I agree w/you both and I appreciate your input on my reply. I'm not in a rush as she's w/out a computer until Tuesday as we're both off of work.
Ali, I do like your opening line about being saddened by her thinking I'd do anything to hurt our D. I'm also going to post her e-mail below so you all can read it. I've told you how I'm choosing to respond (with some potential editing help from my DB friends), so now I'll let you read what she wrote and I'm sure you'll see why I was so fired up at first. Here it is:
Quote:
"...so unfortunately it is the way we need to go." We don't need to or have to do anything. I don't understand why you don't get that.
You are choosing to do this. What you are really saying is that you believe my retirement is worth more than yours, and you are willing to waste both of our money just to get a little more money from me. You are choosing to force us to "bite the bullet."
In the past, and even now, your choices aren't always in D's best interest. You chose to spend more time at school than at home with us. You chose to control and abuse me. You chose to rage at me in front of D. You chose to run us 70K+ in debt. Those choices, among others, led me to leave you. Then, you chose to fight me for custody and you chose to spend 45K in lawyer fees. I begged you to not bankrupt us both for D's sake. You said you were willing to do it. I offered you more time originally with D than you were eventually awarded by the court, but you chose not to take what was offered. You chose to make the divorce ugly. I offered to have an apartment nearby, so whoever had D stayed with her in the house, and whoever didn't was at the apartment. That way D was ALWAYS in the house. You chose not to take that offer. You chose to stay in the house -- even though you couldn't afford it -- and you chose to have your daughter immediately displaced. You chose not to give me bare essentials -- that I needed to care for our child -- for months. You chose to leave the dogs in the car when you KNEW it was dangerous and illegal.
You have choices. You have had choices all along, and you continually choose to make things difficult for me and your daughter.
You always have felt and still continue to feel that some how you were wronged -- that you are a victim, and that you are entitled to certain things. And in a very narrow legal sense you are entitled to assets, etc., however, there was never anything stopping you from putting D first and coming to a reasonable agreement all on our own. I asked you to do that -- to make that choice -- repeatedly. I know people who did that and spent a total of $3,000 ($1,500 each) on their divorce. Even now, there is nothing stopping you from simply agreeing that we each keep our own retirement accounts and that is that. Instead you are going to make us both pay more money to hire someone to give you what you are "entitled" to. That is money we could both be putting towards D, but as usual you cannot put her -- or what is best for her -- first. You won't even consider it.
Comments anyone? I still think the simple - keep it business approach is the best b/c responding and refuting her claims will do nothing of consequence and will gain me ZERO ground.
Your XW is still living in the past and it is a waste of your time to defend yourself. Do what you feel is best in regards to the retirement account without trying to convince her why. I think Nike had a slogan..."Just Do It".
Basically your XW is blaming you for not giving her exactly what she wanted when she wanted it! If the pension evaluation was in the final divorce agreement then just get it done. Xw is so absurd, if you get money from it, it will also benefit D. She just wants control over everything. Do what was agreed on and ignore her rants. Just remember this is also the woman who said you abused her. Reread her email, first she blames you for displacing D from the house, then she blames you for staying in the house. Look , if she was really concerned about money for D , she would make you a fair offer to even up the pensions without having them evaluated. You probably both can find out what they are worth.
I will be going through w/the pension and right now I'm thinking of taking Ali's advice and softening the opening a bit by telling XW how saddened I am that she would accuse me of not putting D's wishes out first. I will then list most of what I put down before - this is business and not personal and we need to keep D out of it as it isn't about her.
What I'm not sure is since she fired off in her e-mail her take on the "choices" I made, do I mention the line back to her that "we've all made choices and we have to be accountable for our actions"? I'm not sure if I add that line in or not.
On another note, although it is a little late, I did set a boundary w/my XW yesterday. She had asked if my sister (who she hates) was coming down w/my mother this week to visit. When I told her no she wasn't, her text reply was "thank God." I was driving at the time and didn't address it, but I should have.
Anyway, I sent her a text last night simply saying, "When you heard my sister wasn't coming down, you replied thank God. In the future, please don't bad mouth her b/c she is my sister and I love her." End of text. No reply...of course.
Anyway, I'll most likely write her back tomorrow, so I'll continue to get feedback on my offerings as well as what you think of what she wrote to me.
I'm getting a lot of good things from you so far. Kalni, Ali, Kerry, and bizarre thank you for taking the time to give me some input.
XW replied to my text asking her not to badmouth my sister by defending herself and claiming she never badmouths my sister in front of D. She also went on to say that my sister always talks badly about her and how "I don't control her any more."
I replied saying I knew she didn't bad mouth my family in front of D and I was asking her to refrain from badmouthing my sister to me. I reminded her it was a request and what she chose to do was her choice in the end, but I would appreciate her not speaking poorly about my family.
No reply. Instead, her next text was "do you need anything like dresses and play clothes for D this weekend?" What? That is a bit odd, don't you think? Oh, well, so is she, right?
Later, she called me to say the Scooby-Doo video D was watching w/her was "too scary and very inappropriate for her to be watching." She made it clear that "she would never let D watch this" while I obviously had. I told her I watched it w/D and she loves it and isn't scared by it.
Anyway, I'm supposedly a bad father because I allowed my D to watch Scooby-Doo when she is only 5 1/2. So, I'll most likely be losing sleep tonight b/c my XW thinks poorly of me.
So, that's been my night, but at least it had a high-point as I got to talk to my baby and hear her say "I love you, Daddy."
That's all I ever need to make everything be wonderful!
I hope you are sleeping right now and n ot having nightmares after watching Scooby-Doo with G... That stuff is really scary you know?
*Sigh* I dont know what to say anymore. Embrace yourself Rob. She seems to have so much bitterness inside still, it will take time. Actually I think she will need to find another "bad guy" to blame before she can stop blaming you... K
PS Boy, you were LUCKY!!!!
PS Can you imagine when G will get to sleep over with you and your new wife and second child? She (xw) will be wearing those white robes with straps on the back? You know...?
Rob, XW tells you not to control her when you ask that she not speak badly of your sister, and practically in the next breath she tries to control what you watch with D. Scooby Doo, is inappropriate????? Believe me, if a 5 year old is afraid of a movie , she will tell you to take it off. You really need to tune out your XW. Deal with business matters and nothing else. Just accept she is incapable of being civil, she must always get the jabs in. Guess she does not want you to forget you forced her to get a divorce and now you have the nerve to want to do what was legally agreed upon!
bizarre - you point out her hypocracy. The real question is who exactly is the one w/the issue w/control in this relationship? I'd have to say it is XW.
She doesn't realize that when she's pointing her finger at me, there are three others pointing back at her.
Jeff - ZOINKS! I guess Scooby-Doo really did scare her! As for allowing my D to watch Scooby's video, all I can say is "I would have gotten away w/it if it hadn't been for you meddling kids."
So, I'm going to reply to XW's rant about pensions as follows:
Quote:
XW -
It saddens me to think you feel I would put anything above the interests of our D. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact of the matter here is this is business and not personal. It has nothing to do w/D, so let's please leave her out of it as she is the innocent victim of our divorce.
Dividing the pensions is what we legally agreed upon in court in front of the judge, so that is what will will do. Again, we both are accountable for the choices we've made and this is the last hurdle we need to clear.
I will keep you alerted as to when I've started the process w/ (pension attorney). Hopefully, I'll start my end soon so we both can get this behind us and finalize our divorce.
Rob, Good job,just try to make her focus on the facts. The more you set boundaries with her the better. She will eventually find out that the emotional blackmail she used on you no longer works.
