A lot has happened in 3 months since I have been working to take control of my life. I will post later on everything that has happened.
I am in a situation right now. My marriage is over. My wife and I attended conciliation counseling and there is no saving our marriage AT ALL! She wants to handle the D outside of court. I have her papers and she seems somewhat 'fair'.
She is requesting Joint Legal Custody. I want both Joint Legal and Physical Custody. I have not yet approached her with this concept. I did tell her that as she gets older, I want more time to where we are eventually 50/50. I have a two bedroom apartment so that she can have her own bedroom and have two residences. She said that she didn't want to have 50/50 because we can do that in the future and she said that she doesn't know what type of lifestyle I will be living (Again trying to CONTROL me). I do and will continue to have my daughter on my medical, dental, and vision insurance. She has been waiting on me for a looooong time to look over the docs and sign them. I have been dragging my feet. I am at the point to where I realize that I want to just get this over with and move on with my life. Maybe things will work out for us in the future, but she will need to open her eyes and see the part that she played in this debacle. She continue to blame me. I keep banging my head against a wall when I seek approval, or any kind of positive statement from her. All I hear is that you were never there with us, you golfed, you never went to my families birthday parties, you never went to bed with us, blah, blah! She constantly brings up the last 11 years of our relationship and fuel for her anger. It is funny. Every time that I see her, she NEVER looks happy. She is always looking sad or moody about something. I am baffled by the questions from D4 that I get when my phone rings. 'Daddy, who was that? Was it a boy or a girl?' The other night I was at a friend's house and D4 called me and we talked for 40 minutes with me being outside. I got these weird questions: (Wife was in the same room close to her by the phone) D4 - Daddy where are you? Me - At a friend's house. D4 - What are you doing? Me - Watching Along Came Polly. D4 - What is your friend's name? Me - Changed the subject. Irrelevant D4 - Is it a boy or girl? Me - Changed the subject. Irrelevant D4 - Are you spending the night at your friend's house. Me - No.
I then turned around the conversation to talk about what we are going to do when I see her this weekend. I felt these questions are VERY odd for a 4 year old to just start asking. Oh, get this. I get a call from my W complaining about the papers. She said, "I can't believe you are spending the night girl's houses and hanging out with them." I said, whoa, what are you talking about? She then proceeded to go on a tirade complaining about what a bad person I am. I then asked her why she always speaks so negative about me. She said that it makes her feel better. Real Mature. After that, she said I screwed up for 11 years ALL the time and there is nothing wrong with her.
Any advice on anything that I should include in the papers. Everything seems pretty standard. W tried to slip something past me with her claiming D4 EVERY TAX YEAR. I told her that is going to change. She said, no. Then talked to her atty and now is okay with rotating years. We still need to figure out the holidays. She is trying to get all of the holidays the rest of this year and next year.
What are the pros of having Joint Legal and Physical custody? Any other suggestions?
Thanks! OneWish
OneWish's Story
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
