Gonna be different now, (butterfly in hurricane).

[adinva]

Bruce your reply did support the point I was trying to illustrate for you.

You said you would give her whatever she wanted. She wants something now, and now you think it's unreasonable. Your truth is in your thoughts and deeds. I don't think you really want(ed) to give her whatever she wanted unless it was in a bargain to get her back, and I think you would like to sound generous by saying that but not actually be generous.

You're trying to hold her to something she said before she had legal advice, and now she's being informed what her rights and entitlements are you think she's punishing you.

And you keep talking about her living with her parents as if that should eliminate your financial responsibility for her. What you see as a free ride I see as homeless. How can she get on her own two feet with a baby, no dad who she can trust to take him for any extended period of time, only a part time job. She has an overwhelming lot in life right now, and you think she's living the high life and using you as an ATM. Spousal support is to enable your ex to get on her own two feet and be able to get on with a decent life. If she's not spending it on rent and childcare maybe she's saving it to be able to afford to live in the future. You begrudge her that? She is the mother of your child.

Whether she enjoys living with her parents or not, she's pretty trapped right now as a single mother of a baby with a 21 hour a week job. Not even to mention the fact that she gets no downtime - when a mom gets home from work her other workday begins. I have two kids and a part time job, and I work way harder at home than I do at the office, and it's from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. Her lawyer's job is to try to get her what she needs to get on her feet, and what the law entitles her to.

Like I said, I'm sure her first offer is expected to be met with a counter offer and you wind up somewhere in the middle.

You want to seem like you love her because she knits and you left her alone so as not to interfere with the idyllic mother-child relationship, but the ridicule that came out about the boo-boo-boo and monkey faces tells a more compelling truth.

I get so riled up by some of your posts that I worry I'm not being constructive in my comments, other than hopefully to shake you awake. However, I really do think that if people here can reframe your situation so that you can really get past thinking you're a victim and can really get over the bitterness and unfairness you seem to be stuck in, you will be much better off. You couldn't possibly ever hope to reconcile while you still think that way about things, and even if you never do reconcile, you can avoid being that guy - the one who's bitter and angry about the ex who took him to the cleaners. The only difference is going to happen between your ears.