hope456 - he filed, what now?

[25yearsmlc]

Hope

I can only pass on what my IC told me to say to the girls IF & WHEN they asked, (which is itself a signal that they are ready to hear something)

But at that time, my h had not filed. (He never did file. I filed for a sep so we wouldn't lose the house in case his "heroes" advised him to "invest" up there on the last frontier with the gold rush, (words, actually used by my h...SIDENOTE: years later h mentioned how glad he was that "WE didn't mortgage our house for those guys..." There was no need for me to correct the history. But I marvel at his way of recalling the whole ordeal...)

OKAY so back to the IC's advice...

First off, unless we were 100% CERTAIN we were divorcing, I could reply when asked, "I sure hope not, b/c I've loved your dad a long time"

or "Hope not. We've been together a long while, so I hope we can work it out..." And "we are working on it".

Second, he said not to introduce any 3rd party to them unless/until we felt pretty confident they'd be permanent people in our lives ("75% sure") AND EVEN THEN the kids were to have "reasonable veto power", meaning that if they did not get along with the OP, the OP was to go away.

It'd be different if the only reason they did not like the OP was b/c they still wanted a recon or if they were being "wacky". But as a L, it never ceased to amaze me when someone would tell me they were in a new R and the person was "great except they dont' like/get along with my kids..." And I'd stop them right there.

I'd say, "how can someone be 'great' AND NOT get along with your kids?"

Finally and perhaps most importantly, we were to stress to the kids, what would remain the same in their lives. (AND That their happiness was key to ours. I said to my d's, especially my youngest, "I will do what I think will make YOU the happiest in the long run" and I meant it.)

If no new house was needed, (ie., no move) or if the neighborhood and school and friends would still be nearby, THAT was what you stressed. So, while admitting that other changes were coming, a lot of their lives were NOT going to be turned upside down. They need to know that.

For our d's, the most important thing they said was that they did NOT want to move again, or if they had to, to at least stay in the area. (We had been in the military and moved A LOT. I now see that moving around after about the age of 11/12, is traumatic for a lot of kids).

Since d1 was in her junior year of high school, staying put was essential to all of us for at least that amount of time.

My internal, private timeline for how long I'd db and not file for divorce, was when my oldest d graduated from high school. I figured if h had not worked this ordeal out of his system by then, I'd officially move on. But he did have his awakening in time, so I didn't have to file for D.

Hope this helps.