Thanks AmazonRain for more insight.
How a professional woman like Teresa was able to handle MS sending out this testing "touchy feely womanizing" crap is incredibly sad to me. And to think this guy is the teacher in charge of homeschooling the girls. Wow.
I think in a way Teresa's passion to empower others was her way of also trying as hard as she could to empower herself. Something in Teresa was preventing her from moving away from this abuse. She was the breadwinner she did not need this and maybe that was what she was trying to tell her sister. "You know I can do this all on my own" And we all know she sure could have if only she took action sooner.
But it is hard to face friends and family when you are the one to leave in a divorce especially with children.
I'm sure TS was also aware that with her being the breadwinner she could lose everything she had worked so hard for. I posted a similar message about everything my sis lost in her divorce. She also lives in Florida, makes great money. Her hubby was fired from his job years ago and stayed home with the kids. Now the kids are older and instead of trying to find work he went on disability. Difference here is, her ex did get a monthly ck for himself and kids. MS did not, so he would probably be "entitled" to even MORE of TS's money
from my older post:
Ex receives 3,000 (give or take) a month on Disability. The way it works with the kids is they (combined) receive half of what ex gets. It's supposed to help cover the amount of money for the care of the kids IF he was still working. So half of 3k is 1,500. Since there are 2 kids, each gets a check in their name only of $750. If there was one child, they would get 1,500. In others words if one turns 18, payments stop. BUT the remaining child would get the full $1,500. (half)
Divorce was brutal on my sis.
1. She had to buy him out to keep home.
2. She had to pay 2nd. mortgage
3. Although he gets $4,500 a month, she still has to pay him spousal support. (not sure how long)
4. Even though they have shared custody, she still has to pay him child support.
5. Most of the time kids want to stay with dad, as he was the one who was home with them while my sis worked her arse off to provide for the family. When it's her time to have them, they hardly ever want to come This has devastated her.
Bottom line, he ends up clearing MORE money than she does every month, and my sister is now in big time debt. She had to take out a loan to pay him 1/2 of the home value to stay in it. She did refinance 1st and 2nd mortgage, but her payments are astronomical.