You didn't answer. Why would you pay the retainer if your W hasn't filed yet?
Because his W has been making threats to take the kids away from him if he doesn't agree to her nesting arrangement, which he has already stated he is not interested in. He needs to be ready to pull the trigger on legal action ASAP if she follows through with her threats of leaving and taking the kids with her.
I’m sorry for not originally addressing the 2nd part of your question.
I would want to pay the retainer (whatever I don’t use would be refunded to me) to run things past the L as they come up with W, but also to protect myself and the boys in the even that W follows through on her threats (AS is right on this part).
Be patient here. I believe DBers say believe nothing of what she says and only 50% of what she does. After my first BD in 2015, my W talked about filing for 2 months without any action. It wasn't until I found out that she was seeing someone else that I essentially forced her to file or I was going to file (at that time I was completely confused...and come to find out, so was she). Like your S, mine made all sorts of threats regarding the D, including custody arrangements, etc.
Another great piece of advice from star DBers is make her do all the work related to the filing process, etc. My W initially filed, but drug out the process for months. After going dark (and, which in retrospect wasn't the greatest idea, started seeing someone else as part of my GAL), she came to me several times to tell me that she was confused and didn't think she could live without me. In hindsight, I continued to see someone else just to make her jealous...again, not the greatest idea. Ultimately, she called off the divorce and we began piecing. All said and done, I retained a lawyer because I knew she was filing, and she had some pretty serious threats in there. This lawyer cost me around $9,000 throughout the process, and ultimately was never needed.
My recommendation (and I am no expert) would be to just DB hard, ignore the D talk until you see evidence (get papers), and focus on yourself. The D process is very long and you will have plenty of time to come back and respond should she actually file. Also, my attorney gave me the advice to NOT leave the marital home unless you or the kids are in danger. She could actually state that you "abandoned" the family, therefore should relinquish custodial rights.
Hope this helps!
Me: 44 Her: 42 T: 22, M: 20 D:18, S:16, S:11 Sep: 6 months in 2002 Sep again: March 15, 2015 (5 months) WAW talk again: January 21, 2019
I'm betting $$$ to hoard for later, or deposits for another place. I will ask her about that later.
We had an account with a savings app called Digit that would siphon off money to save for later. I saw that she closed it a couple of weeks ago (with about $3K in it). I then transferred $3K from a joint savings account to a personal account to equalize (L was okay with that).
