Serving Form E on vindictive exH

[LonginesPrime]

Does anyone have any advice about serving Form E on an abusive, vindictive, very angry exH?

He's always tried his best to throw a spanner in the works and has had GFs pretend to be me to try to mess with my life (cancelling appointments, calling my work, etc). I've avoided dealing with the financial settlement for ages for this reason.

While I realise I have to disclose my confidential financial documents to reach a settlement (it's not a clean break scenario), I'm a bit worried about what he's going to try to do with my confidential information as I know what he's like.

I know he's not supposed to do anything with it and it could potentially be fraud/contempt of court, etc if he does do anything (depending on what he does), but he won't care about getting in trouble as he will see it as totally worth it to make me suffer.

If anyone has any advice (even if it's just to tell me to grow up and get on with it!), I'd love to hear it please.

No advice really apart from try and get a clean break so you can put this behind you and move on to your happy new life.

What specifically are you worried that he's going to do? You could ask him to give an undertaking that he won't do X,Y,Z. I'm not sure if that's a good idea in your case though.

Just to checking, shouldn't you be exchanging Form E rather than serving it? Which means you would both get each others disclosure at the same time.

Are you worried about him having your bank account numbers etc? Did you report any of the previous incidents to the police as harassment?

Thanks for your replies.

Triumph, because he thinks he's made this whole issue of sorting out the finances go away by shouting me down several times and I have shut up about it for a while now, I suppose the way I was seeing it was that he would receive my form E (and docs) with the request for him to provide the same, out of the blue.

I didn't want to officially go through solicitors as I'm trying to keep it low key (obv I'll get legal advice behind the scenes), but I suppose the way to avoid it being a complete shock to him is for me to go through a mediator so he at least has a heads up before we both exchange the financial info.

Jaggy, I didn't report those kinds of incidents to the police, no - I just made the relevant people aware that calls to cancel stuff might not be from me. And sometimes he was legally able to make the calls (e.g. about the children) so cancelled their appointments too, saying they didn't need therapy etc (wonder why ). My solicitor threatened a non-molestation order and the police had a marker on the address, etc in the early days (years ago now) for the physical harassment. But that was years and years ago.

I guess thinking about it logically, he's not going to be able to do much damage with that info - he can't get into my bank as they're so strict, ditto probably with my tiny pension pot. So the fact he also knows my DOB, mother's maiden name, street I grew up on, etc doesn't really give him any advantage. I might check the security with each of my accounts to use more obscure security questions just in case, though!

If I were you I would have your finger on the trigger ready to submit a FormA because it doesn’t sound like he’s going to be co-operative without court intervention.

You might be exempt from mediation due to the abuse? If you did go ahead with it you will each have to make a disclosure all of your accounts etc. So you may as well serve you documents at the same time and not ahead of this.

if he doesn’t comply during mediation you will need to go through the courts, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use solicitors throughout the process. You can carry on getting ad-hock advise behind the scenes.

Thanks Triumph, that's really helpful.

Tbh, I went to dig out the divorce paperwork and found all the petty, nasty letters from ages ago, which reminded me who I'm dealing with (distance lends enchantment, and all that).

I do want to get things sorted financially, but I think I might give mediation one shot and possibly give up if that doesn't work.

It's not fair that he gets to walk away in a hugely advantageous position (compared to me) in this situation, but I do need to weigh up my moral indignation against the financial benefit and emotional detriment of actually pursuing him.

You can go to mediation without him at first. Mine signed the form after I read one of his nasty letters. They still keep coming but it just shows their true personality.

If you are going to win financially, do it and see it as business so you don't get emotionally involved. He promised it in his wedding vows, so let him enjoy.