Unless of course you take the big bucks job in far enough away place that the kids would either have to move with you (didn't hear that mentioned)
Afghanistan's not exactly child-friendly. And the school district stinks.
'blah blah blah.. mommy says it's none of your business, dad.'
I think you miss the point there. I pick them up, "So how was your weekend?" and Girl Child instantly goes to the "we have to hide something" mode. That strikes me as unhealthy. I could pick them up in silence, I suppose.
mommy is kind of in love with a guy...' Well geez.. waxing poetic for the kiddies. Still none of your business. In a perfect world mom wouldn't share that type of information with the kids.
At what point does it become "my business," @Gypsy? If she f*cks him in the living room during Barney -- is THAT my business?
Then again, what do the kids know of your special interest?
Her name, what she looks like, the fact that she lives in European City, the fact that I'm going there on Thursday.... But nothing "male-female."
What in the heck are both of you doing going gaga over other folks in the midst of a divorce..I'm finding me again
Me? I'm not gaga. But I've got more of the right stuff in four meetings over the past 3 months than I did in the last 5 years of marriage combined. No self-finding involved. Of course, no self-abuse either, so....
What type of security...threatening to move
Not "threatening." Man offers you 1-1/2 large to do a job you know you can do, for something you believe in -- that's not about threatening. If, as is the case, the money is All Important to WAW -- indeed, was the focal point of pre-D-bomb discussions with her posse and the subject of her first post-D-bomb e-mail -- then I can't very well NOT engage the offer, can I? Particularly when the Vocational Counselor her attorney is demanding "assess" my "possibilities" will surely find out about it.
Consider dropping the fancy wrapping, the honeyed tone, the twist of the knife, the twinkle of wit.. and process what's going on.
Not much to process, really. Gal walks up to a fella coming out of the Chamber of Solitude and says after 18 years of marriage, "I'm getting a divorce." She's spreading her legs for someone else; buying a house; declaring her happiness is the Ne Plus Ultra, beyond that of the children and certainly beyond that of Spouse Himself; oh and by the way I expect you to go your way with my thanks and some lovely parting gifts but put that alimony idea out of your head.
And that's just the first day. Six weeks later the paperwork is available to the public on the court's website, and it's off to the races.
So without tone, wit, and knife, what do I have? Ten pounds of nothing in a 5-pound bag.
But I did have to reach out to her this evening. Themselves are doing much worse with the onset of the holidays, and something's bound to break. I told her that my POV is we have to find some way of ratcheting down the aggregate level of tension at least until the paperwork is final, particularly since we're entering the money phase of discovery and that's going to ratchet up the tension by an order of magnitude.
At a minimum (I said) we should consult with someone -- and I'm indifferent between life coach, psychologist, family therapist, priest, bartender -- on skills for sublimating and masking and hiding our mutual loathing. They need a facade of amity.
I can see them losing their poker faces. The empty chair at the table was really empty, especially for The Boy. She didn't call until late on Thanksgiving -- managing time zone differences was always hard for her -- and The Boy was by the time of call getting very spun up: Where is she? Is she having turkey? What if there's no cranberries?
If we'd been childless, at this point it wouldn't make much difference if she lived or died -- at the end of the day it would all be Mox Nix to me, but there's no pony waiting under the Christmas tree this year, and Themselves certainly need her, which means I'm going to have to cope with the fact of her.
