Settling In (LB55 Thread 3)

[LB55]

Previous Thread

Quick summary, W filed for divorce in December 18, temp orders hearing was 4 Feb, received the temp orders for review on the 28th from her L.

Have a new place to live, reading books, working on myself, working a lot. Having fun with the kids when I have them.

[LB55]

I see no mention of a lawyer. You do have one, right?

Yes I have a L, she is on board with my plans. I have a conference call with her today to discuss my issues with the way the temp orders are written and get them worded better so we can send them back to W and her L for review.

[LB55]

Man LB, I just want to offer some support. I seriously want to puke every time I read the custody, child support, and alimony number you're throwing out there.

I've gotten stuff from goodwill too. It's not bad at all!

Thanks for the support. The numbers are pretty absurd, she just doesn't understand the concept that her choice to file for D means that she no longer receives my income, and that she doesn't continue to get a free ride. She is asking for $5100 AFTER the mortgages are paid. Free spending money. Says she needs all of it just to get by. She wants me out of her life, wants me out of the kids' lives, yet wants my income to keep rolling in. Not going to happen.

She has accused me of squeezing her financially. Yes, I am doing that. She is welcome to get a job if she needs more money. I am paying child support to ensure they aren't destitute. I won't pay spousal support until the amount is agreed upon. This is the only angle I have to get her to negotiate on other items like time with the kids. It stinks to have to do it that way, but because of the way this has played out, its the only position of power that I can play from.

She is so used to me yielding to her and her needs, that every time I stand up for myself and set a boundary, I am perceived as demanding and unwilling to see things from her perspective. Example: "I was lied to multiple times in this process; I do not trust your word. In order to be able to trust you, the 'misunderstandings', lies, and twisted words must stop. I want to have an open and communicative relationship through this process, but right now I must protect myself legally and emotionally." W: "Its not my fault you can't trust me, its yours. You need to be more responsible for your emotions and stop blaming me for your problems. I know you are angry, but don't blame me for your anger."

[Ready2Change]

You have the $numbers from the temp orders. What do YOU think the numbers should be after the 50/50 parenting is in place? Did this get presented to the judge?

Has your W ever worked? My friend married a woman who RETIRED from Microsoft. She became stay at home mom. They got divorced. It was ON HIM to prove that she has EARNING potential. I believe his maintenance payment was reduced based on this fact.


From my POV you are getting pushed to settle for something. I am not sure if you have Counter-claims.

I am not a fan of the legal system. I believe it is up to you to make counter claims other wise the judge only has ONE side to conciser. Just my two cents.


I am wishing you the best through this. You seem to be getting bent over more than anyone I have seen.

[Ready2Change]

"I was lied to multiple times in this process; I do not trust your word. In order to be able to trust you, the 'misunderstandings', lies, and twisted words must stop. I want to have an open and communicative relationship through this process, but right now I must protect myself legally and emotionally." W: "Its not my fault you can't trust me, its yours. You need to be more responsible for your emotions and stop blaming me for your problems. I know you are angry, but don't blame me for your anger."[/quote]

Less words brother.

H"It is best if we handle that through the lawyers"



You cannot reason with this woman. She is like my X. In time maybe. not now.

Take that Anger and channel it into action. Use it to light a fire under your L to get your midweek visits.

Use it to get a transcript of the hearing.

I don't mean be angry with these people. Just use it as a clue that you need to take action.

Look here for effectively channel emotions:
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2061094#Post2061094

[AnotherStander]

LB, I agree with R2C, I think you're trying to talk to your W way too much when you should just be letting it all filter through your L. She may change and become less confrontational somewhere down the road but it's not going to happen anytime soon. Contact should be limited to strictly discussing the kids.

The numbers are pretty absurd, she just doesn't understand the concept that her choice to file for D means that she no longer receives my income, and that she doesn't continue to get a free ride. She is asking for $5100 AFTER the mortgages are paid. Free spending money. Says she needs all of it just to get by. She wants me out of her life, wants me out of the kids' lives, yet wants my income to keep rolling in. Not going to happen

I'm sure she knows she's not going to get it all, but her approach is to go for as much as she can and hope she can get most of it.

She has accused me of squeezing her financially. Yes, I am doing that.

No you're not, this is all her doing. She has handled this whole thing in the most vile, despicable manner and any fallout from it is 100% on her shoulders.

I am paying child support to ensure they aren't destitute. I won't pay spousal support until the amount is agreed upon.

Have you been ordered by the court to pay anything yet? If not I wouldn't be paying her a cent based on her complete lack of sympathy or remorse or interest in working with you on ANYTHING. If she can't afford the kids then fine she can turn them over to you. If she wants you to give her money out of the goodness of her heart then she can work with you on visitation. Quit giving her everything when she is giving you nothing (unless you've been court-ordered).

She is so used to me yielding to her and her needs, that every time I stand up for myself and set a boundary, I am perceived as demanding and unwilling to see things from her perspective.

I doubt that's her perception, I think she is engineering everything to suit her needs. She knows you're not being "demanding" or unfair but she is going to play the victim card whenever possible to try and coerce you into doing what SHE wants you to do. She's trying to control and manipulate you, and she's largely getting away with it.

I want to have an open and communicative relationship through this process

That's just not going to happen. You need to treat her as the enemy for now, because that's how she's treating you. So you need to protect yourself.

[LB55]

AS

Thanks for that. You make some good points and I am seeing some things differently because of my position.

I say that to myself every day...'W, this divorce is your choice, its not my problem that you don't like the consequences of your choices.' The hope is that if the time and situation comes I can say it in person. Not out of anger, just to get it off my chest.

I am emailing too much about stuff. That's just a hard thing to break. I try to not respond if there isn't a question, and its very hard to not respond to accusations that are untrue. Will keep working at it.

The temp orders are not signed yet. It took her a month to get them reviewed and to our side for review. I just had them sent back to her L for review. However, my L advised me to pay her the state recommended child support based on the state worksheet to stay in good standing with the court in case we have to go back to court since we are so far apart on the temp orders' content. Her L 'needs to do some client management' is what mine said. I know they are just eating up our money, but mine at least acknowledges that its a waste of our money and she would like to get this settled.

I know she is trying to control me, and that I need to use less words less often. Executing that is a different story. I am not blowing up her email by any means, but I have replied twice this week to things that I found unacceptable to let linger. I will work on my tolerance and letting the rain run off the duck's back. She has always been an excellent manipulator and this is the only time I have really stepped back and seen it. It makes me so upset when I think about how she has used me for all these years and is trying to continue using me. I talked with my L yesterday to make sure she is aware that I am feeling that way and I would like to be a little more of a bully back until they are willing to negotiate on my priorities. She is willing and the temp orders we sent for review are good for me monetarily and as good as I can do right now with work for a schedule with the kids. Mid week visits every week and every other weekend.

Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate it!

[LB55]

Use it to get a transcript of the hearing.


Take that Anger and channel it into action. Use it to light a fire under your L to get your midweek visits.

My L is getting a copy of the transcript as I requested yesterday. We will be using it if we have to go back to court.

I requested a mid week visit on Tuesday every week in the most recent version of our orders. We will see.

I will work on using less words. So hard. I am working on setting boundaries for myself with her, maybe its not the right time? I thought telling her that I don't trust her was appropriate. You disagree? Or just use less words?

[Ready2Change]

Right now is the perfect time to set boundaries.

A boundary is how you protect yourself. It is about how you respond. It is not required to state it.



When you lie to me, there is no reason for me to trust you.

When you lie to me, there is no reason for me speak with you.


What is your boundary on protecting your relationship with your children?

[LB55]

What a crazy 24 hours. No I didn’t have sex with my W. I did have some actual conversation, about 15 minutes in the driveway last night when dropping the kids off. She let me have them for a couple extra hours, gave me some items from the house, worked out a deal for me to have my son on Thursday and to have my daughter next week one night. Made a plan to pick up my motorcycle, and she will even give me a ride to the house to get it. It was crazy, she hasn’t spoken to me other than via electronic methods since thanksgiving. She initiated it and we talked a bit about how both of us contributed to this, she apologized for lying to me; it was good. However she still doesn’t see that this is still her choice and the consequences she is suffering from are from her choices. I didn’t point that out; just listened and validated her feelings. We talked about the temp orders, she was surprised that I told her about the monetary details and the proposed time with kids and the proposal to come to the house and get some things. She said our proposal was to come to the house when she wasn’t there and take everything I wanted. I calmly explained that the way the orders were written that I would come to the house, take stock of everything, propose a list for agreement and come back a different day to get those items. It seemed as if she had no idea what was in the orders.

Then I get an email from my L today saying we are going back to court because they don’t agree with our temp orders. I sent W an email asking what is up with that and can we discuss it? She called me and we talked for 2 hours. Turns out she never even saw the orders proposal. Her L just said ‘no’ and never even asked her for her thoughts. What a POS. This explains so much about our legal communications. He hasn’t presented her with any info since the initial filing, instead just working to keep her angry at me through poor twisted communications.

This is incredibly frustrating. She has been getting goaded into a continued fight that she doesn’t want, and he is just taking her money. My L knows now too, and is encouraging my W and I to work out some of the legal details without wasting more money. My L isn’t a money grubbing POS thankfully. She makes plenty don’t get me wrong, but she acknowledges that we are just wasting our money for things that don’t need a L.

We had a lot of good conversation today about the last year(2hours of call) things we have both done right and wrong, and it’s so evident that I have made progress to me, validation, communication, not solving her problems for her, listening for a couple extra seconds to make sure she is done before replying. It was nice to talk with my friend, Ive missed that.

Not reading much into it, as she is still whining about money and how I am trying to starve them out and stuff. We did have some productive conversation. She acknowledged my commmunicationw have improved, and that I looked good in my new clothes, it’s nice to know because I feel good in them. She said I won’t be single for long, then later on some hints at something maybe in the future. Not reading anything into it, but it was nice that we could just talk. I could sense some tension building as we tried to discuss finances so I ended the call nicely and efficiently before any progress made was lost.

She is really struggling under the weight of her choice but I can’t help with that. She can’t see that her choices have caused her problems, not going to point it out either. Has to realize on her own. It was nice to have a sign of life out of her. Might be a storm again tomorrow but a little calm is nice to have.