role: user

text:
<environment_context>
  <shell>zsh</shell>
  <current_date>2026-03-11</current_date>
  <timezone>America/Chicago</timezone>
</environment_context>


text: ok - let's see the entire thing.


role: assistant

text:
```text
Lisa and I married in 2005 and were together for more than twenty years. This was not a marriage of two financially independent people who happened to share a home. It was a fully integrated economic partnership, and the major financial decisions we made reflected that.

For most of the marriage, I was the primary income provider. Over time, we did not build conventional retirement savings. Instead, marital resources went into the household and into Snow Day, the custom 3D snow globe business we built together. Early in the marriage, I purchased approximately 300 BTC with marital funds, and that asset was ultimately liquidated to support the household and sustain us through the years we were building the business. These were not unilateral decisions. They were made jointly, and they were made within a shared understanding that Lisa's inheritance would provide long-term security for both of us. I am not challenging the trust principal or arguing over later appreciation. I am trying to explain why resources that might otherwise have become my retirement security were instead invested in our marriage and our shared future.

I have been underemployed since 2017. Since Lisa's mother died in 2022, we have both effectively been retired. I am now 56 years old with no meaningful retirement savings and no realistic path to building them from scratch. The time simply is not there, and re-entering the job market at this stage would not come close to solving the long-term financial problem now in front of me.

Lisa has a trust of approximately $5 million and receives roughly $19,000 per month in distributions. I am not seeking to challenge the classification of the trust principal. But the monthly distribution stream is the only stable, predictable financial foundation available for structuring a settlement that can provide durable security, and any serious conversation about resolution has to begin there.

I also want to be direct about how this ending has affected me. I pushed repeatedly for us to confront serious issues in therapy. I do not feel that I was given meaningful notice that the marriage was over or a genuine opportunity to address what needed to be addressed before that decision was made. I did not understand things to be ending in a way that would have allowed me to protect myself financially. That is an important part of why I now find myself financially exposed at 56 with no clear path forward.

My core concern is retirement security, and I want to be clear that I am not pursuing a punitive outcome. But I am also not willing to come out of a twenty-year marriage financially insecure after making major financial decisions in good faith based on expectations Lisa and I both shared. I am hopeful mediation can produce a fair structure for support and long-term security that avoids that result.

I strongly prefer resolution over litigation. If this process can arrive at a fair structure for support, security, and an orderly unwinding of financial issues, I am fully committed to that path. But the settlement has to actually solve the problem.
```


text: send that to pbcopy please.


text: I’m copying the current full mediator note text to your clipboard.


text: Copied to your clipboard from [2026-03-10_karl_perspective_case_note.md](/Users/qarl/project/divorce/legal/records/mediators/gerli/2026-03-10_karl_perspective_case_note.md:1).