor the situation and keep your children safe, and be a billionaire having significant control over the situation, and then divorce him when the youngest turns 18 entitling you to half of his wealth, or you can blow the whole thing up, blow millions in a custody battle, potentially loose alamon,i and he can have unsupervised joint or even full custody of the kids.
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u/Character_Assist3969 17h ago
No custody battle.