Cake eating WAW in MLC and EA part 2

[CABBR]

Puppy, Greek, Robx, SO, IWITW,

We had the first mediation session regarding custody yesterday.

My W stated her goals of maintaining stability for the kids and minimal transitions during the week.

Initially, she proposed S-W with her and Th-F-S with me. I said this is not a 50% split and I don't have a weekend night free. (She thought since "I don't do anything" that I wouldn't mind. Ugh.)

I proposed the M-T and Th-F split and every other weekend with weekends starting on Friday morning, which basically means 5 days on 5 days off. My W didn't want to not be able to see the kids for 5 days in a row (which wouldn't need to be the case) and thought it lacked continuity for the school week. (She views her heavy involvement with the school as directly bearing on child care.)

My W then proposed that I could take the kids on Sunday and leave my Saturday open - and she would throw in the house. (OK, Monty) This would be a 4/3 split but with 4 transitions.

Mind you the house is a complicated issue. She wants to buy a "smaller" house in the part of town serviced by the school and they just don't come up every day.

Another house would also cost at least 300k. We would net something like 150k from the sale of our condo, which would then leave a 150k mortgage on the new house. This also presumes that all of the equity from the condo would be rolled into the purchase of a new house. Now this could be reconciled eventually by the sale of our house in Florida, which might yield around 250k in equity. There is also a sizeable mortage on the primary home, which should be applied equally too.

The other issue is logistics. The current condo lease is up at the end of this year and the lease on the house in Florida is up in May 2010.

Realistically, the condo will not be sold until at least January 2010 and the FL house much later.

So.. and this is really not my problem... my wife will not have any where to go for a good 6-7 months at least. This is assuming I can afford the cost of two separate houses and if I can't it will be much longer. Lately, she's really complaining about being in the basement - the resentment is consuming her. Of course, she parked herself there.

On custody, I am still pretty much camped at 50%, but it may mean an expensive court battle, in which some or all of this equity will be consumed. So I've got to get some counsel on this but I think my lawyer is on vacation.

At one point my W had stated that she really hadn't made up her mind regarding the D until july 1 when the exposure bomb detonated. I pointed out that prior to July 1 she was knee deep in an EA, talking about dating while living under the same roof, and that she told me before the EA bomb that she had pretty much decided on D. Plus her approach to MC was just exit strategy. So no thank you. That little fairy tale may be something you tell your friends and family but I'm not going to let it pass in this venue. Not much to say.

Cabbr