She must be seeing a lawyer...what now?

[Awoken]

Well, my concerns about weather to push the divorce or not were wasted energy I think.

My lawyer contacted me today. She finally heard back from W's lawyer, who requested that we schedule meetings with a mediator as soon as possible. This is a surprise, because W's L had originally asked for us to meet without a mediator. My lawyer asked why W's lawyer had taken so long to respond to her phone calls (it's been over two weeks), and he said he had just been very busy.

My Lawyer suggested that I talk to my wife and see if it was possible for us to meet without the mediator, to save money. I thought it over, conferred with some friends, and then decided to talk with W tonight. We just finished talking. phew.

Initially, W was very hostile, saying "what in the world would we have to talk about!". It turns out she was very angry that we had filed a counter claim, and I hadn't talked it over with her first. I explained how unhappy I was that she was asking for full custody, and I thought that the counterclaim was just standard practice. She wasn't served, and we simply contacted her L. After 5-10 minutes of pretty tense venting by her, covering most of her complaints, with me simply validating, she finally calmed down and asked me to sit down.

We both agreed that 50/50 physical custody would be best for the kids. We agreed the neither of us would likely be able to keep the house. We only seemed to have two points we disagreed upon so far: she wants considerable spousal support, and she seems to want me to keep the pets. The pet thing is a real surprise to me, as they have always been basically her pets. It's almost like she wants to divorce them too (2 cats, 2 dogs). The other sad thing, is that she seems intent on moving to Seattle as soon as S13 graduates high school in four years.

She then got into some serious R talk, basically covering much of my past wrongs, and expressing a lot of resentment at my turnaround over the past four months. She said she is especially mad that I would make a decision like moving back into the master bedroom on my own. I simply said that I thought it was a much less consequential decision to make on my own than her seeking divorce and the destruction of our family. We covered a lot of ground. Basically, I ended the R talk by restating that while I didn't want a divorce, I did not want to be married to a woman that did not want me.

She then broached the subject of accusing me of turning the kids against her. I simply pointed out that I had done what I could to support her relationship with the kids, because it was in their best interest, BUT it had been very difficult because she had been drunk in front of them, had been verbally abusive to them, and screamed at them several times that she didn't want to be a mother any more.

Her silence to this gave me the chance to bring up my specific concerns about her drinking. I don't know if it was wise or not, but I told I had been going to al-anon, not for her but for myself. Again, she seemed to blame her drinking on me, and was frustrated that I had not gone to al-anon many years sooner. sigh. She says she is getting much better, and has the support of her family. I told her I knew she was still drinking, and that the kids had confronted her on valentines day weekend. She admitted it. But the conversation went no farther. I have no say in what she does anyway. If she continues to drink, she will end up loosing custody.

We ended the conversation with an agreement to get the divorce done as soon as we could. The reality of it all is crushing. I told her my biggest regret was how it was affecting our kids, and she said they would be just fine. She knows a lot of divorced people with kids who are wonderful. sigh, she doesn't get it.