Legal Question in Family Law in North Carolina

Get a family law attorney. If the stuff was marital (acquired during the marriage for use by both parties, like furniture) then you can ask the court to equitably divide the property or its value.

When dividing property, the court's job is to classify the property as separate, marital or acquired before divorce and after date of separation. The court is only concerned with marital property or property which is subject to division. The court will then value the property based on the evidence provided and arrive at a fair or "equitable" division. The starting point is 50-50 and depending on the circumstances, the courts will deviate from that but not a whole lot unless there are really some compelling circumstances.

If it was bought during the marriage, its marital regardless of how it is titled. Things like furniture, appliances tvs and computers are marital, both yours and hers.

Before you get this far, the courts like for you to resolve this on your own by either reaching a marital settlenment agreement or by going through mediation at which the mediator will try to get you to reach an agreement. If that fails, then the courts will act.

Don't do this on your own. While you can file divorce on your own, equitable distribution is different.

I don't know what you are reading that says you can get everything back because of abandonment. Abandonment is grounds for a legal separation - that is it. Marital misconduct (having an affair with another person) may be grounds for or against alimony and might be considered in dividing up property, but her leaving does not entitle you to have everything returned. The property is at least 50% hers until some other agreement is reached or order entered.

And what is this "what is rightfully mine" nonsense? It sounds as if you think everything belongs to you. I don't mean to sound rude (I'm not), but you had best disabuse yourself of that notion. Maybe a family law attorney will have a different assessment, but my opinion is that divorce is like the dissolution of a business venture in which one must be fair to both owners of the business. If you come across as "this is all mine" it will make litigation much more difficult and the court is not going to give you everything you are asking for regardless of whether your wife left you or it was the other way around.