@hoosiermama: No prob. These things get all out of order sometimes. I agree on post-maternal womanhood. Yet I remain intrigued by the fact that the posts on Sacking Up and Leading and Deida-ing and whatnot come fast 'n' furious, but so far only @BobbiJo and you have been willing to offer up a def of a "real" woman -- though how BobbiJo ever gets out of that water tower long enough to post such reflective things is beyond me.....
(BTW, @Smiley's Person's family have been known to frequent a certain brickyard which isn't far from their home.)
@Gypsy: Oh, you smart woman, you. You're reading my mind. You got you a Mojo hand or something I guess.
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Ask for a detailed or general outline of what was to be covered (so you can be prepared)?
Done
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Would you prefer face to face or voice?
Neither to be honest, but I'm opting for voice. Lets me be on speaker while pacing and squeezing the bejayzus out of that squeezy-stress-squeezer-thing I got at the office supply store.
Among other things -- and doesn't this get at just how LAME I can be? -- if we were face-to-face I'd get all distracted by her physical charms and wind up all discombobulated 'n' sheet. I mean, during the Batsh*t-Crazy-a-Thon, the night before she moved out, there she is raging at me to beat the band, and I'm just lying still in bed, looking at her, hoping desperately that a certain, ahem, "hydraulic" response would go away....
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What is YOUR objective in this dialog?
Intelligence-gathering (natch). THE main impasse right now isn't the money question per se, it's who makes the first offer on the money. As you know, she's been demanding I "name a number" for months now. Until quite recently I was unwilling to do it because I didn't have a read on how much alimony I'd need.
Now I'm not doing so out of strategic considerations. I could go way off on a tangent here -- would love to, in fact, but I suspect only @Thinker, @AlexEN, and @Coach and I would truly be amused by the convo -- about the strategy of first offers and the information that is revealed by them and whatnot, so let me just say that, if you NEED to negotiate with someone and are not trained in negotiation in one way or another (professional experience, b-school, game theory, conflict resolution), then an excellent place to start is a book by two game theorists, Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff called Thinking Strategically. This is a non-mathematical introduction to the strategy of bargaining and offering.
Let's just say that there is a competitive advantage in responding to first offers, rather than making them, as the first offer reveals a lot of intelligence about the adversary's reservation price, etc.
A familiar example is eBay; when a seller lists a "Buy It Now" price, they're revealing their reservation price; when that price isn't listed, and you see "Reserve Not Met," the seller has a defined, minimally acceptable (to her/him) price but ISN'T revealing it in the hopes that you bid way over.
So if your WAS demands YOU name your price, s/he is hoping that you underbid, particularly on the basis of incomplete information.
One reason why lawyers are so damnably necessary.
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you can hand over all the control, let it be her dog and pony show and watch, listen and learn.
