The journey begins

[ClingingToHope]

As soon as I typed it this morning I thought it sounded weak. She knows I want to reconcile. I'm not kidding myself, if she gives me any indication that I may be successful I'll probably leap in. But I won't try to steer the conversation.

Even in the good mediation session where I mostly listened I made it clear that I'd like to work on the M. The mediator was asking about holidays and STBXW said the only one she really cares about is Christmas and she'd like to be able to do that together as a family.

The mediator asked me what I thought.

"That's tough for me to commit to because I don't know where I'll be in six months. Part of me feels like she wants to be a family when it's convenient to her. But who knows, in three months the right Mrs. CTH may walk through the door and my feelings could change. It's hard right now because I feel like the right Mrs. CTH is sitting on this couch."

I filed our taxes today. We didn't have the money we owed so we'll have to pay it off in three more installments. I paid $400 today with just $125 coming from STBXW.

I honestly don't know how she's going to get through the summer. We have several summer camps to pay for. The house is very hard to keep cool in the summer so the air-conditioning bill quadruples. And she was waiting yesterday to hear if a loan went through. It couldn't be a refinance because I'd have to sign off on that.

Me? I'll be fine. I may work myself to death this summer. But if I stay on budget and restrict myself to one big fun thing a week for my three weeks off with the girls I'll come out OK. I have to be. If the D goes through and she hasn't been hiding some sugar daddy then the girls' standard of living is going to go down significantly.

Even another reason I was sad yesterday. I kept thinking of something D11 said on Tuesday. I was driving them to the house after school and she was telling me about a birthday party she was going to. It's at a rented hall with a DJ and catered food.

D11 said the kid was rich, that's why it was going to be so big. She looked at me and said, "I can't do that because I'm poor."

I didn't say anything. She shouldn't be poor. She has two parents that together make enough to be upper middle class. It reminded me so much of my childhood. My dad was a plant manager. We lived in a big house, with the newest car and had season baseball tickets.

When the marriage crumbled we moved back in with my grandmother. I was lucky because it was a big house and we had a really cool pool so it was way better than it could have turned out. When my grandmother died while I was in college, we really fell on hard times.

That really made me appreciate money.