WWYD - Boyfriend's separated wife is being creepy

On basic terms division of assests, things you can and can't do on a variety of things.

Heck even as simple as car insurance. When I used to work for the insurance company we couldn't remove a spouse from a policy unless they were considered legally divorced (separation did not count). For the purposes of auto insurance spouses were considered one and thus covered. Living in separate residences didn't mean that legally the husband couldn't drive the wife's car or the wife couldn't drive the husband's car, at least in respects to the car insurance especially if they were on the title to the vehicle (which is the case no matter the relationship between two people).

Medical insurance is another thing.

Divorce itself can be done quickly depending on the state. The consequences of said divorce often take time depending on the individual couple.

Reconciliation, while it may not be entirely common, is something I think people often thing of when they hear about people getting involved with those still considered married. Agreeing to separate and the actual finalization of a divorce is not the same thing and in the simplist ways it's quite easy to say "let's separate" than it is to agree to go through the entire process of divorce. Even my own parents separated, got back together, did counciling for over a year after having already done conciling prior to the separation and finally said nope and went through the process of divorce.

Don't assume that your situation applies to the majority. It's really not just a piece of paper anymore than marriage is just a piece of paper and continuing to say it's just a piece of paper misses the mark. Even in my state common law marriage, which has no paper attached to it, comes with it's own special issues. If you are in a common law marriage you still go through the same legal divorce process even though a piece of paper wasn't there to begin with to state you are married.
I'm not talking about the legal issues, all of which are related to the "piece of paper" or common law marriage laws which are also "pieces of paper." I am talking about dating and moving on with a relationship. How are any of the things you mentioned going to keep someone from moving on? Should any of those things keep someone from moving on to another relationship? I am not assuming anything. You seem to be assuming that most married couples were in love and are sad over their divorce. Some are, but many other people are not. They are ready to move on with someone else.
 
I'm not talking about the legal issues, all of which are related to the "piece of paper" or common law marriage laws which are also "pieces of paper." I am talking about dating and moving on with a relationship. How are any of the things you mentioned going to keep someone from moving on? Should any of those things keep someone from moving on to another relationship? I am not assuming anything. You seem to be assuming that most married couples were in love and are sad over their divorce. Some are, but many other people are not. They are ready to move on with someone else.
I don't know what state you are in, but in my state, I had no problem with getting my own health and car insurance. I also bought my own car. My "ex" is not involved at all.
 
I'm not talking about the legal issues, all of which are related to the "piece of paper" or common law marriage laws which are also "pieces of paper." I am talking about dating and moving on with a relationship. How are any of the things you mentioned going to keep someone from moving on? Should any of those things keep someone from moving on to another relationship? I am not assuming anything. You seem to be assuming that most married couples were in love and are sad over their divorce. Some are, but many other people are not. They are ready to move on with someone else.
I'm not assuming anything. You're honestly the one assuming things as in people just go and separate and live their happy lives for an undetermined time before actually getting legally divorced and/or dealing with the consequences of said divorce. More often than not it's a messy, complicated entire process. You don't have to be sad over the divorce on either party for it to turn out that way.

Legalities are actually very important to the discussion. You asked how is it any different. Because being married is different than not being married for a variety of things. It just is. You can live your own life if you want to but that doesn't mean there aren't things that are impacted by still being legallly married. If you're going to ask of other posters and quote them then you're going to hear how your situation and your feelings don't necessarily match others.

The insurance would be more the company not the state level. Each insurance company is filed with their state's DOI (Department of Insurance). I'm sure you can find ones that don't care, I was giving an example of how it would be different than just simply announcing you're separated. You can be separated for 10 years if you wanted to with the insurance company I worked for, but until you got legally divorced we couldn't remove the spouse off the policy. And under no circumstances could we remove a spouse without their permission. Can you imagine how a husband could just up and remove his wife he was divorcing off the auto policy-she's driving around and has no idea she doesn't have coverage? What does buying your own car have anything to do with it? That's nice I guess. I bought my own car too (long before I met him), so did my husband. Still wouldn't change the auto insurance with both cars being covered under the policy with us also being covered.

Medical insurance will vary. For instance father-in-law had to cover wife he was divorcing on his medical insurance for approximately 2 years. She was still going through breast cancer treatment and the judge ruled it would not be in any way shape or form ok to remove her off of his because of his type of coverage he was getting and her inability to get her own. In terms of companies you'd have to look at their policies regarding it and the other party would have to look at the policies in respects to getting insurance when they used to be covered under a different policy (life qualifying event and all) when not considered legally divorced. Great that you had no issues but again don't assume your situation is like others. Much depends on the insurance company and/or company policy with respects to coverage.

Moving on emotionally is only a piece of the overall process.
 




Palaces, it probably isn’t “okay”. But it is legal and within her rights. Things like “fair” or “okay” have no bearing here.

That is part of the package that one accepts if they are with someone who is married.

To be with somebody who is married and then complain about the spouse is like going to the beach in July and then complaining that it is too hot, too sandy, seawater is too salty....
 
Last edited:
I'm not assuming anything. You're honestly the one assuming things as in people just go and separate and live their happy lives for an undetermined time before actually getting legally divorced and/or dealing with the consequences of said divorce. More often than not it's a messy, complicated entire process. You don't have to be sad over the divorce on either party for it to turn out that way.

Legalities are actually very important to the discussion. You asked how is it any different. Because being married is different than not being married for a variety of things. It just is. You can live your own life if you want to but that doesn't mean there aren't things that are impacted by still being legallly married. If you're going to ask of other posters and quote them then you're going to hear how your situation and your feelings don't necessarily match others.

The insurance would be more the company not the state level. Each insurance company is filed with their state's DOI (Department of Insurance). I'm sure you can find ones that don't care, I was giving an example of how it would be different than just simply announcing you're separated. You can be separated for 10 years if you wanted to with the insurance company I worked for, but until you got legally divorced we couldn't remove the spouse off the policy. And under no circumstances could we remove a spouse without their permission. Can you imagine how a husband could just up and remove his wife he was divorcing off the auto policy-she's driving around and has no idea she doesn't have coverage? What does buying your own car have anything to do with it? That's nice I guess. I bought my own car too (long before I met him), so did my husband. Still wouldn't change the auto insurance with both cars being covered under the policy with us also being covered.

Medical insurance will vary. For instance father-in-law had to cover wife he was divorcing on his medical insurance for approximately 2 years. She was still going through breast cancer treatment and the judge ruled it would not be in any way shape or form ok to remove her off of his because of his type of coverage he was getting and her inability to get her own. In terms of companies you'd have to look at their policies regarding it and the other party would have to look at the policies in respects to getting insurance when they used to be covered under a different policy (life qualifying event and all) when not considered legally divorced. Great that you had no issues but again don't assume your situation is like others. Much depends on the insurance company and/or company policy with respects to coverage.

Moving on emotionally is only a piece of the overall process.

I was separated for about 18 months before our divorce was final. He wanted partial custody of the kids and I wasn’t going to let him have it so I just ignored the whole situation. I could afford the astronomical price of my lawyer to go to court so I waited him out. He signed.

But in that 18 months, I was removed from his auto insurance and I got my own. I was also removed from his medical insurance and I got my own.

There are 4 people on my auto insurance and I could remove any one of them right now, including DH. Their insurance is their responsibility. How can the law hold a spouse to keeping auto insurance on their wife/husband but not their kids? When you have a teen driving, you add them to your insurance and when they move out or get married or whatever, at some point you remove them from the policy. No permission needed. My auto insurance doesn’t even know he IS my husband. They just know there is a man with the same last name. He could be my brother!
 
If you're dating him just for fun and you don't see yourself being with him longer term, then what should you do? Let it roll off your back.

However, if you DO see yourself being with him in the longer run and if you DO think that he might be marriage material or whatever, consider this: his ex-wife will likely be a fixture in his life for a long time just by the nature of her being the mother of his children. It will be unavoidable.

Someone who has gone to the lengths of hiring a private investigator is probably not somebody who's going to divorce easily. She wants to make him pay and she's angry.

What should you do? That's hard to say. There are easy ways for anybody to get into a locked apartment building, usually by following another person in because most people would hold the door for someone. If a PI has found where you live, then the ex-wife knows your name and where you live. Start by double checking all of your social media profiles to make sure that your privacy settings are properly set up. And then go ahead and block her on all of your social media accounts.

As for what to do next beyond that, I'm not sure. Getting legal stuff involved might be an invitation for introducing more drama into your life, not more. Right now, all you know about is the PI. You don't have any evidence of anything else. But knowledge is power, you know, so now that you know the sort of person your boyfriend is dealing with, think long and hard about what you want to do next and then act accordingly.

This. I'm not even going to touch the whole married man morality issue because I think there's one thing the OP hasn't even considered. You told me that you see this relationship going the distance. That means you get stuck with the whole package, him and his, according to him, difficult ex-wife. You say that you won't have to deal with her because his daughter is 19. Well, that's just not true. If you and he end up staying together long-term, there's a whole host of possible life events where you'll have to deal with her including college graduation, marriages, grandkids, etc. Just because he divorces her doesn't mean she's totally gone for good. Are you absolutely sure you want to sign up for that for the rest of your, his, or her life, depending on who dies first? In addition, if she's going to this extent, how is she going to handle this with her daughter? Is she going to bad mouth you to her, making you and his life miserable?

You are in love but you need to step back and look at the big picture. Are you really prepared to take on this potential train wreck?
 
No, I mean my former husband. People break up relationships, not the government. He is not my husband in any form. We do not share anything in our lives except our almost 18 year old daughter. Neither of us is dating, but he is free to if he wants to as am I.

You might have broken the relationship, but until it goes to court and is adjudicated, you are still legally married. YOU can consider it what you wish, but in the eyes of the LAW, you are married.
 
I was separated for about 18 months before our divorce was final. He wanted partial custody of the kids and I wasn’t going to let him have it so I just ignored the whole situation. I could afford the astronomical price of my lawyer to go to court so I waited him out. He signed.

But in that 18 months, I was removed from his auto insurance and I got my own. I was also removed from his medical insurance and I got my own.

There are 4 people on my auto insurance and I could remove any one of them right now, including DH. Their insurance is their responsibility. How can the law hold a spouse to keeping auto insurance on their wife/husband but not their kids? When you have a teen driving, you add them to your insurance and when they move out or get married or whatever, at some point you remove them from the policy. No permission needed. My auto insurance doesn’t even know he IS my husband. They just know there is a man with the same last name. He could be my brother!
I explained it's a DOI filing. However the insurance company is filed with the state is how they will handle it. To do things outside of that means they are out of compliance and subject to fines.

For liability/exposure reasons we wouldn't have removed anyone who had habitual or regular access to the vehicles (separate addresses does not mean you don't have access to the vehicle). There were a handful of states we wrote in that you could exclude a spouse but usually that was due to the spouse surrendering the license. Most states exclusion was not available for a spouse or registered owner. The reason for the permission with a spouse is because you are generally considered one entity when legally married (hence also a reason exclusion was generally not allowed). To remove a driver is not the same as removing your still legally considered spouse though exposure was still a reason to not remove a driver.

As far as your relationship not being correct, well being honest and accurate was always the way to go, but that's between you and your insurance company and any applicable state laws regarding providing accurate information. I see no reason in all honesty to not be accurate and say he's your husband and generally speaking it gives you a break in premium.
 
I was separated for about 18 months before our divorce was final. He wanted partial custody of the kids and I wasn’t going to let him have it so I just ignored the whole situation. I could afford the astronomical price of my lawyer to go to court so I waited him out. He signed.

But in that 18 months, I was removed from his auto insurance and I got my own. I was also removed from his medical insurance and I got my own.

There are 4 people on my auto insurance and I could remove any one of them right now, including DH. Their insurance is their responsibility. How can the law hold a spouse to keeping auto insurance on their wife/husband but not their kids? When you have a teen driving, you add them to your insurance and when they move out or get married or whatever, at some point you remove them from the policy. No permission needed. My auto insurance doesn’t even know he IS my husband. They just know there is a man with the same last name. He could be my brother!

Not to go wildly OT, but this varies significantly by state. My DD24 lives in MA, the rest of us live in NC. Her car is registered in MA. She has a MA license. She lives in MA, she works in MA, she's registered to vote in MA. MA is 800 miles away from NC (give or take). It still took her and I two hours in the insurance office, with all documentation and the agent on the phone to the carrier, to get her off of our car insurance. They kept using the argument that she would drive our vehicles when she was visiting. Spoiler alert: her last visit was last December, when we did all this. North Carolina simply isn't her home (we moved here while she was in college). It WAS her legal residence while she finished school. It was a royal PITA. Added bonus, we moved here from New Hampshire, which doesn't require car insurance (we still had it). There, it was easy-peasy to add or drop someone from insurance. Bottom line, it may be NBD in your state, but some of us really have to jump through hoops.
 
I explained it's a DOI filing. However the insurance company is filed with the state is how they will handle it. To do things outside of that means they are out of compliance and subject to fines.

For liability/exposure reasons we wouldn't have removed anyone who had habitual or regular access to the vehicles (separate addresses does not mean you don't have access to the vehicle). There were a handful of states we wrote in that you could exclude a spouse but usually that was due to the spouse surrendering the license. Most states exclusion was not available for a spouse or registered owner. The reason for the permission with a spouse is because you are generally considered one entity when legally married (hence also a reason exclusion was generally not allowed). To remove a driver is not the same as removing your still legally considered spouse though exposure was still a reason to not remove a driver.

As far as your relationship not being correct, well being honest and accurate was always the way to go, but that's between you and your insurance company and any applicable state laws regarding providing accurate information. I see no reason in all honesty to not be accurate and say he's your husband and generally speaking it gives you a break in premium.
I explained it's a DOI filing. However the insurance company is filed with the state is how they will handle it. To do things outside of that means they are out of compliance and subject to fines.

For liability/exposure reasons we wouldn't have removed anyone who had habitual or regular access to the vehicles (separate addresses does not mean you don't have access to the vehicle). There were a handful of states we wrote in that you could exclude a spouse but usually that was due to the spouse surrendering the license. Most states exclusion was not available for a spouse or registered owner. The reason for the permission with a spouse is because you are generally considered one entity when legally married (hence also a reason exclusion was generally not allowed). To remove a driver is not the same as removing your still legally considered spouse though exposure was still a reason to not remove a driver.

As far as your relationship not being correct, well being honest and accurate was always the way to go, but that's between you and your insurance company and any applicable state laws regarding providing accurate information. I see no reason in all honesty to not be accurate and say he's your husband and generally speaking it gives you a break in premium.

I was honest and accurate. They asked if I was married. I said yes. They didn’t ask to who.

That one entity is slowly going away, or seems to be or at least here. I remember with my parents, almost every thing they owned was in both of their names. Any credit asked for both of their incomes, etc. Our home is the only thing in both of our names. Dd and Sil, don’t have anything in both names.

Their auto insurance is completely separate. Her car insurance was cheaper on our’s so it is. His is on the policy he had before they got married.
 
It's clear some of you have your own biases towards "married" men, but not every single person going through a divorce or separation is "using" the person they are in a current relationship.
I can think of a few I personally know that met their current wives during their separation, or before their divorces were finalized. I guess their plan was to use the girlfriends in order to marry them and live happily ever after.
We don't know anything about the OP and her relationship, you can assume things all you want though.

Unfortunately, that is something that comes with the territory. Any good divorce attorney will tell their clients to not get involved with another party until divorce is final.
 
No, I mean my former husband. People break up relationships, not the government. He is not my husband in any form. We do not share anything in our lives except our almost 18 year old daughter. Neither of us is dating, but he is free to if he wants to as am I.
According to the law (which is all that matters) you are married until the court says you aren't. Pretty simple to understand, even if you wish otherwise.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top