'Husband surprised me with a divorce. How can I find an attorney with no money?' UPDATED

"Husband surprised me with a divorce. How can I find an attorney with no money?"

Tonight when my husband got home from work he informed me he wants a divorce and will be leaving until it's done. This is not a huge surprise honestly, ever since our daughter was born we've just not been getting along. What is a surprise is it's suddenness.

I've been a stay at home mom since our daughter was born two years ago, it just didn't make sense to work and spend 90% of what I made on day-care.

So in talking to him before he was finished packing he told me "Good luck with the mortgage and bills, I've taken MY money out of our bank account and turned off your card on MY credit".

I would say I was shocked, but I really am not. He's very mean when he's angry and never has seemed to connect with his daughter, he wanted a boy and from the day we got the word we were having a daughter he's been distant.

I obviously need an attorney, I logged into our bank account sure enough it's at $5. What resources can I begin looking into to get an attorney for free to help at least make him pay the bills and food until I can find childcare and a job?

Is there anything I can do myself with the courts that is semi quick to at least have him pay for the necessities since he cleaned out our joint account or at least money for an attorney? I understand it's all "his" money but we are married with a child. I don't see how he can just leave us with nothing all of the sudden.

I'm in Wisconsin, I've tried to Google up the best could since the little one went to sleep but I can't find what I'm looking for or even really know what I'm looking for. Thanks for anyone who helps

Before we give you OP's disturbing updates, let's take a look at some top responses:

long6 writes:

The courts will use the last few years of his salary as a guide for support. His quitting, depending on where you live, could mean a split of assets more in your favor.

If he disappears and lives off the grid or something weird the judgement would still be there waiting for him... but won’t really do much good if no one can find him. That would be... unusual though.

I’m sure men and women do leave their children and don’t care if they see them ever again or not...but it’s odd. The more I read your responses to the other posters offering suggestions... the whole scenario grows even stranger.

If you’re a real person and your spouse has left you and his child with cleaned out accounts, bills, quit his job, said goodbye to his friends...best of luck to you.

jleft4 writes:

Many local bar associations hold family law “clinics” for free. Most state bar associations have a hotline to call for referrals and you can usually get a free consultation from an attorney by using the state bar referral.

Perhaps a free consultation will lead to an attorney filing the emergency motion for access to marital funds free of charge or free up front. Finally, try your local Legal Aid. They provide free or low cost representation for individuals who qualify based on income.

fleek writes:

The thing about situations like that is that the state will NOT let it go. My husband's father did that shit. Dipped and fell off the radar as soon as she divorced him. He worked cash jobs and lived with his girlfriends so his name was never on anything. Wouldn't file taxes so they couldn't take his tax return.

He thought after his kids were grown he was safe. So when my husband was almost 30 this idiot applies for a job at Walmart and starts working. Immediately gets scooped up by the IRS and tossed in jail.

Now he's getting watched like a hawk by the government, still has to pay his back child support and now he also has to pay back taxes and interest. His wages are garnished to hell and he's almost 60. He'd have been done with this decades ago if he'd just acted like a decent human.

lezbeh writes:

My mom did something similar before I got engaged. She asked me for a few thousand dollars and invested them into a house with her. In my culture, women usually become SAHM with the husband bringing most of the money. Separate bank accounts really aren’t a thing.

My aunt’s situation taught her better. Aunt was a shrewd businesswoman before marrying. Really, really good job. Had 3 separate houses in her name.

She got married, he locked her out of ALL the financial aspects, and lost all her houses in a series of bad investments. The sad irony is my aunt still makes more than him and when she plays the stock market, she succeeds where he always fails.

Update 1:

I wasn't able to get much done over the weekend except sell the wedding ring for some food/diaper money. Today however was really busy, I spoke to a few people I was able to get in contact with through legal aid!

I'm told by the end of the week I should be with an attorney who can begin helping me file everything I need to begin doing and hopefully begin tracking down where he's put all the money and get some back so I can continue to survive until I can be approved for childcare through state benefits and begin working again.

I'm really surprised about how often this happens, there are entire places dedicated to helping men and women who have their wives/husband's do this to them.

I am filing for divorce, before he can hopefully and for the return of the money into our account and an order to continue assisting with bills, child support and other necessities such as diapers, mortgage etc.

I probably will not have another update to this for a good long time but so many people wanted to make sure I was going to be OK and with everyone's advice to contact legal aid etc it looks like it hopefully might get better soon!

I also contacted the bank and other bills that are coming up that I won't make and explained the situation. They are somewhat understanding and hopefully I'll be back at work soon to keep current.

Update 2:

I did all the lawyer stuff they needed providing things like bank statements to prove the money situation and everything and we did the filing with the court.

Turns out he did quit his job and before he left tried to make things worse by removing his card from the bills that he could and had the cellphone bill go-to a paper bill instead of paperless and tried a few others but when they wouldn't let him it now makes sense why he cancelled his credit card and mine.

The bill still comes but since those were in his name I guess I don't need to worry about that just yet. Now the bad news sadly, since they don't know where he is nothing really changes at all and now I have to wait and see what happens.

There is another date over a month away to start the divorce but apparently that's going to become an issue too since he needs to be found or we wait longer again from what I was told.

One final fun thing I'm pretty certain he did but they won't tell me is I had two CPS people showup and inform me of allegations that I cannot take care of my child/provide diapers or food etc.

Once I explained it all to them, and showed them what I had from my lawyer they seemed to just let it be. I guess partners trying to use them as a way to harass the other isn't anything new to them, except they will still be checking in apparently to make sure.

Update 3:

So it's been an extremely rough couple of months and seems to only keep getting worse honestly and I'm sad to say there is no happy ending here. I didn't even want to do an update but so many people seemed to be interested in the original and update.

So where to start, still haven't found him and the legal help I have is really great but they are also very overworked and the resources needed to track him down just take time to get and more time to find him. As a final parting gift it seems he claimed our child on his taxes from last year so he could get that tax credit.

I was hoping we could track him down that way but again sometime that takes time and resources. Which technically since he was the one working and did live with us for over 6 months of the year he is technically entitled to in a legal sense.

The bank was somewhat kind of understanding during the holidays but the calls are getting to the point where I'm fairly certain they will begin foreclosure soonish I really don't know that for certain but when you don't pay a mortgage for 4+ months they get kind of upset and the circumstances don't matter.

Finally managed to get on SNAP for food and it helps a lot but it's crazy how quickly you realize how much food you eat and your kid eats and before when money didn't really matter for necessities like food, soap, water bills and electricity.

I managed to get a job that somewhat works for childcare hours but you quickly start to realize childcare costs as much as you make so it's like working so you can pay you have your kid watched.

Trying to avoid paying all the bills attached to the house I can so I can save up enough to hopefully get us the smallest cheapest apartment around and keep working.

Sorry for the negative update everyone but it's just life I guess. Unless things extremely and drastically change for the better this will be the last update. I'll keep doing my best of course and thanks for all the kind words in the other posts about the other updates.