> after finding my wife stole $300K from the family and had been carrying on an affair for 18 months while I thought our finances and love were at an all time high
Yikes. Were there, in retrospect, signs that you missed?
Everything. Absolutely everything. When you work hard to always assume the best of the love of your life, it's almost impossible not to miss each and every sign because you dismiss them with prejudice.
I had no access to any financial account, ever. Once I gained access, after the fact, there were nearly $16K in cash advances against a credit card I didn’t even know I had.
Purchased all new dresses.
Purchased workout equipment (rarely, if ever used).
Purchased sex toys and sex-related clothing I never saw used.
5 new credit cards in her name.
Pieces of paper with divorce related info I assumed were for a friend of her’s, certainly not for us.
Would leave for 4+ hours a day, many times a week, to go shopping but never came back with anything.
Would leave our vacation home once a week to do laundry and get mail when she could have done it at a laundromat or had the mail held.
I'm sorry to hear that. Wouldn't some of that be considered a crime/fraud, meaning legal recourse may be an option? Of course a lawyer would know better.
(Not that it might be easy to recover the money, but the judge could have wages garnished.)
The burden is on me to prove she used it to prepare for divorce or used it on her affair. It’ll cost at least $100K and probably more to do so and it may not matter.
If she was using your money, would that not be some kind of "unauthorized spending" that you could "report" to your bank? I'm not just talking about preparing for divorce but even other expensive purchases. But I can imagine that it's probably near impossible if you're married with a joint bank account...
I would still suggest speaking with a lawyer about this if you haven't already, but nonetheless I wish you the best. Perhaps consider the money the "cost" of getting rid of person who needed to go anyway.
Yikes. Were there, in retrospect, signs that you missed?