Her main impression from this is that I think she's stupid, and that I'm just being a prick because I'm upset that she's finally woken up and isn't taking my crap anymore. "H is making me miserable."
She doesn't understand why I don't trust her to have access to my account. When I mentioned her financial troubles, she thinks I'm referring to her pre-M bankruptcy. (which I fully understand and don't care a thing about.)
She thinks that the fact that she didn't tell me about the CC's that she got taken to court for is a good thing, because she took care of it by herself. I guess that's a different perspective. I thought we were supposed to deal with things as a team. And stay out of court.
She wants to just dump a pile of receipts on my desk and say FU.
I wanted to not put gas into the family expense account because she has to track that as a business expense. That made her mad because she tracks mileage, not gas. "Does he think I'm stupid?" (but a mileage deduction is supposed to cover gas, so again, it's just lack of basic understanding.)
And she's upset because I want to base her contributions on her income, but a third of her income will go to the IRS. Does she not think that taxes don't apply to my income?
She thinks I want 40% of her income, so the whole proportional contribution thing was lost on her.
And she doesn't think any divorce lawyer wants anything to do with any of this. So she missed the point that it's the transparency and documentation of living expenses that he'll want to see.
And two recently divorced friends said this is the same crap that their husbands pulled on them.
Her other take away was that she may be on the street sooner than she expected. She sounds like she's fully committed to a D in the future.
And she hooked up with OM yesterday. (and didn't discuss any of this)
So here I am. On one hand, I think that anything I do on this is just digging the hole deeper, and I should put down the shovel, because this is just driving her away. But then, nothing gets resolved.
And if I get back into it, I'll have to start back at first principles, like "Do you think it's reasonable that we both contribute to paying family expenses? If so, how should we go about that?" and go from there. But she'll be defensive from the get go and hear nothing.
And then Zew gets all zewey again... Is there any realistic chance that she ever senses any loss of anything here? This is pretty sustained dissonance. We seem to be miles apart on the basics, and yet for 18 years, somehow we made it work. [or we didn't since I'm writing this] I am under the impression that W isn't going to come around until she faces a sting of hard realities, which may be a long time post-D, and that too will be my fault. Or maybe she has now arrived at her new reality, and I just see it as incompatible with mine. This is the natural progression of things, I suppose.
I think you need to decide whats best for you and your children and do it regardless of what her response is. If you've been paying for all of the household expenses up til now, then you can continue to do that. Ask her to contribute what you think is fair and document everything as appropriate (if she contributes less, etc.). Unfortunately, you can't make her do anything with her money so the best you can do is keep good records and hope that the courts agree with you should it come to that.
If she stomps and throws a fit and refuses to participate, then that tells you something about where her priorities are (hint: not with the family and the children). Maybe that will help you decide if your plan for the future is compatible with hers.
As another anecdote - in the last few months since my wife moved out, she has gone from zero CC debt to somewhere around $3k. She has a tenant in her condo that is refusing to pay her rent until significant repairs that she promised last summer get made. She has a $2k tax liability and has managed to spend the entirety of her half of the 6 month emergency fund we had saved. She's quickly seeing a dose of reality...
Me:38 W:39 No Children BD: 5/13 EA/PA Confirmed: 7/13 W Moved out 12/13
- useless in confrontation (been there) - Can't throw her out - she knows not to leave. - Cut off $, court whacks me. - could use to get something admissible. would be of no legal value; confrontational/leverage value only. - File no fault. I'm the bad guy. Ultimately, this is what it will come to.
So talk is useless, and consequences imposed by me aren't effective.
Confront, she denies. Say "I can't support you until you NC with OM", then cut off $. She'll still live here. She boo hoos "He's such an a$$. He cut me off for no reason." She has to be willing to file to get any $ relief order. In the mean time she gets a little of her own $, and that's good enough to get by, so she won't file, she'll wait at home until she's ready, then file. And by confronting, she just goes farther underground.
So none of that works, does it.
Or, I can try to get usable evidence of A. L just called to clear me on something there. In about 10 days I will or will not have evidence. I can try anew to get her with OM. That would at least break the whole denial thing; might end A. If not, then what am I waiting for?
And of course, W just called about getting the tablet again, except now she just wants a $20/month hotspot and to borrow D12's tablet to which I'd like to say NFW while you are having A with OM. But now, instead of wanting a $$$ tablet, she's being reasonable with just the monthly charge, which makes it a whole lot harder to say no for any good reason. (that doesn't involve the A confrontation)
Regarding the financial plan / expense account, I have printed out 3 different descriptions of this model from various financial websites. (no pictures) When I get into that again, it won't be just my plan. Any rational conversation about anything (not even R related) seems to be futile. Nonetheless, I will go through it again, listen to feedback, then impose it.
