Legal Question in Family Law in California
I have been married (California) for just a little over a year, and my partner has decided she wants a divorce. Aside from the expected hurt and disappointment I feel, I am feeling she is leaving me at an unfair disadvantage and I'm wondering if I have any recourse. To explain, prior this relationship I was a single mother and had been attending school full-time and working part-time. I supported myself and my daughters with financial aid and scholarship money supplementing my part-time income. I was on the local Section 8 housing list, and had been waiting for my name to come up on the list for about 4 or 5 years. When my partner and I moved in together, she was also a full time grad student working on her Masters degree. A couple of things happened then-my name came up on the Section 8 list finally, but I could not qualify with my partner living in my house. Because the relationship was serious and we were planning to be married, I turned the voucher down rather than end the relationship and throw her out. My youngest child would only qualify me for a few more years anyway. Around this time I was laid off from my job. My partner was also not working. I started interviewing for jobs, and even though I'd been working part-time and collecting financial aid, things seemed desperate enough with neither of us working that when I was offered a full-time job, it seemed wisest for me to take it. I was worried about school because I'd worked so hard, but my partner assured me that when she was done with school and had her Master's degree, she would help me go back and finish my degree. So I took the job, she continued going to school, and finished her thesis after attending an extra semester of school to get it done. Unfortunately, she owed her school money and did not have her degree in hand. I believe the debt was around 5000. I owed my school a smaller amount too, around 1000. and my student loans had come due because I wasn't attending school. Although the loans were due, I have not been able to pay on them because of other bills (some medical stuff) and this has been a grave concern to me because if my loans go into default, I will not be able to return to school to finish my BA. Without telling me, my partner used a credit card of her sisters that her sister had allowed us to use to pay for some of my medical bills (upwards of 10,000.) to pay off her school so that her degree would be free and clear. I am assumed to be responsible for 1/2 of that credit card payment every month, and to be owing that debt too, so I was unhappy that the card was used without my knowledge. Furthermore, I would like to finish my degree too, and while her school is now paid off and her degree in hand, I have no degree and loans falling further and further behind. Now she wants to break up, leaving me with no housing voucher, no degree, and iffy financial aid status. She will be leaving me without enough resources to keep me and my daughter housed and fed because whereas I used to have my school money to supplement my income, I don't have it now and as every month passes it is more and more out of reach. She will be leaving with her degree, school all paid off, and with no responsibilities outside of herself. I know we have been married only about 15 months, but I made decisions based on her agreement to be (a) present, and (b) to help me go back to school after she finished up. I can't go back and get that housing voucher, and as I've explained, I can't just jump back into school either. She will have an easy time housing herself, while I have to house myself, my daughter, and the family pets with fewer resources than I had at the beginning of the relationship. Do I have any recourse?
1 Answer from Attorneys
That's a really tough situation, and one made worse by the fact that it is complicated legally, but you don't have money for a lawyer and it sounds like she doesn't have enough that she can be forced to pay for yours. There are definitely legal theories and principals that can be brought to play against her to prevent her from walking away scot free, but it will take some lawyering to get those arguments before a judge and adjuicated in your favor. The only thing I can suggest is that you call the Sonoma County Legal Services Foundation and see if they can help you. They provide legal services on a sliding scale based on income. Unfortunately that is the only resource I can point you to. The San Francisco based LGBT legal aid organizations I know of only go as far north as Marin.