No agreement yet on the D's. It was apparent the only thing that mattered to her was to get out, so that's what we did this past Saturday. She brought my D2 by and the vacuum never came up. My D7 is up north with my dad and has no idea what she's coming home to. For now we have agreed to go day by day with visitation. We kind of talked about a plan for when school starts. She works 45 miles away and am thankful she decided to get an apt down here so I can be a part of the kids lives.
I put up another post about how I failed miserably tonight. I think I'm done here unfortunately.
Since you are working on being more pleasant with your 180's I would say let her take it it's only stuff and can be replaced. But to her I honestly don't think it will make a diffence of her opinion of you at this point if you said no either.
No not giving her any yet. I'm moving out at the end of the month because we are renting our house and can't afford to stay here without her income. We've talked about seeking mediation. General agreements were that we would be able to divide property amongst ourselves, leave each others retirements alone, she would have the kids all week during school year with me picking them up from school, have them for couple hours daily and twice for dinner then every other weekend. She only asked that I pay 1/2 of daycare, provide health insurance for D's, and some additional money for gas since she wouldn't move near her work.
As far as my youngest, she is still nursing and very dependent on W. So I felt she was better off for now with her care. I'd prefer to have a shared custody sitch, but do feel one location during the school week would be more stable. We hadn't worked out the summer/holiday schedule yet, but discusses either reversing the week/weekend routine for summer or going half and half. A lot up in the air still when she left I know. It simply wasn't working under one roof. While I was away for a couple days MIL moved in. I asked her to go, she refused at first, then W said if she goes I go. So be it.
As difficult as it is, try to be positive when you see her. I'm having problems GAL and detaching, so I know how difficult it can be. My H dropped the D bomb while I daughter was up north with my family. I flat out refused to do anything while she was gone. I didn't want her to think something bad would happen everytime she went away.
M44 H57 D17 (special needs) M 18 yrs Bomb 7/2/12 Still living together
GAL for the LBS is difficult IMO. My WAW has her co-worker girlfriends who have all divorced too recently hanging with her daily. One even moved into the same appartment complex. So my WAW doesn't have much down time to think about or miss her old family life.
While all my friends are married and have their own lives to live. I usual try to stay busy working out or riding my motorcycle and thinking about it. You should try 7 & 7 with your kids. One week with you one with her at the minimum.
you know that when you let her have the children more now you setting your self up...
Go with 50%/50% Do not set yourself up to become a glorified uncle. Set yourself up to be a parent of your children. If she says its hard on the children. Then tell her yes her decision has affected the children. One week at yours , one week at her's.
P.S. I would not give her gas money. That is just ridiculous.
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. unconditional love is awesome!
While all my friends are married and have their own lives to live. I usual try to stay busy working out or riding my motorcycle and thinking about it. You should try 7 & 7 with your kids. One week with you one with her at the minimum. [/quote]
We are a family of pretty modest means, that's why we were hopeful we could mediate the D and come to reasonable solutions. She initially said she didn't want to fight over custody, that I'm a good dad. I said the same. Then MIL got involved and everything has changed.
Once when I was pushing her too much she said she would just take me to court and fight for full custody. This alarmed me on two fronts: the "weekend dad" scenario, and the financial implications it would have on me (I'm sure MIL will foot her bill). Things cooled a little and she mentioned that she would still like to mediate the D. I initially threw out the 7 + 7 idea. She said she thought it would be too disruptive to the routine to shuttle them back and forth every week.
The other part of this is that we moved where I work, she commutes about 50 miles to work. She countered with: I will stay here instead of moving 50 miles away. You could spend time with our D's on a daily basis and have them every other weekend. I thought that sounded reasonable compared to trying to figure out what works with two households 50 miles and several school districts apart.
