Specifics, please! Can't afford telephone consult!

[ptcr]

Volunteered on the host team at church yesterday and met a pilot's wife who went through a very similar experience with her now exhusband. We took our dogs for a walk later and she told me about the various attornies in town and who she used and that she would not file. She also suggested we attend Al-Anon meetings together. Honestly, the personality of her ex is a mirror image of mine. Of course, the details are different. I was glad to talk to someone who was a DB-type personality. She read Dobson's Tough Love, etc, and was familiar with all of it. I am finally honing my contacts to avoid the ones with the vengeance is mine-type unsolicited advice.

After church, came home and trimmed roses with H's awesome power tools. Ha! S16 and I went to see that new movie Valor something...about Navy Special Forces. Bad move as I was a pregnant Navy wife with a deployed husband who missed 6 months of my pregnancy AND the birth AND 3 weeks of S18's life.

Today, I go to see my therapist and have a walking date for later today. I have to send back my computer to my former employee and that will be a pain. I cannot find the boxes ANYWHERE! Will look in garage attic.

Reading Codependent No More and cannot believe I keep finding myself on EVERY single page. So...doing exercises at end of each chapter in my journal. WOW. Ordered Women Who Love Too Much also.

So, for all these hard earned changes I did back pedal this weekend. Please advise.

Home Friday to find H has moved all his stuff out of his closet and the armoire. If he had moved it to his room across town it would have been one thing, but it seemed to me (oops-projecting) that he was just trying to be mean because he moved it into the playroom closet????? My clothes storage space just increased, so not really a big deal, just seemed like one of his mean tricks that he used to play on his sister. I think I will take down all the pictures though. Painful reminder of who he USED to be.

To top this off, got the full rundown from S16 about his Dad's actions, constant texting, text S16 saw on his iphone, blek. Don't forget got the nasty sext to which he said "sorry, no she was not at our lake house" (which i DO NOT believe). I promise you he is a cruel, arrogant man who has been verbally abusive to me for years. Detach. Trying and he still gets to me. Noted, he had gone through my stuff and taken expensive massage oil and some stuff from our sex drawer. I COULD SCREAM!

So, set that up for an ANGRY codependent me...and he sends me this email about our budget and the fact he received a HUGE check from the VA for disability benefits. Remember, we are in debt and this would CLEAR a LARGE credit card bill in the thousands...interest rate going up in April from 0% to 14% (mishka you know the entitled attitude, you reading this???). So he tells me about it and that it is HIS and NOT family money and that he is "sacrificing" for our family by being in a room across town and not in an apartment. He also called in sick to work to host OW to a Radiohead concert Thursday that I bought tickets for us to attend. Blek...

So, Saturday, he texts me that he has decided to keep the money for himself because it is his and he has the medical problems...which is a total scam because he has inherited hypertension from his father. Nothing active duty service did to him. He has already opened his own checking, savings account. He has Viagara, lots of cash, and a slut on his arm. What can I do, nothing....but he was so arrogant I could NOT help myself. Broke cardinal rule. I know. I lost my cool.

I, in a series of texts, told him that I was advised that all assets and monies were joint marital property in our state. Also told him I would not notarize his budget (which he asked me to do). I told him I was advised to sign nothing. SO, this is making him crazy. Not my goal. I was hurting. I wanted him to see the reality from MY position. So, I told him I had seen an attorney about my rights. He makes 100% of our income and he left me in "good faith" that I would pay bills while he played playboy and that money would be deposited.

So, he starts ranting that on principle the money is his. I told him what attorney's fees cost and retainer fees and also mediation fees, which are about the exact amount of the check he received. Part of me wanted to serve him just so he had to take his check and GIVE IT TO AN ATTORNEY, shoot a BIG part of me did. I told him I wanted the check in a joint account and asked if we were starting to play the hide the money game...pilots do this ALL THE TIME. He said, if you want to get divorced over $7000 then fine. He has offered thta I might "lawyer up" on him in the past.

He is antagonizing me. I know it. It is his MO. He told me once that he turned on everyone that was important to him in his life and that this was a symptom of his dysarthria. Yep, it is the truth. He has alienated so many people. He has allowed so many relationships to fizzle....good friends...sad....

So, back pedal, yes. Yesterday he sent a few texts about things for the taxes. A pain for him to do across town without my knowledge base and our files. I answered him. No phone contact, thank goodness.

I have a full week of friends, walks, and lunch dates for which I am happy. I am busy rearranging my master bedroom closet now that I have spill over into his. I am writing and looking for an Al Anon meeting. I, thank goodness, see my therapist today. All this is for me. I have stopped spying on him. I am still furious about the money, the fact that he pilfered through my stuff and took what he wanted, and that he is so blatantly flaunting his affair in front of our kids. I can do nothing about this. I know. Just thought I would update. This forum is a Godsend.

Mishka, how is FIL visit? I know some people that attend your church. They love it also.