How To Renegotiate A Divorce Settlement

I live in California. I decided to divorce my husband of 20 years late in 09. We have 4 children, all at home. The friction and volatility of our relationship had become more than I could bear. I am extremely intimidated by him even today. I have always felt that he would prevail in any conflict and that I was helpless. This feeling took many years to develop. It is what it is. We owed a business for the last 17 years that has always supported us and provided us with a 5 bedroom home in a decent neighborhood, complete with boat, newer motorhome, toys etc. His vow to make sure I received nothing was reinforced by his vow to quit working and have no income to show or provide for the children if I came after him for any of his precious stuff or money. He refused any support initially, and only after I secured an attorney,(an elderly family friend) did he agree to give me 1500 per month. His income from the family business averages from 8-11K per mo. My rent was as cheap as I could find for a 4 bedroom,$2100 and that left my 10 year old sleeping with me. Shuttling my kids to and from school, soccer, cheer etc meant that I had few options for employment, now that I had been outed from the family business. My attorney failed to secure temporary orders from the court and my husband pressured me to sign off on virtually everything. I did. I gave away rights to his pension, our home, the business, possessions, in exchange for our 2 br rental condo (30K equity)$20K cash, $1500 per mo child support and $300 alimony. I signed feeling that I would never see more. The divorce had drug out for a year and I was exhausted. My attorney didn't see to any of the legal details like changing of the vesting of the condo, etc. The condo remains in my ex husbands name, his 5K intial payment was the last I was to see. No alimony payments were ever received and the child support is late every month. The 50% visitation established has never been seen and I have the kids 90% of the time. He rarely sees the older children and only picks up our 10 year old son when he feels like it with no schedule at all. I have absorbed all extra costs for the kids uniforms, medical co pays, kids braces etc with no recompensation as would be per our agreement. He sits in our empty 5 bedroom home a mile away from me while I "bust my butt" to keep the rented roof over our children's heads. He takes great delight at my struggle and tells my children that I'm a deserving slut. He says that he will provide for them only if they agree to live with him exclusively. I continue to run my CCs up for groceries because I just cant make it work otherwise. Im running out of options. I realize now that I screwed up by signing off. CA would have given me half of everything and probably our home if I just stepped aside and got out of the way. I just couldn't take this bully on one more time. Is there anything I can do now that I've come to my senses? He's laughing at me.

My exhusband continues to appeal our divorce because I have a Retirement fund and 401k that was cashed in last year. I received $12,000 last year and the money is gone at this time. He has been on unemployment and sometimes jobless. I have always taken care of the bills. Through the final divorce hearing and the first appeal I was awarded the retirement fund and my 401K. Now he went and appealed with the WI Court of Appeals. If I waited until I was 59 (30 years away) I would have been given $$33,00 but because I cashed it out early I only received $12,000. My exhusband's attorney hired an expert who would testify that he was due $15,000. The week before our final hearing (the third final hearing in this matter really), my exhusband requests a negotiation session. His attorney said he would accept $3,000 and unsupervised visitation of our daughter-which I told him I needed to think about. My attorney told me that because that amountn is marital property I could file that debt along with my current bankruptcy. But because I did not make the decision that day, he changed his mind and then demanded $11,000 and GAL already told him she was granting unsupervised visitation. I told my lawyer I wanted to see what the judge would decide. My lawyer told me he did not want to spend 4 hours in court fighting an amount I was going to wright off in the bankruptcy. My exhusband finally agreed to $7500 with $100 monthly payments with interest. I have been researching some rules with bankruptcy and that rules say that a divorce decree can not be written off in bankruptcy. So I feel that my lawyer told me some bad advise so he did not have to go to court and close the case. Was my attorney correct when he told me that I could write that debt off?