The journey begins

[ImprovedRomeo]

Dang G! I busted up laughing when I read that you gave your X a list of categories she can call you about!!! LOL

You guys...some day I hope to be where you are!

CTH, as long as you're with an attrative female is all that matters! if you're on TV hope your STBXW sees you with her

[Gardener]

SR,

Dang G! I busted up laughing when I read that you gave your X a list of categories she can call you about!!! LOL

She had ticked me off by trying to legally screw with my plan to rent out one Master Bedroom to help with dire financial sitch. I basically suggested an impossible biological act to her and L and ended my (last) email with:

I respectfully request that you do not contact me at all unless it pertains to any of the following:

1) Our 2009 tax return.
2) The house sale.
3) Any stipulation in our Divorce agreement.
4) Your obtaining access to the house for your possessions or
5) Matters of life and death.

Gardener

[ClingingToHope]

CTH, as long as you're with an attrative female is all that matters! if you're on TV hope your STBXW sees you with her.

Well, D11 is on Facebook so anything I post is visible from her page and STBXW may see it. My Chicago friend is an extremely pretty woman.

I took the train in to Chicago and was able to get a lot more reading done in Susan Anderson's "A Journey from Abandonment to Healing."

Wow. It explains a lot of the things I've been going through and at least today I'm feeling much better. I've idealized STBXW and I've idealized the M. Really, in a lot of ways STBXW was a lousy wife, especially the last three years we were together.

ANYONE who is an LBS just must get this book. I'll start posting parts of it that were especially helpful. There are some parts that I'm not sure I'll adopt -- talking to my inner child as if he were a person seems strange. But there's a lot of stuff just seeing down on paper helped.

[ImprovedRomeo]

I could totally relate to the emotions mentioned in that book but it hasn't been helping me move forward and put all this behind me. I gave up after the inner/outer child stuff started.

I too have idealized my W and M to how I prefer to to see it. Even knowing that when I thought of the faults of W I kinda pointed at myself for even her faults like maybe I did something and what she did wrong was simply a reaction to what I probably did.

I'm really glad you're getting something out of the book!! Maybe if you post your interpretation of it and how it relates to your situation I may start to understand and accept it better.

I think I need to find a IC - among the million other things I have to do - sigh!

[ClingingToHope]

SR, go back to it. The next section on internalizing is really good.

I have a counselor through a program at work. She's a nice lady, but I just sit there and talk and talk. I'm not sure she's helped me other than just lending a sympathetic ear.

[ClingingToHope]

Well the Financial Titanic that ClingingToHope's family has become took another blow. The IRS audited our 2008 return and we owe an additional $4,600.

I won't argue. We screwed up the return.

In a way, I'm glad it was caught now and not two or three years from now when the D was done and I was free of her.

But as STBXW talked about it, she let slip that she's preparing to gut her 401(k) again to pay off a bunch of bills.

She borrowed $13K from her mom to pay off her 401(k) loan and she was going to borrow $20K to:

1) pay her mom back

2) pay her legal bills

3) pay off a window loan that should have been paid by now

4) then pay me some of the credit card debt she owes.

I'm not sure she realizes -- or maybe she realizes perfectly -- that by doing it, she's cutting into her retirement total, which means I won't be entitled to as much.

I had this discussion with my attorney a couple of months ago. I wanted to close my $10K IRA to pay off a credit card because that second card was consistently putting me in the red for the month.

He told me not to because the court wouldn't look kindly on it.

Well, now STBXW is preparing to do that PLUS I don't have $2,300 sitting around to pay my share of the taxes.

That, plus, STBXW is preparing to repaint the entire interior of the house. We are $13K underwater on the house. The only way we'll get out of it somewhat intact is to do a short sale. There's no way some new paint is going to raise the value of the house. I know she had to charge the paint, which is only putting everyone in a deeper hole.

I'd really be freaking if I hadn't gone to Financial Peace University and put myself on a strict budget. The only thing that has separated STBXW from financial ruin for 13 years has been me -- and now I'm not there and the ship is sinking fast.

The key for me is to finish this D as fast as possible so I can somehow save the girls' future.

[BobbiJo]

Financial Peace U. is fabulous! Love me some Dave Ramsey. Even the sound of his voice is calming to me! I used one of his quotes today, "We spend money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like"...that is my ex to a t!

So can your lawyer file anything to stop her from liquidating her 401(k)?? I know when I filed my L planned to file some sort of paperwork prohibiting major financial purchases or sales until the D was final...if not can they base your portion of the 401K based on the date of the filing, not the date of the finalization? Hope that makes sense...

My ex did the same, he took out $10K to put down on his house last year, but it was before I filed so I didn't stop him and don't get any of that back...

Grr........consequences stink! But they should be stinking for her more than you...

[ClingingToHope]

Thanks Bobbi Jo. We have a divorce settlement conference Friday so we'll see how that goes.

Sorry you had such a tough night.

The money thing was strange tonight. I should be freaking worse than I am. Funny, right before bed D7 was saying she feels poor.

I told her she shouldn't feel that way. She has a nice house with STBXW and we have a nice apartment.

She said it's "still an apartment and it's small."

It's a townhouse and it's three levels ... and ... I know what she's going through. Growing up we went from being the rich family on the street to living with our grandmother in a nice house, but still having money issues.

I'm having trouble figuring D7 out. D11 is like me. She carries her heart on her sleeve. I know she's struggling.

[awest1217]

The thing is that you really are going to have to change the girl's mindset. You are not poor by any means, but they have been somewhat spoiled through most of their lives. The girls can live a perfectly pleasant life without doing all the things they are accustomed to doing. The key is to make the mundane fun.

I lived a life with 5 kids and we never went to summer camps or anything else. Now my mom stayed at home, but we always were outside. We only got to go out to eat once a month, otherwise we were at home. My SIL lived a poor life (no food in the house most days because her mom or dad depending on who was living with the girls drank all the money), but she remembers her childhood fondly. She was home alone a lot with her sister, but they played outside and did a lot of stuff for no money.

I am just saying all of this because you really do need to help the girls realize that yes you may have less money, but you are by no means poor. Also they need to realize now that happiness does not rely on money. They need to learn to have fun doing simple things that don't cost money but give bring you good memories.

[ClingingToHope]

Yes. They'll have to adjust. I'll do my best to keep up my end of the bargain. You see, when I grew up my mom was a stay at home mom so when school ended I was free!!!!!!!! Baseball, swimming, riding bikes. Summers were awesome.

STBXW's mom didn't work either and they spent the summer swimming at the campground.

Well, both STBXW and I have to work so I've always tried to pack in as much fun for them as possible.

That was a point of contention with STBXW. She thought a couple of summer camps, mostly daycare and weekends at the campground were enough.

She didn't even like taking weeks off in the summer.

Me. I save my vacation for the summer so the girls at least have a few weeks of freedom.

Luckily, they are old enough that they can just go out and have fun with the neighbor kids. Now that they both can swim, we'll spend more time at the public pools.

But here's the deal. It'll never be the same.

I had a very good childhood. In some ways my life improved after the D -- especially in terms of moving into a house with a pool, which kind of made me the center of attention.

Still, my sister and I agree that we had two childhoods -- one before and one after the D and there's a lot of sadness there that we both buried.