Ominus Bonus

[steady]

Hey, Steady.
Well, I'm gonna have to watch you more closely as my sitch will very likely follow yours.

Once W gets told in mediation that my proposal (all legally entitled) is that rather than clearing the debts and splitting the home assets, I take the top 94K and the remaining debts are split, I'm guessing reconciliation and her "friends act" will disappear.

So instead of being about 30K black, she'll "get the D she wants" plus 24K in the red.

When my W and I moved up here we had around 130k from our last house. Her brother has money (works in finance) and so do her parents. They told my W they would help us buy a house up here and do it in a way that our mortgage would be around the same amount we had in Virginia.

They wrote gift checks out to my kids, me and my W. They ended up gifting 33k to me and the rest were gifted around to my kids and W. A year ago I was willing to just walk away from the gift money. I still cared what my W and her family thought of me. Thinking with my heart. After she pulled her stunt calling the police in January and sitting on the couch huddled up with my kids that really snuffed out a lot of the remaining embers I had to continue to be nice about these issues.

The lies and fabrications that were in the order of protection and the D papers completed the extinguish. When I told her that night "You're going to pay" I was referring to these issues. Up until that point I was playing soft-ball legally and was still willing to let go of things I was legally 'entitled' to.

The gift money came up in our meeting yesterday and my L said I would take the gift money credit and my W would take hers. She looked at my L and said, "Is he going to take the gift money? He told me he wasn't going to because he knew it was my brother's money and it was given so we can buy the house." She was pissed.

The really cool thing about yesterday is I could see her attacks and attempts at manipulation. Everything that came out of her mouth had an element of attacking me. She caught herself at one point saying, "My house" and quickly changed it to our. It's amazing what you can see when you don't get caught up in the emotions of the moment.

She thought she was going to get the kids. That didn't work out - we're doing a 50/50 split right now and she can't stand it. She thought she was going to take the gift money. That's not going to work out. She thought she was going to get a restraining order two times, so far that hasn't worked out. She actually thought I was going to walk away from my house, walk away from the time with my kids, giver her my money. She said at one point she thought I would be out by Easter of 2009.

One of my W's problems is she can't stand it when things are not done her way. She can't stand it when things don't go her way. She can't handle stress. She's had chronic anxiety since she was a kid. The pressure is mounting and I think at some point she's going to blow a gasket. All the moves she has made have been short-sighted and done from an emotional knee-jerk response.

We put a motion in to dismiss her D filing and I would love to see that happen.

I'm also thinking OM (who took 16K in debt out of guilt) is gonna see Sugar Momma" in a whole new light. A single mom, 6 years his senior AND a debt will take the shine off.

Yeah. The old collapse of the fantasy life. I once told my W she was chasing a rainbow.

And I'm sure she'll try all sorts of crap and lies to make my position look weak. She'll attack on custody. "Mom's are best"
But there are WALLS of books showing that, for D's under 8, the absence of the FATHER is a greater disadvantage. Plus, I have ton's of witnesses to my parenting skills and stability.

I can pretty much guarantee it. Just look at her past behavior. My W's actually keeps getting worse as time goes on and she doesn't get what she wants. In the psych report he said my W will not make a good co-parent because of her belief she can do no wrong and I can do no right. He wrote that I will make a good co-parent because I understand people will have different styles of parenting.

All I can tell you is take good notes. I wrote down every time I was with the kids and what we did. I basically covered a few items in my journal - my W's drinking, any out of the ordinary interactions, things that were said between us that might pertain to our sitch or the kids, when I was with the kids both with my W and alone. I detailed what we did when the four of us were together.

But we're likely gonna have to go through the entire exercise in futility.

Do you know where your W stands on physical custody?

Worst thing she could attempt is to try to engage lawyers to eat my money. the old "If I can't have it you can't either"

I asked my W on Sat if she was aware of the conference set for Mon. She said she initiated it. She told me she thought the lawyers were milking us monetarily. I told her I didn't agree. I said my L has actually been very good to me.

After I left I realized she's the one wasting our money. Just the two attempts at a restraining order has cost me close to $8,000. Plus an additional $2400 I had to pay for my percentage of the Psych analysis.

Ooh. Fun times ahead.

I've kind of gotten numb to the legal stuff now. I have been getting a lot better at separating that from my life with the kids and alone.

The irony is that the stuff posted on my thread in the last few days has really changed my attitude.

Believe me, it's helped me tremendously. I have a few threads I follow and I continue to learn new stuff and have some things I already learned brought back into the forefront. This place and the people in it are awesome. I have no idea where I'd be right now without it. Certainly no where near as well as I am.

The thing about "Love without Expectation/Remove your needs from the Equation" actually required I sit for a minute. I'm officially FEELING like I'm getting somewhere now.

I'll have to thin about that myself. I've worked very hard at keeping the expectations out by not trying to mind read and predict the future. When I just follow the bouncing ball life seems to lead me to really nice places.