H gave me his draft separation agreement about this time a year ago and I haven't heard about it since then. A lot of it was upsetting to me a year ago, but now I just think I need to get my financial situation under control.
I have a bad habit of avoiding things I find overwhelming, which unsurprisingly makes them worse. I've been working on so many things over the past two years, my detachment, my emotional health, my reactivity and where that came from, my ability to be in relationships without controlling them, my parenting, my housekeeping, oh so many things. My brain is just full of things. I've been on fun trips, read and learned, and delved into new hobbies, gotten in and out and back in shape. I was relieved to at least be able to put financial worries on the back burner because H was paying the mortgage (in lieu, he suggested, of child support and spousal support) and so as I shouldered all the other bills and expenses I at least knew we'd have a roof over our heads and I could focus on getting myself into a better frame of mind to deal with stuff.
Now, I feel really ok with dealing with stuff, and a little embarassed that I avoided it for so long. Two weeks became a month became six months became a year. My IC asked why I wasn't dealing with this, and at that moment I realized how immature I was being about it, just putting it off.
So I spent an entire weekend processing paperwork, bills, bank statements, etc for my home and company and getting everything in order and filed. Then I spent an entire day categorizing every single output of money I made over the past year, significantly helped by the cool online tool my bank offers. Then I spent a few hours making my very first budget, pencil on paper, with a monthly and cumulative balance for each type of account. A task I avoided out of fear about how long it would take and how bad the numbers would look. Let me tell you, not knowing the numbers does not make them better, it makes them worse. Knowing how bad it is is step one in making it better. I don't know why on earth I didn't want to face this.
So, they're pretty bad. I'm bleeding money. I cancelled all my subscriptions and the housecleaners (I cried because they've been by my side for 15 years). I found all sorts of places where the spending plan H gave me a year ago vastly underestimated real expenses. Just one example, a year ago he stated we spent about $400/mo on food, so my spending plan figured with him gone it would be $300. We're spending over three times that, every month. That's just one item; there are lots that bad. So obviously I have input a new budget and text alerts that come to my cell phone, and we'll watch every expense, but I also need to find out what I can expect for child support and spousal support and get the process started to get these. I'm basically spending my kids' college and my retirement security, and I'm going to run out of those not too far from now.
I felt like I lived almost as frugally as possible, and now I have to get more frugal. So there's a tiny bit of self pity, and I'd lie if I didn't think occasionally that we were doing fine until H added a second household into the family expenses by moving out. But more so I don't really want to be pitied, I just want to take care of my sh!t. I am better off than a lot of people in this world and I'm resilient. My kids will work to get an education if they need to, and we'll be fine. BUT it's up to me to begin getting what we are entitled to from H.
I don't know what this means for buying him out of the house now, but I feel less attached to one outcome or the other out of principle, which I did before. I just want to do what makes sense. I've got to get everything plugged into this program and get back in touch with my financial advisor.
I guess before I fall in a hole again I should schedule an hour here and there to move this project forward and complete it.
So that's the news on the paperwork front. On the personal front:
H told me via text last Sunday that we're invited to Thanksgiving at friends' in Pittsburgh. I wrestled a bit, decided I would love to see these friends, so I shuffled existing plans made with my family and started looking into getting a hotel room nearby (with all of H's family invited, and the friends just moved into a townhouse, staying offsite was a given). Then, announcement came that friends' mother is sick and Thanksgiving is called off. No more word about Thanksgiving until today, when H emailed me that his mom had decided since the friends cancelled she'd have people over at her apartment and maybe get Chinese and go to a movie.
In the meantime my plans with my family including out of towners had been reinstated and I won't wishywash on them a second time. So I told H I'd be here with family at 4:30pm for Thanksgiving dinner. I could bring the kids to his mom's and bring them home mid-afternoon, or else he can have them for the whole day, or whatever works for him. The unsigned separation agreement he drafted included something about trading off Thanksgivings and Christmases, but he has not said or asked anything like that and this is the first of these holidays so far. And I'm not specifically referring to the draft separation agreement because I don't want to imply that I agreed to any of it. (my IC was kind of concerned that I may have implied my agreement by not responding to it for a year, so I'll have to deal with the repercussions of that too.)
Anyway, I want my out of town relatives to eat some meals with my kids over the weekend but none of us is wedded to the specific date and time of "Thanksgiving dinner" nor does H seem to be.
As I've been going through my financial stuff I've been texting him various things I need. He never sent me a copy of our joint tax form 2012, so he said he'll send it after work. I asked for him to send me the reimbursements from insurance for my year's worth of counseling (I pay out of pocket, and insurance sends him a check for 80%, and I sure could use that money back). So this is generating a little more communication than usual but all neutral.
I waited till the end to title this thread, but I think it's about how facing reality is a good thing.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
