I thought this week, six nights with my sons, went very well. But W is now trying to spoil it. She started out by asking whether I was going to notify the mediator that her services as a mediator were not needed, then W could use her for her own legal advice (I didn't tell W that I am not going to waive the conflict of interest.) She then leveled a complaint/accusation that it was probably up to her alone to have to get a "paper" (separation agreement) drawn up. And she was even complaining at one point that I have not offered to take care of the dog or give him a bath, that he was due for his shots and that maybe she needed to include pet care expenses in the child support figures.
She then got her nose out of joint about having to catch up S7 on his homework. She said I had our S's seven days and should have been able to keep up with the homework. I corrected her that I only had them 6 nights and it was much too late when they got back Saturday night (the first night) for us to have gotten any homework accomplished. Wednesday night she had them out until bedtime too. So her complaint about not getting all the homework completed was very much half her fault as well.
I let none of her rants bother me, but when she then stated that we were going to have to go back to the 5-day/9-day parenting schedule instead of 7-day/7-day, that started to get under my skin. But I still kept my cool even if I was now no longer visibly cheerful. I calmly asked her on what grounds she wanted to go back. She responded simply that, "it is just not working."
I take that to mean she has decided it is not working for her. And that, furthermore, she was being selfish and petulant, not thinking that our S's were perfectly fine with this 50-50 arrangement. In fact, she really hasn't given it enough time to really make any such determination.
I simply told W that, if that's how she felt, then she would have to "make the case" -- meaning she would have to somehow convince a judge of her stance.
Driving back from the house (this conversation started right after I had dropped off a few personal effects for the boys after work this evening) I came to the determination that I was going to continue with the 7-7 plan regardless of how W was thinking at this moment. Let her try and stop me. Our S"s deserve as much time with each parent as they can get, and she has no grounds on which she can deny them equal time with their father.
--- I still have not lawyered up yet. I was hopeful we could avoid that, but I guess I am being too optimistic. The problem right now is that money is extremely tight at the moment. The demotion in my paycheck finally hit along with an extremely painful retroactive back-dating that killed my latest paycheck. I don't know how I'm going to make ends meet now. The next few months are going to be awful in the finance department.
Oh, well, it's only money -- no use worrying about what I don't have, right?
Seems like everyone I know is going through pain this week. It must be the full moon.
