Hi Dudess: Thanks for your input - and for the reminder that there have been small signs of her calming down just a bit...however tintsy wintsy...
Whenever I ask her how she's doing she says, "Great!"...and I try to take that at face value...but having known her for ten years I can't help but notice when she's putting on a face - even if over the phone.
I will hold off on that letter - maybe I'll just keep doing what I've been doing over the last few months...writing a letter...reading it...then emailing it to myself and reading it again...only to think, phew, glad I didn't sent that one.
I last talked with a lawyer at the end of November...and decided from my conversation with him to keep things calm for a while. His advice, as someone who has dealt with people behaving like my W (with threats of having the husband arrested, etc), was to let her find a calm place - and when it seems like the tempest has passed and she's willing to talk about reconciliation or D - to go through mediation instead of court. In his experience, woman who say the things my wife has been saying often find a way to win favor in the court - and often end up calling the police in the months before going to court...just to prove their points of view...of course, this is all from one lawyer...so there are certainly other opinions out there - but I trusted him mostly because it seemed like he wasn't trying to make a buck of me at all - and was even encouraging me not to use a lawyer...for a moment I thought he was using a DBing technique on me (LOL) - not pursuing, letting me make my choices, letting me think I didn't need him...only to have me convince myself that using him would be best...
...as for our finances - those have been taken care of - she's taken over the payments for the car she took - I kept the car that was paid off - and we separated all credit cards. I gave her half of what was in the savings - and she has her own retirement account with her work - and I have my own as well...
Some of the best protection I have right now regarding our baby is that I pick him up every day from daycare and have him with me every Saturday - if I were the abusive person she claims I am, why would she allow our baby to be alone with me so much? It tells me that at least part of her knows that her characterization of me is a fabrication...or a projection...
