New to separation. Am I doing the right things?

[Accuray]

Good for you roughenough, the extra money and seeing the counselor are the types of things that will matter.

When you say it will be "mainly to discuss financial stuff", what else to you anticipate discussing? If you plan to do some marriage counseling I would advise against it. I would keep this meeting "all business" quite frankly. She knows how you feel, she doesn't want to hear it again.

WRT the child support receipts, why are you making specific child support payments? Is that an informal agreement you made with W, or is there a formal agreement in place?

The point is, if you're going to have a discussion about receipts, you might want to have a larger discussion about all elements of your separation, so that you don't have to talk to her one by one about little issues. That's the kind of thing you could do with a marriage counselor. For help there, check out the book "Controlled Separation". You can get it on Kindle, it's a quick read and you can just skim a lot of it. In any case, it will give you things to think about.

When it comes to unpleasant topics that NEED to be discussed like child support payments and receipts, it's often best to cut once and cut deep rather than die by a thousand nicks if you know what I mean -- get in there and get it over with, then move on and try to get things upbeat again.

Accuray