[Joeaksa]

A new divorce question! It seems that another one of my friends is in this difficult situation.

This one should be easier as its dealing with someone living in SoCal, so hopefully we have more people on this list who has experience here.

Have a friend in his late 50's who has been married to a woman for 30 years now. We flew together in Berlin over 20 years ago and everyone knew of the rocky relationship with the wife. She was a terror then, with heavy drinking, smoking funny things when able and just a handful to deal with much of the time. She was reasonably cute and we all assumed that he was enjoying life with her and getting lucky enough to make it all worth it.

It seems now that it was not. Evidently she hurt her back six weeks after they were married and she has used this as a crutch for 30 years to stay at home and do absolutely nothing. Its gotten better at times then worse at times but she refuses to get any treatment for it and life for her is sleeping 15 hours a day and drunk the rest of the time. She almost never leaves the house, never...

My friend has had enough of it and wants out. Their son is grown and out of the house, living 20 minutes away. His main concern is that she has a .38 pistol hidden somewhere that she plays with when drunk. Both my friend and their son have looked up and down in the house for the gun and cannot find it, but as the wife/mother never leaves the house its difficult to search everywhere without alarming her.

They are not doing well financially, and he has been more or less unemployed for over a year. She refuses to even look for work. They live in a house that they are upside down to the tune of at least $100k, so thats not a help. His Mother has loaned them what she can to pay the monthly bills, and thats approaching $50k.

I told him that I would take whatever he cannot stand to lose and that could be packed in a suitcase, and get out of the house. Hand her the divorce paperwork and at the same time get a Sheriff or LE to standby while he gets his personal items out of the house, then leave. (remember the .38 pistol) Then advised him to declare bankruptcy and just walk away from the house to get away from her. Let her make the payments.

Frankly he is scared of her and afraid that she will get drunk while he is asleep and start shooting. After 30 years of being the provider, he has had enough and its time to bail. He also mentioned that one councilor (he is in counciling trying to understand this whole situation, the wife refuses to attend) told him that he would have to support her until she reaches 65 due to her back injury. Before anyone asks, I have no idea on the details on the back injury.

Anyone with any suggestions or insight?

Thx, Joe