Divorce By Trial
My spouse of over a decade is trying to force a trial in our divorce process so that she can have primary custody of our preteen child. Her statement is that she will be a better provider and caregiver. There’s no domestic or safety issues involved. It’s based on her availability over the years to go to medical appointments where I couldn’t. She doesn’t believe in active parenting and using healthy boundaries, where she avoids any conflict or confrontation.
For example, I give 2 to 3 options for dinner when it’s my night, they always involve some vegetables, while she used to go through a dozen options that involved snack foods like chips, a beef stuck and popcorn. And nights where that didn’t work, they would just go out to a local fast food place.
Nearly every night I spend with our child involves an outside activity or movement for at least 30 minutes, coloring, drawing, card games, puzzles, fort building, or whatever else we can concoct to spend time together. Generally 2 to 3 hours; where their relationship has consisted of movies, TV and video games 90% of the evenings that my spouse spent with them.
She has refused all ADR and our first pre-trial date is set.
She earns twice as much money as I do, (well over 100K ) and could easily afford a full trial. There’s no way I can do that without going into massive debt, and I don’t qualify for legal assistance.
I did hire a lawyer, but I can’t afford more than a single retainer. I’m told they will try to work out as much as possible at the pre-trial and hopefully come to a deal. But I see her forcing the custody issue to trial and I’ll end up there without a lawyer, and that sounds like an ultimate loss for me.
What are the options for me to avoid this costly direction or at least what can I expect if I do end up at trial without a lawyer?
EDIT: It’s not a complex medical issue, but she has a problem with her exocrine system that requires her to go into one or two extra doctors appointments, beyond regular checkups, each year. Usually for about a half a day. It does require ongoing treatment but we have split the work at home equally.
EDIT: I’ve seen a couple couple notes about both of us forcing a trial because we can’t come to an agreement. My only goal in this is to get 50/50 custody. I have no other agenda or requests beyond that. She’s insisting on primary custody even though we have both been heavily involved in our child’s life, but she took her to most of her doctors appointments due to the flexibility of her job and inflexibility of mine.