Very interesting post! Your W seemed to recover from her bout of MLC thinking fairly well.........I mean fairly well given she is still in MLC. I wanted to give you a perspective from the other side of an MLC D. You have a great head on your shoulders, so I'm not posting this so much for you as for lurkers who may be dealing with some of these issues right now.
I bought "our home" from H/XH as part of our D settlement. (H/XH wanted the home but he violated a provision in our prenup (he withheld part of his monthly mortgage payments after he moved out), so this gave me first option to buy.) -------BTW, our prenup REALLY helped to keep the D process civil, although I think that having the prenup made it easier for H to leave. He was in a fantasy world and thought D would be "easy as pie".
One month after I bought the home, the feds changed laws about home appraisals and the value of the home I had just bought dropped ~$55,000. There were some people who told me I should hire an attorney to get H/XH to refund part of what I'd overpaid....This was a very difficult decision for me, but I swallowed VERY hard and decided to honor the settlement I had signed. I knew that (just like in the D process) if I revisited this issue, the only winners would be the attorneys. Figured I would easily spend 1/2 of what I might gain in attorney's fees................Case in point. A co-worker of mine, who was D'ed from her H a year ago. They used a paralegal to prepare a cheap D decree that didn't outline contingencies for what would happen if both parties didn't cooperate in selling their joint home and splitting up assets.............One year later, they STILL haven't split things up and haven't even managed to put their house on the market. She has spent ~ $14,000 on attorney's fees just to have their D re-opened so that she can try to sell their home..........The moral of the story is that there are a lot of benefits to remaining on speaking terms with your WAS, no matter how "alien" they are.
The moral of the story is that there are a lot of benefits to remaining on speaking terms with your WAS, no matter how "alien" they are
I would like to just thank you for your story. It was posted at just the right time for me. I agree 100% with trying to keep the peace as best you can. Not just for the possibility of reconciliation but more so because it really just makes everything else easier (at least that is what I like to believe).
Eric
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
Grit, hope you don't mind if I reply to Eric here.......I'm glad these examples were helpful to you.
Yes, it is hard to take the "high road" but keeping the lines of communication open has many benefits. H/XH and I BOTH treated each other with respect.......I got to see who the real H/XH was through his actions. In spite of being emotionally distraught, he still treated me with consideration and respect. This is one of the reasons I had continued to keep him on a pedestal..........More recently, as I've been cycling and considering the possibility of walking away from XH, I've realized that because XH and I worked so hard to be considerate of one another through the D process, I haven't gone through the deep, deep grieving that I would have if XH wasn't still in my life in some way.
