You are doing great. Child support may well be non-optional. If she can "provide" for your daughter, then she can give you child support. Sounds like she'd prefer to choose how that support money is spent. Too bad.
Your best strategy may be to try to do an uncontested divorce with you and W doing it yourselves. You can always consult with your L on the side, it is none of W's business and you don't even have to let her know about it. Anyway, if I were you, I'd try to strike while W is being somewhat agreeable. Time is probably not your friend here. W will probably start rejecting more and more of your proposal as time goes on.
I would present her, on your own (after an atty looks at it to advise you as to its legality), with an uncontested offer that includes EVERYTHING YOU WANT, or near-everything. A "sweetheart deal" for you and your daughter.
If she agrees to it -- great; you just saved five digits in atty's fees, that could be better spent on you and your daughter. If she doesn't, then you retain your lawyer and go the "contested" route.
I thought it was funny that this convo:
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Not more than an hour later, she called and after talking with my daughter asked to speak with me. She told me "you win". I asked her how I won anything. She replied, that she had spoken w/ our daughter and that she would agree to the visitation arrangements that I proposed. She was crying when she did so. She went on further to say that she didn't want to pay child support but that she would provide for our daughter? I asked her why she thought she didn't have to pay CS? She broke down this time and said that she couldn't afford to pay the amount that she was paying before as she would not be able to afford her bills if she paid that much.
WOW. I didn't know what to say. I told her I would speak with my lawyer concerning the matter. She said, you still intend to go through a lawyer? I said, of course, why? She said, if you go through a lawyer, then I will too. I replied, ok, that's your right. She then went on to indicate that if I pursued our divorce through a lawyer then she would seek custody of our daughter? We went round and round for a few and then she finally said she wouldn't seek custody but didn't want to get screwed in the divorce. Ok, I told her I'd be in touch and hung up.
was really, if you look at it, JUST like all of the "girl on FB" convos, only with the subjects changed. It's just all about CONTROL.
The thing that may or may not be important to AFWAW is where will the D crisis leads her. There is always the chance that she'll reach her breaking point and seek help. I'm not convinced her wish to reconcile was insincere. She could also have been sincere and merely chickened out when it came to seeing a C. She may be too terrified at confronting herself to make the appointment. Or, she may have been trying to coldly calculate how to best get what she wants. However, it is unclear what she has to gain by getting H to alter his FB page and date her when she is really shooting for D all along. Doesn't make sense.
I thought it was funny that this convo:was really, if you look at it, JUST like all of the "girl on FB" convos, only with the subjects changed.
I didn't realize this until you pointed it out but you're correct it is pretty much the same.
It's just all about CONTROL.
Agreed and after she saw that I would not take her back unless she met her end of the bargain she realized that she couldn't and wouldn't take the steps to try to make this so we could move on together.
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I seriously think she's not well.
I'm afraid this is true and am concerned for her because I still love her. I have tried to get her to enter into counseling so many times over this past year but she is fearful that it will somehow impact her career even though she is already taking antidepressants and that is not impacting it.
Even more painful to me is watching my daughter have to deal with this. I'm blessed with a daughter that is very mature for her age.
M-41 ex-W-40 Together--17 years SS-20 D-14 Bomb--2 Feb 09 WAW--6 Feb 09 Officially divorced on 2 Jun 2010!!! ex-W has a boyfriend 8 Jun 2010!!! Off we go into the wild blue yonder!!!!
It goes ok. Really cold here today, so cold that the power went off at my daughter's school today. My daughter tried to get ahold of me but couldn't so she called the wife and wife called me and told me she was picking up my daughter and taking her to her apartment for the day.
So, after work I went to pick up daughter and the extent of the conversation from my wife was if the power goes out at your house, you are welcome to come and stay here for the night. I said, thank you but did not pursue or say anything else. Judging from her demeanor it appears almost as if she is beaten and does not want to go on? I don't know, I'm probably reading into it. My take on it is that she knows it would be a lot of work to regain my trust if I was to let her come back and I'm not just going to roll over and take it from her anymore. She knows this and would rather have it her way(I call this the Burger King attitude).
You know, she wants to come home, take charge of my paycheck again, dictate when and where we go on vacation, bitch at me when I want to do something, and so on.
I didn't get the chance to go see my lawyer today but will have the chance on Wednesday or Thursday depending on my work.
At this point, I don't see any other option but to go ahead and file for divorce. Unless something strange happens where my wife tells me everything and agrees to go to counseling, I think that is the right thing to do for me and my daughter. But, I don't think that's going to happen.
Meanwhile, back to being happy, confident and busy as Gucci has pointed out to me before, women like these traits in a man and I don't intend to live my life alone.
M-41 ex-W-40 Together--17 years SS-20 D-14 Bomb--2 Feb 09 WAW--6 Feb 09 Officially divorced on 2 Jun 2010!!! ex-W has a boyfriend 8 Jun 2010!!! Off we go into the wild blue yonder!!!!
Sooooo, the wife emailed me today and simply said, John, there's an assignment that got announced today for an E8. The old me would have shot back an email very quickly saying something to the effect of I'm not an E8, I'm an E7(although I'm up for promotion), you told me you wanted a divorce, you don't want to work on our marriage, I don't want to hear from you unless it's in regard to our daughter or the details of the divorce, but I did not.
Instead, I looked up the advertisement and laughed when I saw that it was for the same base I'm already at! Funny, she's still being selfish and controlling. Selfish in that she wants me to stay close to where she is so that she can see my daughter and controlling in that she is trying to get me to stay here. So, I didn't respond at all.
Last edited by AFWAW; 01/13/1012:44 AM.
M-41 ex-W-40 Together--17 years SS-20 D-14 Bomb--2 Feb 09 WAW--6 Feb 09 Officially divorced on 2 Jun 2010!!! ex-W has a boyfriend 8 Jun 2010!!! Off we go into the wild blue yonder!!!!
You know, she wants to come home, take charge of my paycheck again, dictate when and where we go on vacation, bitch at me when I want to do something, and so on.
is not this?
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back to being happy, confident and busy as Gucci has pointed out to me before, women like these traits in a man
You need to lead in the relationship.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
It's just all about CONTROL.