One giant leap forward! - Part 10

[T1000]

Wow quite a while since my last post!

I was so used to putting every last detail of my sitch that every time I thought of updating the thought of writing all down put me off. I will try and breeze through it rather get bogged down.

Divorce
W gave my L's letter to her L and my L got a reply last week.
• She is denying the adultery (no surprises there) and she is now petioning me on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. - My L said that if I don't fight it that doesn't mean I am admitting to it. We are going to run with that.
• She is claiming that all my stated finances are incorrect and that because I work for a family company I will be getting paid off the books. - We are going to offer copies of all my financial statements, show valuations on the house and any investigation into the company they wish to do.
• She is saying that because S4 has autism she needs more financial support. - S4 may needs things in the future but until a specific item comes up he needs attention from us and his nursery more than anything.
• I haven't been paying spousal support for the last 20 months and if I don't make moves towards doing so they will be making an emergency appeal to the courts to force me too. - My financial situation doesn't support this in anyway, the money isn't there to pay.
• Says that the CSA payments for the kids isn't high enough (this is worked out by system in place to do such a thing) even though she is getting more off me than the UK's average. Again my financial situation doesn't support this in anyway, the money isn't there to pay.
• States that she is forced to claim benefits while I live in a luxurious home. - Irrelvent, I'm stuck in this house with no other options available to me.
• The car she has is for transporting the children and as such shouldn't be an asset. - L thinks we should let this one go.
• States that one of my loans was taken out in 2006 was for me to buy a BMW. Even though it was bought in 2005 before the loan. The loan was for work to the house. - Even though incorrect and can be proved it doesn't change anything.
• States she has no savings or assets even though she had a PPI claim after she left. - Again even though incorrect and can be proved it doesn't change anything.
A lot of it was about things she isn't getting but not really asking for anything specific, felt like they were asking for a bit of everything without committing and hoping some of it sticks.

I'm currently getting the house valued which is actually looking to be in my favour which is a nice surprise. Getting all my other documents sorted for next week.
L thinks that any of her claims for more money can be nuetralized by the fact that I'm practically broke.

Wife
Very little contact with W although this week there has been slightly more. She contacted me 5 weeks ago saying that S2 needs a medical jab and that it needs paying for. My parents said they would foot the bill. I told her this and she said thats fine and when am I taking him?
I said to her that she lives a 2 hour round trip away from the hospital and it's 5 hours for me and a day off work. No reply.
3 weeks ago she text me "telling me" that I have to book a week off work in May because she is going on vacation.
My reply was "No". After some back and forth I said I would think about it and if I had the kids for a week she would need to fund it.
I asked if she has sorted out S2's medical jab and she said she had bigger problems because S4 need a £485 assessment before starting school and wants my parents to pay for it.
I said that was irelevant of others things going on S2 needs his jab, my parents have offered to pay and it's very important. (I haven't told her but if she hasn't sorted it by the end of March I will do it myself.)
I asked her why she isn't spending her money on the £485 assessment rather than going on vacation.
She gave me grief and then said I was bullying her into getting money from her for looking after he kids. It eneded there.
That was it until two days ago.
I text her to ask about the boys as I never had them this weekend but got no reply after two messages and then got this email:

Hiya,

Just to let you know I've got the confirmation of my flights. 20th 'May till 27th but my flight is early on the 20th so are you ok to collect them on the 19th? And as for the money you asked for I will provide diapers, wipes and £60. Is that ok??

Also, as you are aware of my track record with phones....this one suddenly died on me last week so it's been sent away for repair. Sorry, house phone will have to do.

Love & hugs & kisses from the boys. X

I find it crazy how she can go from the bullying comment to this, but thats her all over.
I don't want her decideding what I will and won't be doing but don't want to pass up on the chance for a week with the kids and it being funded. £60 to spend on the kids sounds like a lottery win right now
I replied with this:

Hi,
The 19th doesn't work for me. What time are you setting off on the 20th? The 27th might be a problem too but I will see what I can sort out, what time do you get back?
I will be moving my weekend without the kids to the 17/18th or the 31/1st
Diapers, wipes and £60 is fine.

No reply.

W is friends on FB with the school my sister works at. My sister can see her whole profile and said she had a look the other day and said she went on vacation in the new year.
That's a vacation in October, December, January and now May. It bodes well for me not paying her spousal support, she is obviously doing okay financially. A hell of a lot better than me anyway.

Finances
As you can tell by comments above money is pretty rare right now. I'm literally just covering my bills.....j-u-s-t. My parents are helping me with food.
It's difficult. There are always things that can be done for free but plenty of money related things I would like to do with the kids. Just taking them out for one meal would be nice. It should be a bit better with the warm weather coming.
The money situation also impacts my social life. It hasn't stopped but it's not great either. Still managing to do the odd martial arts lesson.
It's hard thing to get across to other people how skint I am. Most people see skint as not going on vacation every year or not buying everything they want or eating out less. I'm pushing the boat out if I do one social thing a month. Buying a coffee is living large!

Girlfriend
I say girlfriend...what we are we haven't put a label on it, I'm using that term for talking about my sitch. We aren't boyfriend/girlfriend, we aren't in a relationship but we only see each other. We see each other probably every other day. She stays over 2-3 times a week. She is in no rush and I'm in no rush. She has admitted fairly casually that she is falling for me. I'm not sure what I am doing. When I got together with W a very large part of the attraction was how attractive she was. The new girl isn't really what I would go for physically. She has a great personality, very different to W and that is what I'm mainly attracted to. I don't know what what that means in the long run. I've always been so visually attracted in the past. I'm just going with the flow at the moment.
We have very deep conversations about allsorts and she tends to get me where most people don't. She knows I'm skint, it took me setting her aside and really expressing very clearly how skint I am and that I'm not just tight with money. It's difficult to say no to pretty girl when all she wants you to do is join her and her friends for a drink.

Me
In some ways I'm happy and in other ways I'm not.
This journey I'm still on (I suppose I always will be) has improved me in many ways. There are habits I have bested and some habits that I thought I had bested that are still there lurking and not leaving anytime soon.
The jealousy feeling I always had about my W's past have started to come up with girlfriend, I was hoping I might have sorted that out but I really haven't, it's exactly the same! One thing I do differently is how I handle it, with W I would attempt to passive aggressively make her feel guilty about her past. It was a very negative and destructive behaviour. Now I use my C's meditation principals, feel the feeling and let it leave my head. It does work to a certain extent. She has noticed that I'm not letting her in, in regards to this, she wants to be let in to what goes on in my mind and I want to let her in. I'm very sceptical, after all it's me basically saying to a woman that is very attracted to me that I'm a really jealous guy and very insecure. I can either ignore and hope it dissapates (doubtful) or hit it head on and deal with it in the best way possible.
It's worse when I'm not with her, my mind cycles crazy, when I'm with it there but feels very calm. I hate even having type this!

I have moments where I think about our M. As time goes on the more I look at my old life and struggle to justify what I put up with from W.

My life feels like it's in divorce limbo right now. It effects me finacially more than anything else.

I feel okay and upbeat about life in general. I'm seeing the kids today after 12 days without them and I can't wait!

Well thats my current sitch in a nutshell. It's all moving forward for good or for bad and that is better than full limbo.