I just read AlexEn's sitch on dropping the D bomb on the kids at the beginning of August. Some great posts there. As is said so often, there are so many similarities.
I will be going through this part of the "process" in about a week or so. I don't expect s9 to react violently but he will be plenty pissed.
My W of course has all the books about coping too and is wanting to create handwritten books for s6 and s9, which sounds like more of the morally relativistic nonsense about how families don't end but relationships do. She'll want to develop a script.
We have a counseling session with a child psychologist next week and my W wants to tell the kids the same day. She now agrees that the children need time to process the situation, i.e. don't wait until the day before she is moving out.
I want to take the Coach approach and say nothing during the speech. I want her to own it because it's her choice, but don't want to seem vindictive or provide ammunition for my boys to build resentment toward W (though they already have), which is why I think saying nothing is probably best.
I don't think anything should be said about her spending or EA post bomb, but I'm not sure how to handle ambiguous explanations that skirt the truth. I believe my W will want to make this seem as innocuous and mutual as possible, i.e. "we've decided to end our marriage," but I worry about the "because" part of the statement. I'm wondering how to handle this aspect - the bullchit factor as PDT might say.
My W wanted to speak with me late Saturday night about custody schedules, property division, vacations, etc. I asked her what her intentions were in regard to living arrangements and working. She confirmed she is looking for another house to buy and has no plans to begin working full time for at least 6-8 months so she can finish course work in mediation(LOL) certification. W indicates her first priority is to be a Mom to our children and therefore will not work a regular job at least for a few years. I just sort of nodded and didn't get too agitated.
Her proposed custody schedule is more reasonable, but I let her know (again) that I will not accept less than 50% physcial custody and she starts saying she is offering more than I would get, asking if I know the law and hopes I am listening to my L - as if I am ignoring L's advice. She finally packs up her marbles and says we can fight it out in court along with everything else.
Funny, she was a little nicer the next morning.
Cabbr.
You can inform her that the law is going to decide in the best interests of the children, not in HER best interests. It isn't the 1970's anymore, if a man has shown that he's a good father, a good role model and willingly wants to take shared custody of his children, ie. 50%, he will get it - he just has to make he makes his intentions clear. It is no longer assumed that the mother is the best parent for children: there are too many child & family welfare studies that show the opposite.
Tell her that what she is offering is her futile attempt to control you and the outcome of what's going to happen. Just because she's taking law courses doesn't make her a judge, she doesn't know what the final decision will be and if she's half the legal beagle she's trying to make herself out to be, you tell her that any decision can be appealed several times and you won't stop fighting until you get treated equally & fairly which means 50% child custody. If she expects for you to just shrivel up and fall down and just take what's handed to you, she is mistaken.
If she really had the children's best interests in mind, remind her of this, she wouldn't even attempt to take the children away from you, she would agree to 50% child custody because she knows you're a good parent and she knows the children are in good hands when they're with you. Since she doesn't feel this way, she isn't operating out of basis for what's best for the children, she's operating out of what's best for her: she knows this, you see this, and the courts will see this and they will respond accordingly.
If she doesn't agree, then I guess you can tell her that she's going to have come up with quite a few really good reasons why you having 50% custody of the children is bad for them? The woman/man - mother/father stereotype isn't going to fly anymore - it didn't in my situation.
I was able to establish a pattern of behavior on my wife's part where her concern was for her best interests and not of the children's. Wreckless spending, not spending time with the children, only being with the children when it was convenient, taking odd jobs here & there, quitting jobs whenever she felt, not working because she didn't want to work full time (it's 2009, anyone & everyone should work unless your filthy rich), focusing more on her personal life and less on her children, severe mood changes, different personality, not being able to provide a secure & stable environment for the children, having to rely on me for everything, etc. The list went on & on.
You can tell her that you've been watching her and your list is long and she knows her past behavior has been wreckless and although past behavior isn't indicative of future performance, if you can list a considerable amount of questionable activity, you can raise quite a bit of doubt as to her capacity to be the sole primary custodial parent.
Cabbr, she still sounds like she enjoys some power in this situation with you, time to take her down a few notches, wake her up a bit, she won't be living in utopia when the divorce goes through, she'll have to put on her "big girl panties" and she might find they're a little uncomfortable since she hasn't worn them in a bit. ;-)
