WAW - Very confused and devestated - pt 5

[confusedinpa]

Imagine you are her. You want to leave your M, what are you thinking and what would you do? Have you thought about what you want out of a custody? I am still pushing for the physical separation outside the home to let her see what it feels like. If you decide to do that, you need to tell her to leave the home because if she wants to give it up, she can go. A little bit of tough love I think is in order.

I can see from her point of view it's getting to where she's getting ready to move on to the next phase of mentally moving away from you. Go two steps ahead of her and make her feel it.

She's going to be surprised, shocked and angry, but hey, it's what she wants right? You're just giving it to her but on YOUR timetable and not hers. Sometimes they need something like that to shake them up.

I know that you are right with regards to the separation. The problem I have is what I feel is the best for the kids would be for me to move out so they would at least have the stability of the house - she would never go for not have at least 50% custody. I will, for the best of the kids, tell her that she can have primary physical custody - they stay with her the majority of the time.

I would want to be able to visit up to 3 nites a week, have the kids for up to 3 weekends/month and go out as a family 1 nite per week. I would want to be able to have them for 2 weeks/year for vacation. I also would want to have them on Father's day and on my B'day. I would want to be able to visit on their B'day's and if there is a B'day party that is not on their B'day. I would want them for Thanksgiving and share X-mas day as a family. I would also want to be notified of all extra-curicular activities (i.e. soccer, baseball) that they are or could participate in so I can decide to have them sign up as well as see them in the games.

Essentially, that would give me an opportunity to see them almost 5 days/week on average without having them move back and forth between houses. In my mind, it would be a burden/additional stress on the kids to move back and forth. Also, my job schedule doesn't allow me to drop off/pick up both kids. I'm not sure if she will fight me on these as she keeps saying even though she wants a divorce, she wants me to be heavily involved in the kids life. I would actually be ok with just seeing them 3 or 4 days/week, but in a negotiations, you have to start somewhere there are things to give up.

I know me moving out won't be as big of a shock to her as if she moved out, but I don't want my kids to go through that type of shock. I'm also tempted to go visit an out of town friend this weekend just to give us a break from each other - what do you think of that idea? I could actually take the kids with me if necessary as my buddy is married with 3 kids as well, but their kids are older than my kids so I don't think it will be that much fun for them. So if I don't take them, it will also take me away from my kids, but they have experienced that whenever I travel on business (I go overseas about 1 week out of every 10 - I'm delaying a trip this time because of my situation).

That's another reason why I'm not as gun ho on a separation, as we have had time apart and when she dropped the bomb on me, she said the last week I had traveled was like a vacation for her.

Oh well, I know I'm going to have to make a tough decision very soon. I do have my therapy appointment tomorrow and I'm going out with my buddies tomorrow nite so that should be a good break from it all.