Opposing Counsel LawyerLady dispatched a couple letters to me this week, but she's doing it in a rather clever, ha!-diss'd-ya sort of way: her past practice was always to send correspondence to my former lawyer via fax and e-mail. To me, as if to say "you don't rate immediate attention," she sends everything by snail mail.

Whatever.

This week, LawyerLady sent a long letter basically informing me that she's going unilaterally halve the amount of child support STBX pays because STBX needs extra money for babysitting.

For the past 3 days, I've been working and reworking my reply -- must be very careful, thinks I -- but I did send an interim reply on one topic, communication, because she asked for an "immediate response."

LawyerLady wrote that STBX can't "tolerate" interruptions of her working day with e-mail or text messages from me -- I guess it's just too hard on the old girl to be reminded of my existence or something.

So LawyerLady "suggested" -- with a threat of judicial intervention -- that STBX and I confine all communications to this online product, OurFamilyWizard, which is visible to the Court and to counsel.

And to "sweeten" the deal, she said she would pay the one-year subscription of $99. Initially, I found that very insulting. She writes all kinds of stuff like that, basically creating the image of me just sort of lounging-around while STBX "spends all of her savings." She's really fond, for example, of writing that STBX needs to pay for a lot of babysitters "in order to do her job." As if I could help her out, or something, right? Like I don't have a job.

But after another nastygram from STBX I figured, "Why not?"

But (being SP Himself) I enrolled for 2 years rather than the 1 LawyerLady suggested. Why? Let's face it -- it's been almost 500 days since STBX dropped the bomb and she's still angry and lashing out, and we haven't even got to actual negotiations over the property distribution, so why assume another year would make that much difference?

[Plus, and this is admittedly my childish self at work, I know that, for whatever reason (and honestly I Just.Don't.Get.It.), it really bugs STBX that I won't engage with her "personally" (i.e., face-to-face, on the phone], so to say we'll keep the "impersonal" up for another 2 years must really irritate her. (Honestly, though, why would I would engage with her on a personal level, when there'd be no record of what she says?)]

And I notified STBX's attorney, as she requested, and provided her with the form she needs to get access (the thing about the system is that you give your lawyers and the Court permission to view all your communications) -- and whaddaya think happened?

Instant E-mail from STBX: Whoa! What's the big rush? Can't I have some time to think about this? Is it necessary to spend the money?

laugh LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Be careful what you wish for, eh?

Because now there's an audience for everything. No more he-said/she-said; no more forwarding only bits and pieces of my e-mail to her lawyer, carefully reconstructed to make a point (which I discovered she'd been doing after I got a copy of the correspondence file between my former lawyer and hers); no more selective rewriting of history. It's all going to be down there, black-and-white-and-read-all-over.

It can also offer some tangible litigation benefits. One of STBX's litigation strategies has been to claim I am "inflexible." Now this coming week -- when (a) I had a two-day trip scheduled for a possible job interview and (b) I was intending to visit Coastal State Border City -- STBX is being sent to Other Coast Coastal City for business and asked if I would take her custody days -- "but no problem if you can't," she wrote, "because Babysitter can do overnights."

Ya. Right.

So I canceled my interview trip (it wasn't a very strong lead, and I wasn't all that interested in the gig in the first place (not least because it was in Former Confederate State, a place I saw much too much of in the Army)) and (much to my regret) postponed my train ticket for Coastal State Border City.

Now as you DB'ers know, this is the 3rd time I've canceled plans to accommodate STBX.

But now there's a record of it.

So much for the "Inflexibility" meme.

So this online thing turned out to really be one of the better decisions I've made thus far. I was able to delete the e-mail account I used just for STBX from my mobile phone (the online system generates a once-a-day digest of any messages received), and that alone felt like a weight being taken off.

So if you're having trouble with your STBX or X over issues like custody times, kid events, messaging and the like, let this be a recommendation to Check It Out, this online thing. The kids get accounts they can use to have private messages with their parents (not visible to the "other" parent); the parents have to deal openly, since both lawyers (or the Court or all of the above) get to look in on you; and there's no opportunities for My-Cell-Dropped-Your-Call-(Just As You Were Asking Me To Pick The Kids Up Tonight)-style B.S.