Driving range. Good plan. Personally, I have longer drives when I name the victims...I mean balls. Good luck with what will likely be a tense evening. We'll be waiting for your update! love, Goldey
Wow, Jeff, lots of ground covered on here today...I agree your W should not get the VA loan from S. You have made no secret of the fact that your wife has made herself the one who 'runs the show' around there, at least from this point of view. DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Don't LET her run the show!!! Tell her that using the VA loan is flat out NOT an option. I know it is really up to S20 since it is his loan, but it is time for you to put your foot down. You agree I need to do the same in my situation....do it for yourself.
First there was the disrespectful and self-serving response to your letter, then she dissed you over the holiday by sleeping on the couch, she can't even muster up the decency to tell you the bedroom looks nice and then she compared your new comforter to your shoes. What an ice princess.
Far be it for her to feel a little butterfly and think you might have wanted to woo her crotchety ass with the new bedding.
Then she does the thing with your son.
And doesn't even respect you enough to speak with you personally regarding separate residences.
What good is counseling gonna do come the first of the year if she gets her Plan B started behind your back (or is it Plan A)?
You can do the this placating thing til donkeys fly but I'm afraid ain't nothing gonna change til you rattle the foundation of her ivory tower.
Of course, that's just my opinion and I've been giving 'em out unsolicited all day...
I just texted S20, he is coming home soon, and I will talk to him. I don't know if the discussion between them started as him talking about what he wanted to do, and she latched on, which would be one thing, though still not pretty, or whether it was her suggestion to start with.
Amy, enough is getting really close to being enough. I was really disappointed (I know, I wasn't supposed to have expectations) that she couldn't say anything nice about the room. Well, other than the thing about the shoes. And her reaction to the letter was totally selfish, though that wasn't at all surprising.
My motivation is not at an all time high.
I would not be at all surprised (though I am not assuming ) if she is expecting to drive counseling to the conclusion she wants. Which I think is to maintain things as they are. Well, that's not going to happen. First, I won't do it, and second, I don't think any C in their right mind would support it, either.
So, I think the letter started to uncover the foundation of her ivory tower. How do you think I go about rattling it?
I was really confused last night about how little you seemed to react to your W's proposal with the VA benefit. I know you've already heard this from everyone else, but DO NOT LET HER DO THIS TO YOUR SON. I am 28... I can only imagine being 20 and having a parent approach me and ask me to take on debt for their behalf. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.
[example: I have a good friend whose (abusive and manipulative) mom took out credit cards in friend's name without her permission *the day before she left her hometown to go to college*. WTF? It totally ruined her credit score and was another nail in the coffin on her relationship with her mom.]
If W cannot figure out how to use her OWN resources to set up two households, she CANNOT use your kids. Even under the pretext of getting one of the kids into a better school.
You need to give your son his financial independence. Even if it seems in his "best interest" not to.
Plus... it does not make sense for him to buy a house at age 20. He is just starting to blossom into adulthood and get a sense of what he might want to do with his life. He does not deserve to be saddled with a mortgage and tied to one place. He should wait until he's actually had the experience of paying his own bills and renting and thinking about where he might want to live before putting a downpayment down anywhere. Even though this is an awesome market to buy, it is a b!tch market to sell in and if, like any reasonable 20 year old, he decides in a few years he would like to explore other parts of the US and/or world, getting rid of that mortgage is going to suck some serious balls.
I almost bought a place when I moved to Atlanta 2 1/2 years ago and now I am SO GLAD that I didn't because I would NOT be able to sell it right now.
Homeownership means something really different when you are in your 20's.
And even if the plan was for him just provide the downpayment and not have his name on the mortgage or something... that is cheating your son out of something he earned with his blood sweat and tears. Don't do it, Jeff!!
I am confused by your equanimity. Why didn't this make you really angry?
Also, PLEASE read "passionate marriage" if you haven't yet. Your W is in a classic "2 choice dilemma" situation. You can't stay in that situation forever. you have to move forward one way or the other.
It sounds like he was the first one to bring up the possibility of using his benefits to get an address in town. (He says he can do it more than once, just only having one outstanding at a time. I don't know the facts.) I don't think W had talked about living separately for any other purpose that to have that address. Which would suit her just fine..... even better than a separate room! He would have been getting the house for him, so that we could use the address for S14 to get into the school. I told him that I thought it was a bad idea, and he didn't really object. I said that if we needed to buy a place in town, that we could do it without that. Heck, I could easily put a downpayment on credit cards, if I wanted to! (That is absurd, by the way!) W is asleep, as she works tomorrow, but I will mention to her the next time I talk to her that I think S20 using his benefits like that is a bad plan.
But, to get into the school next year, S14 needed to apply before Oct. 1 of this year (that was a couple months of go, in case you don't have your calendar handy) so I think it is a moot point.
I've sort of started to look at the financials, the biggest problem would be that we won't be able to cover as much of the kids college as we had committed to. I don't like that, but it is what it is. And actually, by the time the third one gets there, things might be considerably improved.
I'd love to see changes before going to counseling, but I don't think that is going to happen. I am quite convinced that she thinks she is "right", so she is not going to budge. I think she is going to get a big surprise. And, if I was a betting man, I'd say we will end up D'd. But, since I am not a betting man, I am still here, going to give things my best shot.
I think I have found the jar, I'm still kinda working on getting it out of the cupboard.....
I didn't react a lot when this first came up, since I was caught completely by surprise, and, from the words I was hearing, wasn't really sure what was being talked about. Now that I have talked to S, I think it is off the table, and I will tell the same to W. It really makes no sense.
I think it doesn't make me angry because I really don't do angry very well! Sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes it's a curse! That doesn't mean I'm happy with it, I just deal with it differently.
I need to get that book! I might end up just ordering it online, though I like to support the actual stores, when I can!
) if she is expecting to drive counseling to the conclusion she wants. Which I think is to maintain things as they are. Well, that's not going to happen. First, I won't do it, and second, I don't think any C in their right mind would support it, either.