 |
 |
I am going to share with you all our on-going saga. This past January, I shared with you the story re: Ben's planned retirement on Oct. 1st, and how at the Annual Meeting of the church, we were told that the call committee had already found a pastor & he would want to move in before school started in August. The church was more than willing to continue to pay Ben's salary + a housing allowance until Oct. 1st. Now to continue...We spent several months trying to find a home that we could afford on Ben's pension. We scraped the idea of me going back to work since it was just going to be a matter of time before Ben would need me to be at home to help. Finally we find a small 3 BR, 1B home (1BR is an office) and we are to sign the papers the end of July. By that time they have finally received a letter from this "new" pastor that he has no intention of coming...so now they want us to stay in the parsonage. Too bad... We move the 1st week in August, with the help of the church. At the end of August is the next blow...Ben's ex-wife wants her part of his pension. At the time of the divorce, she told him the pension was his & she didn't want it. Therefore it was not mentioned in the divorce decree. (Ben, who trusts anyone until they prove him wrong, didn't think he need an attorney to represent him at the time of the divorce.) There is the bit about who gets what & then a paragraph stating something to the order of....that the court doesn't find any other community property & if there is anything else it's belongs to the person who owns it. The pension was not mentioned because she didn't want it. And now she does...and I can even understand why....she married a man 6 mos. after the divorce 17 years ago, who has worked probably in the last 15 of those years. Ben's grown children say it's because he's "too good for the jobs he's offered." She helped put Ben through school...I can understand that. What we don't understand is why now after we've gotten a GI loan & bought the house that we will soon have to put back on the market. If we had only known about this in the first 6 mos. of this year we would have done things differently....what, I don't know, but at least we wouldn't have bought the house. There is no statue of limitations in Texas re: pensions. She's entitled to it at anytime. So now we are up a creek with out a paddle. We have an attorney here & are in the process of retaining an attorney in the Valley where the divorce took place. But we won't know until Oct. 25th if she will represent us. I will say, she's darn good & if we have any chance at all, she'll find it. She is one attorney that every male attorney HATES to do up against....she knows her stuff, fights clean, is honest as the day is long, & won't let anything get by her. We have also been told by our attorney here that the case will not be settled there, that it will be appealed and settled in Corpus Christi. Ben can work until he's 70 1/2 before he has to retire, so he's gone back to work full time...he has to, his pension is frozen until the case is settled. At least we're OK for now. But now to the pension....When Ben took the call to this church, he took a $5000 a year cut in salary because we both felt that this was where were suppose to be. When we thought Ben was to retire on Oct. 1st, we know that our pension was only going to be about 1/2 of his present salary and we planned accordingly. Everything was budgeted down to the last penny...we could just make it if we really worked at it. Now all that is up for grabs. If she wins the case she will easily get at least 1/4 of the pension ( her half of the pension at the time of the divorce plus interest ). Ben has handled this pretty well, considering. The stress is horrid and the not knowing is the worst of all. Ben's decline has been very slow until now. I bet I have watched him decline more in these last weeks than the 5 years prior. And I guess one other thing that has been a real problem is the fact that we considered Doris and James to be friends. This just plain hurt Ben. I'm sorry that this is so long, but once I started it just all came out. Thanks for listening. Linda