In my 24 yr marriage, the roles were basically reversed. I was mostly a stay-at-home Dad (only worked 9 out 24 yrs) to eliminate day care and provide parental supervision of my two children. My wife has worked all of our marriage, and now earns $75k. We left the city 8 yrs ago to start a small cattle operation in rural MO (7,000 residents in the county). 5 yrs ago, I was pinned between a barbed wire fence and our bull, destroying my ability to work at all. Somedays I can put in an hour or so in my wood shop, but sometimes for weeks I am flat on my back in bed, getting whatever relief I can. I was told I could not get disability because of a "work credit" problem.
My wife told me over and over that I was not to worry, that's why she was my wife, that she would take care of me through the chronic pain (and resulting depression). Now she left me with a TRO based on an (unreasonable) "fear of violence" even though there has been no violence, along with divorce papers. She left me on a isolated farm with no vehicle (she took both of them), $11 in cash, and 2 wks food. An attempt to secure at least 1 vehicle and emergency funds by my lawyer was refused. I cannot even get needed medicine, and I have run out of antidepressants at a time when I needed them most. I will soon run out of the other 8 drugs I take every month, and medicais takes 45 -180 days here, if they approve it.
She is asking for CS (claiming that I am employable, when I am disabled), along with paying her attorney fees. I assume that this is a bargaining position, since I have no way to earn an income (my computer skills were obsolete along time ago, and the pain I suffer requires large amounts of narcotics). In fact, I am probably facing a homeless shelter and charity, since I have nothing to survive on, no firends (they took her side), and no other family to help (my 19 yr old son refuses to even talk with me).
Aside from the shock of repeated promises (voluntarily made) to care for me and then abandoning me with no car and $11 in cash, I need to somehow figure out how to survive when she eventually forces me from our farmhouse (no equity).
Can I expect maintenance in Missouri, or is the system so stacked against reverse-role marriages that I am in deep trouble?
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