I had an amicable divorce between two professionals, an engineer (me), and a CPA (her). Everything was civil.

I lived in a Budget Suites for about 6 months. Then I lived with my brother for about a year, off-and-on.

Then I lived in a one-bedroom "efficiency" apartment that smelled like the upstairs neighbor's pot and sounded like the side-by neighbor's Latino Music, Kah-Ku-Ku-Kah! It was a rathole apartment complex. I did that for a year.

I bought plates, towels, silverware, shower curtains, a full gambit of cleaning supplies, stocked an empty pantry and an empty fridge, and started hitting garage sales for hand-me-down furniture (I used plastic lawn chairs for a while, yes I did, and didn't have a kitchen table at all). Debt debt debt she didn't need to incur.

I used the apartment complex's vacuum cleaner and washer/dryer the entire time I was in that apartment.

Then I moved back in with my brother for a few months.

Then I moved into a 2-BR apartment next to a creek. That was a nice place, had a garage and an upstairs neighbor who didn't smoke pot (that I know of) or blare her musica, but her feet sounded like Frankenstein in tap shoes, stomp-stomp-stomp. I lived there for a year.

I bought a washer & dryer, and even a vacuum cleaner! Moving up, baby!

Then I bought my first (second) house! It was a HUD home fixer-upper that was almost exactly 1/2 the price of my first home. I stayed there for 2 years and took it fixed it up great! My neighbors were pot-dealing thugs, and the house next to me was an abandoned pot house that eventually got rented out, just before I moved.

I FINALLY afforded new furniture. I gave my old stuff away to a lady who agreed to clean my house for two months, in exchange for my old furniture.

Finally, after 5 years (is that right?) of moving around, I bought my second (third) house that is 2/3 the footage of my first house with fewer rooms, on a smaller lot, and it cost 10% more than my first house, but it's in a great neighborhood, I have great neighbors, I'm across the street from the park, and it's MINE MINE MINE!

I painted the inside ORANGE just because I f.king felt like it.

My ex-wife has been in the same house -- my first house -- since 1999, and recently refinanced and refurnished. She kept all the furniture at first, and even tossed out our old stuff for new stuff a couple of years ago, about the same time she bought the big-screen televisions for both the living room (for the PS3 and her Rock Band setup), and that +40" flat-panel she hung up in her bedroom.

When I moved out, I helped her with the mortgage, yes I did, so she wouldn't lose the house.

Upon finalizing the divorce, the judge was nice enough to grant me ownership of one of the loans we took out to buy her house, yes he did. I'll be paying on her house through 2015. This is on top of the C/S for our 50:50 custody arrangement.

She hasn't offered to pay for my house, yet. Weird, I know. She did offer to give me her old furniture, though.

D's spot-on with the leaver. Whoever leaves usually winds up in low-cost housing, at least in the short-term. It's a matter of simple math, really.

Financially, the divorce set me back about 10 years and has so far cost me about $150,000. By the time my son's 18, it will have cost me about $250,000 all total, and that's after-tax money deposited into the ex-wife's bank account directly.

It's not gender-specific. Whoever makes more money, whoever leaves, and whoever loses custody gets hosed. Which is why everyone says this to divorcess: DON'T LEAVE! Sell the house and split the money! Get custody!

And I make "good" money with 50:50 custody in an amicable divorce between two professionals who make more or less the same money.

It could be worse, see. I'm, like, best-case scenario.


- Saul