Question #209: Please tell me what can be done in my sad situation: Hi, name is Anna, I have a question to ask, I’m with a mature gentleman who’s legally married but separated. He told me he’d rather send legal wife her money because he feels threaten that she is going to take him to the poor house because he receives his veteran’s check, social security and job pension, and that’s the real reason why he cannot divorce her. He lives in Puerto Rico, and his wife lives in Buffalo New York. Note: They never had children together, I live in New York City, and he has been separated from her a very long time. Before me he formulated another relationship after his separation, and all the while he remained married paying alimony. My concern is I talked to him about why he should divorce because she has eight adult children of her own from a previous marriage; he married her for her religious reasons when he fell in love with her. He doesn’t own any real estate property that I’m aware of, and now his legal wife receives social security because she is also a mature lady plus alimony. I’m not a home wrecker; their marriage dissolved way before I came into the picture. And now they live miles away from each other for several years. I told him find a lawyer in Puerto Rico or here to help because I don’t want to be the other woman, I want to be the new legal wife. When he was living in Buffalo New York, before moving to Puerto Rico, he fell seriously ill with a heart problem and was hospitalized, his back then common law wife if you will, couldn’t stay at the hospital to be by his bedside because his separated “wife” after learning what happened to him showed up, declaring her status as being his wife, she showed proof, therefore stopping anyone she didn’t want there from seeing him, while the “wife” did nothing for him but get her alimony money. That’s not right but it proves that the title “wife” carries a lot of weight. I don’t want that, he said that a judgment was passed for legal separation by a judge, and that he has to support her whether he likes it or not, and a divorce is impossible, but he never showed me any paperwork proof, etc., stating or proving that it’s true…seeing is believing, but I decided that if he doesn’t want to get a divorce because he is scared of losing more money to her and that it is an uncomfortable, complicated, costly process for him, I’m not going to press on insisting, I know when no means no, and I’ll leave it alone. And I assume that he doesn’t love me enough to get a divorce, and I will pursue to have a new relationship with a man who is not married or legally divorce with papers to prove it so I don’t have to write to no lawyer. I know that Ex-New York State Governor Paterson signed a revised divorce order perhaps that can hopefully change things. She’s tossed in Buffalo, he’s retired and lives in Puerto Rico going on four years over there, I can’t understand why he can’t divorce? I suppose she would have to pay a lawyer if she wants to contest. I believe that he can get a divorce if he wants to being they don’t live in the same place but you know more than me in the material. I hope you can give me some good news. Thank you and good day.