I quit drinking completely to avoid costly mistakes for about 7 months, and it sure has helped me to control all aspects of my sitch. If you drink, try to do it with no contact with her or family afterward. It will help. I started that way at first, and I just stopped, and I am glad.
It will "eat you alive," but drinking or other nonconstructive ways will make it worse. You need to be the one taking control and nothing else.
You can do it!
WAW will be disrespectful, so expect it, and try not to analyze it. It does no good. It is better to say okay and not let her have the satisfaction of causing you to react to her.
I did that today, and it was a waste of my time.
It will be awhile to move through each phase of this ordeal. Try to understand you will have different emotions and feelings, and it will empower you to be okay.
Take care and have a great rest of the weekend. You deserve it!
ME-41 W-33 M-8 D-8 S-4 D 5/17/2010 www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1961097#Post1961097
Can you recommend any specific key logging software? I saw KeyLogicPC software for $20 and PC Pandora software for $70. I am a bit paranoid about just picking one and downloading the software to my computer.
You seem to have experience with this stuff. Can you recommend anything?
No. Just voice-activated recorder, under the seat of her car (that I paid for, and was titled in my name), to pick up one side of her cellphone conversations (and both sides of their in-car escapades: blccccch! )
thanks puppy. I did find some telephone recorders online that I may try. W's best friend Debbie, who introduced her to OM calls here ALL the time. Might be interesting to listen in on those conversations. I think I can hide the recorder behind the desk so W won't know it is there. I know the book says not to spy, but I can't help wanting to know what is going on. I hate Debbie. OM's wife know's who Debbie is and knows she introduced them. I told her. Debbie's H worked with OM for a number of years at SuperValu food distribution center. I know Debbie's H and was thinking about confronting the 2 of them about it, but that is probably a BAD idea. Working on a Journal to post and ask for some help.
W has filed for D and our “Temporary Hearing”, where the court decides living arrangements, visitation, who pays what, is on July 13th. How do we handle finances between now and then? We each have our own accounts now, although I am still on hers, so I could clean it out if I wanted to, but I won’t. W only works part time, so I make about 5 times what she does. I got paid on Friday and she said today that she needed $ for groceries and asked if I wanted to get cash to pay the sitter. I said, not really, do you want to pay the sitter? She said, what? Do I have to pay the sitter every week? I said I don’t know, I just paid $8k worth of bills. She said she was broke from taking the kids to movies and buying groceries. Asked me for $ to buy groceries. I said, give me the list. I will do the shopping.
Do I tell her I think we should go halves? That is not what the court will likely say, but she is working part-time and spending all kinds of $ on entertainment. She went out drinking the last two weekends, took the kids and friends to the beach on Friday, which cost $, then took the kids and friends to movies and paid for everyone again. The she complained how expensive it was. Now she is going to take the kids to the beach again tomorrow. She is off ½ day on Thursday and all day on Monday and Friday. Her off says consist of sleeping in, exercising, going to the beach or the movies, laying out, doing housework and cooking for the kids. Most of the time, I don’t even get dinner. She has a pretty tough life. I told her she needs to go back to work full-time, but she said she couldn’t because there are no full-time positions available and she needs to “be there” for the kids. I told her we both need to be there for the kids. My attorney said she should have to get a part-time job if she can’t find a full-time position. I hope the judge agrees. She has a 4-year degree and the same job for 20 years, while I have taken 8 promotions to earn more for our family. She didn’t want to have to deal with the “politics” or the aggravation of having people report to her. Wish I could do that. This is one of the decisions we made together for her, and I never held it against her, until now. Look where it got me. Would you say I am bitter? The court says they assign child support and alimony/maintenance payments based on earning potential. I am going to have my attorney argue that she should not only have a full-time job, but a supervisory position, which earns more, because she has 20 years experience. She doesn’t need maintenance. Take care of yourself!!!! I shouldn’t have to finance her week-end drinking binges, should I?
Anyway, if you guys could let me know how you handled similar situations, I would appreciate it.
I would recommend splitting all of your family's expenses -- including debt (credit card) payments -- proportionally to your income. If you make 85% of the family's joint income, then you pay 85% of the bills, and she pays the other 15%. ANYTHING that she spends frivilously, or in any way on OM, comes on TOP of her 15%.
Which is probably more than she's paying now??
Are you in a position to be able to pick up more of the load child-care wise, even during the day, with your job? If you do have flexibility there, your atty may be able to hire an occupational evaluator, and "impute" a fair full-time income to your wife should the two of you divorce.
I did go thru a similar sitch with my wife. All she kept belly-aching about was her "bill." SINGULAR. ONE credit card bill, the majority of the balance of which was for tummy-tuck surgery. I told her I would only pay ONE-THIRD of that monthly payment, since about 2/3rds of her outstanding balance was for the elective surgery, which she of course used to make herself more attractive to another, younger man. She went BALLISTIC over this, and kept saying how "unfair" it was, because "you make MORE MONEY than I do!!" And I was like you, paying those $8k of bills! (our monthly expenses are about $10k). She kept screaming at me "You HAVE to pay most of that bill! You make more money!!"
So I finally said "Look, I'll tell you what. I make about 90% of our joint HH income, so why don't I pay 90% of your credit card bill, and in fact 90% of ALL of our bills, and you can pay 10% of ALL OF OUR BILLS . . . okay?"
Thanks Puppy. That's kind of what I was thinking, but I want her to pay based on working full-time, not just part time. Then I will have my atty argue that she should have a higher level job and make more $. Just have to get online and find the salary of a supervisor. Since it is a state government job, I should be able to find the pay rates somewhere in the internet.
You are a good friend Puppy. And I do consider you my friend! Thanks for continuing to help me. I don't know how you find all this time, but it is a great service you are performing for all of us. Thanks for the effort!
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