Things are starting to progress with my divorce. STBXW is truly set into a long term relationship with OM. They just publicly (facebook) celebrated their 1 year anniversary a couple weeks ago, and appear to be very happy with each other. On the flip side, STBXW recently complained to me that she feels sick every morning that she wakes up and just wants this whole divorce thing to be over and done with. It is clearly causing her a lot of stress. We have been apart for a year and 5 months.
Thus far, we have established a decent parenting plan, which gives us 50/50 time with Daughter. "Primary parent" has not been established as of yet. I will be pursuing that diligently, as I do not want STBXW to be able to uproot and relocate Daughter. That would make my parenting time with her nearly impossible. We will be starting the mediation process soon. I am not 100% sure how we will go about that, but I was just given notice that stbxw's lawyer decided to discontinue working with her as of this week. STBXW requests for settlement are fairly reasonable, with the exception of asking for 28K dollars, above and beyond everything else. That is something that I just am not willing to accept. Sure, she can have half of my retirement, half of our dishes, furniture, ext, but 28k is a lot of additional money to ask for, just so she can start her life "fresh". I am not sure how STBXW will proceed without legal representation. Perhaps she will retain a new attorney, but I know that she is very short on funds. She recently applied for D.S.H.S. support....please keep in mind that she only works 9 hours a week, by choice :-/
I have had my ups and downs. I have a close friend that I have been spending a lot of time with. He is a single guy, no kids, but we have a lot of the same interests. It has been a life saver for me to have someone to hang out with and keep my mind off of being lonely and depressed. Loneliness is the number one thing I am struggling with now.
I have begun to openly date. Until recently, I was seeing a nice woman (9 years my junior) on a very casual basis. We saw each other for about 5 months. We spent a good deal of time getting to know each other , mostly through text and email, and it seemed to be working in a positive direction. With our children and busy lives, we were not able to have a lot of face to face time. We managed about 2 date nights a month, which in retrospect was not enough to really establish a relationship. She decided to end it, based on not feeling that "spark". Of course, that rejection hurt as well. But as they say, This too shall pass. Actually, I am over that for the most part, and I actually feel like it helped with my process of detaching from STBXW. I can see that there are other people out there. I am not alone, and I will eventually reconnect with someone special. That has been my focus as of late. I want to get out there, meet people and have some fun. My business is starting to gear up for the season, and I am very busy. I am at a point where I think that just getting this divorce over and done with is in every bodies best interest. I guess that means I have dropped the rope? I am not sure. It still feels crummy, but it seems to make the most sense.
onward and upward, I am starting a new diet this week. I have been getting into cardio and core classes as often as possible. I physically feel good. I had let myself get into horrible shape over the last several years. It feels good to be able to move and have some energy again...haha
