Thanks for the reassurance, puppy. This was an insult. It's infuriating, on top of everything else that's gone on. I supported this man when he left the monastery and had no job, during 2 years of graduate school and a year of chaplain residency. It's partly because of me that he's able to make the salary he's now making; of course he left just when we started to be comfortable. He's the one who left to chase someone else, while I've stayed at home, found another job, and cared for our daughter while he saw her a few hours a week all summer. It feels like he just wants me to roll over and play dead, but it's really just a continuation of our relationship. We always got along fine as long as I stuffed my feelings and my needs, but when I began to express any needs it got ridiculous. Now I suppose I'm not even supposed to need food. He had the nerve to add in his utilities, rent, and student loan (from undergrad days, long before I knew him!!) into his expenses. And still I'm paying 75% of joint expenses under this agreement!! How absurd.
Of course it's absurd. And here's the deal: HE may not factor those things in during his current frame of mind, and his FAMILY may not, but family court judges pretty much get PAID to look at PRECISELY those kinds of things. Past support, length of the marriage, current financial needs, whose obligations they are. Sure, they're human, and I suppose biases exist, both pro-mother and pro-father, but I don't think ANY of this is going to go uncounted, and unaddressed.
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I have to admit, it hit me on an emotional level when I first read it. I know in my head it's pretty much a game at this point, and that this proposal will never fly. But to show me this kind of disrespect was painful. I got over it fairly quickly, of course, but not before I practically had a panic attack while driving. This kind of thing certainly helps with detachment, tho!
You said pretty much what I was going to say: it's natural to get upset, but then you just have to give yourself a day or two, and then get over it. When my wife responded to my initial pleadings, she asked for "immediate, temporary and sole occupancy of the marital residence." I had to read it a couple of times before it sunk in what she was asking for: After cheating on ME, and lying to our entire family about it, she was asking the court to make ME leave my own house!!! And our finanical sitch was such that I really would have had nowhere to go, other than to HER parents' house, which would not have even been GOOD for her, if she had thought about it.
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So I'm calling my attorney this afternoon, once things quiet down in my office and I can talk uninterrupted. The gloves are off. My daughter and I will not live hand-to-mouth in order for this bozo to build his new life in affluence and without repercussions for his choices.
I'm glad to hear that. I think we ALL are. And if you ever need reminding of that, we're here to smack ya, Hoozh.
