Advice on Divorce and Domestic violence case
My wife with whom I have been married for almost 15 years has filed divorce and domestic violence (DV) case against me. I along with her parents and relatives tried to convince her number of times to rethink her decision and not break the family but it's just falling on deaf ears.
Need advice on below
1) Although there is no major fault of mine apart from some heated arguments where i spoke bad language which she has recorded on mobile. Can she file DV and divorce case, ask for alimony? Please advise as what are my options?
2) Couple of years back I had purchased my first residential property where out of Love I added her name as joint owner. Although she had good amount of money lying ideal in her bank account when we bought this property, she did not offer me any of those and all money for property was paid by me (from savings and loan) and not a single penny was taken from her. But she still wants to have half the value of the property as alimony as she is joint owner. Please advise if she has the right to claim 50% of property value as alimony although she has not contributed single penny towards it?
3) We have two kids (aged 10 and 7) and since one of them is a bit difficult to manage as compared to the other, she is very clear that she will keep and take care of my elder kid only who is easy to manage whereas i need to take care of other kid. She also wants me to pay good amount of money for the kid that she wants to keep. I am of the opinion that we need not separate kids for no fault of theirs and am ready to keep both the kids. Please advise as what are my options so that kids are not separated?
4) She has taken away all the jewellery from house and kept it somewhere (possibly bank locker) and when i questioned her about its whereabouts she is asking me for invoices which i don't have as most of them were given to her as part of marriage and other occasion some of them were purchased by me and i might not have invoices for same. According to her all of the jewellery is "Stridhan" and she is rightfully keeping it. Please advise if all of the jewellery will be considered as "Stridhan"? If not, what are my options to get it back?
5) From last 6 months she has stopped doing household chores. Am slogging between my work and managing house which includes waking up kids, preparing breakfast, pushing them to get ready, preparing their lunch, picking them from school, making them study etc. and she will just drop them to school and prepare dinner. Please advise if can i take any legal action against her for not performing her duties? does this fall under cruelty? What are my options so that she understands her responsibility and kids do not suffer?
5) Am still trying to convince her to not take this step but if she wants to divorce me, then do i need to pay her alimony? I feel she is just trying to extort hard earned money from me
P.S : All this years only i have been contributing all the expenses for family.