Again, if anyone can help with a link to my previous thread, I would really appreciate it.
Ok, oddness abounds around here lately! My D14 went back to her moms Friday but because she was dropped off at her mom's by a friends mother, my D left her dog with me. I texted her and she asked if I would bring the dog to her yesterday and that her mom offered to meet so I wouldn't need to drive as far. I, of course, said I would do that as my D really loves her dog and misses her when she isn't there. I get a text back from D14 later saying her mother was just way too busy to meet me today (she added a sad face) and that she said that she could do it tomorrow (today). I get a text this morning from D14 asking me to add a few things to the list of stuff she needs and that she would text when it was time to meet her mom. I get a call from W (She NEVER calls unless she is angry). She says she is far away (buying furniture for her new place...again) and wanted to ask if I would do her a favor. Should have known she had some motive. Seems that her father had to leave (he was in town it seems) and he was going to take D14 to school orientation tomorrow and now she needs help. She asked me if I would take D14 in the AM and she would pick her up at 11:00 when it was done. This way she would only need to leave work once. I could also bring the dog. OK, what to do here, folks. The whole reason wifey wanted to leave so badly was because she wanted to be "totally on her own". She wanted to be her own woman, etc. So, here is the first day of school and already she is asking for a favor! But, it was for my D, not my W. So, I tell my w that I would do it. W is all nice and telling me about her dad (I really don't care but validated) and thanking me. Fine, I'm doing this more for my D than her so that's OK.
An hour later I get a text. W telling me that she needs a phillips head screw driver and can I bring one with me! Now, when she left I was trying to be "nice" and put a bunch of tools she might need together for her and I know there were a few in there but no matter. I wait a couple hours and text back that I would do that. She texts that she will leave "my" stool (she took stepping stool from home when she left but was supposed to bring it back) by the front door so I could take it back and thanked me for letting her use it and added a smiley face again!
My W only seems to be nice when she needs a favor. Here she has gone back on everything we spoke about in her D decree, has been nothing but "rotten" about things since she left. Comes into my house when I'm not there and helps herself to things, doesn't bother to even talk to me about changing custody arrangements or even tell me until D just shows up at my door and she asks for favors? She really bugs me. I knew she would have trouble with taking care of things with D14 alone and the first day she is already needing my help. I really don't think she should expect my help like this whenever she needs it. Part of being M is that you are there for each other, she loses this when she leaves, sorry. But I don't want my D to suffer because of her mom either.
Did I do the right thing here? Should I have just let her handle this on her own (this is what she SAID she wanted, to be on her own)? Why the heck is it so easy for her to ask for favors after all she has done? Any thoughts?
Your wife doesn't appear to have a grasp on what D is. She is (in my very humble opinion) taking advantage of you. I feel you can be cordial AND firm on things that matter to you. How your w reacts is really on her. You aren't her Handy Manny their to help her with every little hiccup in life.
She wants to be single and find happiness. Let her do it.
3 kids BD 12/15/13 (IDKIILY. ) Rope dropped Cirque du Soleil style D final 9-9-14 "Some people are born on 3rd base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." Barry Switzer
There is a fine line being kind to another person and being pushed all over the place.
I am thinking that things and issues related to your daughters...sure you can help out for you'll co-parent together. Like it or not...that is the reality at the moment.
As for things like asking for Philips screwdrivers, etc...just say, "It would be best to get your own toolbox for stuff like this as you set up your own home. I am sure you can figure this out."
If she gets nasty, just reminder her that she's made the choice to move out. Sometimes it is okay to throw out truth darts once in a while. Sure, she'll get mad! She cannot just walk all over you any more.
Any progress on the lawyer front? What's up with him?
When it comes to things involving D, you two have to be team mates. It's hard and really tough but it makes sense for you to help out with orientation.
Home Depot or Target are rarely far away from anyone so a phillips head screw driver is something she can handle on her own. That's a favor you don't need to fulfill.
Coparenting isn't a favor for your wife. It's being present for you daughter.
Atsbaby M:36 H:35 T: 19 M:12 S:11 D:9 BD: 5/4/14 Proof of OW 8/13/14-love note from her 8/19 admits OW 8/22/14 files D w/o telling me 9/20/14 Says he wants to reconcile
Yup yup agree. With the kids the ultimate goal should be to remain a parenting team. My h says he coparents with xw1 UT that is not true. It is more, like parallel parentibg. He did his thing and she did hers. The result was a lack of consistency and stability for the kids.
Now all the other stuff- she is on her own.
Me 44 H 42 M 10 T 12 (at time of BD) Ss 20 16 S11 (special needs)
BD 9/13 H "unhappy for years" moves to seperate bedroom 10/13 EA/PA confirmed but denied S and I move out 3/15
Thank goodness the boards are back! Well, D14 started school and, as I predicted, it didn't go well. Turns out that since D14 lives within 2 miles of the school, she has to WALK to school and home every day. She has to cross I-35, one of the busiest and most dangerous roads in the country to do so! Let's not forget about bad weather, cold, rain, etc. It's a little over a mile! Now, isn't this something that my wife should have looked into? She told me that D14 would be taking a bus, I guess she just assumed that part. Next up, after getting a list of classes that said she was going to be in geometry, she is now in Algebra I, which she already took and passed at her old school (and she worked really hard to get through it and hated it. It took her sister 3 trys to pass it!). My W texts me and asks me to call her old school and see if it's "accredited" and find out about getting her out of Algebra. I thought she wanted to be a big girl, all on her own!
Now back on the first day of school, D14 texted her sister at lunch time how she HATES it there, she knows no one and everyone is ignoring her. She is coming from a school that goes thru K-8th and has a total of 103 kids and there are 400 in just the sr. class at her new school! Then I get a text from D19, she needs to go to the dr. My W has a HSA account through her work to pay for visits and I'm broke so she asked her mom to help her out. Her mom made D19's boyfriend drive her down and meet her at dr. office today (W was also taking D14 to dr. for school mandatory check up that she waited until after school started to make the appt.). So, later D19 texts back that her mom was giving her grief about not "living at home" and how she won't be able to save money, etc. Well, the only reason D19 moved is because her mother moved 30 miles farther away from where she goes to college and she has no way to get there as she doesn't have a car (something W and I planned on getting for her but that went out the window when W "had" to move out). She also doesn't want to live with her mom because, in her own words "Mom is so undependable" (W would leave my D19 at school for hours and hours when I couldn't pick her up because she was "too busy" and "forgot" to get her time and time again).
Well, the consequences of my W's "need" to be "on her own" are coming home now just like I knew they would. To top it off, I got a call from my lawyers asst. today about how W's lawyer is wanting to "move things along" and she wanted to ask me about what parts of the agreement I didn't like and got it all wrong. The main parts are my having to sell the house after youngest D turns 18 instead of my getting the house in return for not getting any of W's retirements, not disputing 50/50 custody, because I cashed in my retirement a year and half ago to live off of because I wasn't making much at my new job (much more than 1/2 value of home) not to mention my paying off a law suit against my W for student loans that she had before we were married (that happened 4 years ago, before she went back to work) and I wasn't at all libel for since it was from before we were M. I did it because we were going to be together forever, yeah, right.
Just like every MLCer, she was all fine with agreeing to all this before she moved out. I was going to get the house, she was going to keep retirements, all the antiques, the best furniture, I would agree to D14 going to school near her, etc. That all changed when her father started to get involved. She even left me with no money in our joint account (negative bal. actually) because she didn't want to pay all the bills (my lawyer later told me that was not legal but it was too late to do anything about it). She has totally turned on D19, doesn't seem to think that D14 having to lose all her friends, go through her parents getting D'd, going to a school where she knows no one and is 200 times larger than the school she went to all her life, losing the only home home she has ever known at least for half the time (and if W doesn't change her mind, totally lose it because it will have to be sold) will have any adverse effect on her life. Heck, my W couldn't even tell D14 herself that she filed for D! All she told her was she was moving because it wasn't "happy here". I had to tell her her mom filed and she was shocked and hurt by it!
The absurdity of the "reasons" my W has for "needing' to get a D is back in the forefront of my thoughts. I know from what I've learned about MLC, she didn't "choose" to become like this. That's fine intellectually, but in the real world all I see is this person whom I trusted and loved doing things that all her life she swore she would never do. She would say how she knew how bad D was on kids because she went through it and she wouldn't do it to her kids for ANY reason. Now I get such ridiculous (at least to most sane people) reasons why all that pain and hurt are just the price for what she MUST do.
I really thought I was past this but I'm not. I just got a text from D14 saying how she hates it there, she is sitting alone "like some loner" (which she definitely is not!)and how she wishes she could have gone to the school she was supposed to go! It's just so frustrating not being able to do anything about it! I feel like I let D14 down so badly. Her sister got a text as well and she is so upset. She said she wishes she could be there with her to help her. I know that I have to step up and do everything in my power to help get my D through this. She will make it. She will get past this and will be better for it. I have to find ways to give her some more stability in her life outside of school. It just feels like I'm fighting against her own mother and that her mother doesn't care if it gets in the way of whatever it is SHE wants.
There's a lot of white noise in the post. I get that you are very upset with the way this turned out. Focus on what you can control.
1) Respond to the L 2) Try to put in writing that W will pay for D14's private school until graduation 3) Put in writing that STBXW will contribute to the house's mortgage and half of bills until D14 graduates 4) Put in writing that proceeds of the house sale will be split between you and STBXW 5) Premarital debt is for STBXW to pay off as it occurred prior to marriage
What else are your non-negotiables?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In an earlier post, you said that your STBXW stayed home before while you had a good paying job that paid all the bills and more.
Can you go back to that old job? It seems to me that you are just treading water in this 'new' sales job.
Help out with only stuff that pertains to your D's.
IF you do the extra things, then make sure they will not get you upset later on.
Let W see how it is without you.
Do you want your W back?
Me 43 ring off Oct 2014 (my ring back on Feb 2015) H 51 (ring off 7/2013) M 2007 T 1996 S 14 July 2013- H told me he was unhappy.....said he is staying for Son Feb 18 2014 Found out about OW
Hi Wonka, You're right, lots of white noise. Ok, I'll respond to each thing. 1. Responded to the L. Told his asst. that the house was the big sticking point. It's not worth much as homes go. The amounts that I cashed in from my retirement from a job I had BEFORE I was M was more than 1/2 the value of the house.
2. That's something that will be hard to pin down as she is in public school now and W wants to keep it that way. Maybe after seeing how much D14 wants to go back to private she will change her mind but I definitely can't count on that. I will put together an estimate though, which is a good idea.
3.The house is PAID off, no mortgage. It was paid off before my W went back to work from money I earned (but I live in community property state).
4. I would like to show that if my W keeps her retirements, etc. and I get no credit for cashing in mine so soon before W bombed me (less than 3 months) that I get the house. It is need of repairs before it could be sold and much of anything we got for it would be eaten up in those costs. If I live there for the next 4 years, it will need some major repair which, in her decree, I would be libel to pay for because I am living there until D14 is "18 years old + one day".
5. The debt that I paid was from a law suit brought against my W for not paying a student loan. I wasn't M to her when it occurred and there was no way for me to lose any of my assets. My W had just gone back to work and they were threatening all kinds of bad things that would happen and she couldn't even talk to the lawyer about it she was so "freaked out" by it. I handled it and paid it off with money that I had made and banked over the years.
If you added just 1/2 of my retirement and 1/2 the cost of paying off that lawsuit it adds up to much more than 1/2 the value of the house. I should get some credit for cashing my only retirement since I only did so thinking we were going to stay married and it was so soon before bomb day.
The job I had before is gone. The company closed with zero notice. One of the reasons I wanted to be part of managing a company in the same field so that wouldn't ever happen again. This place has great potential and given another year or so I probably could be making more than I had before. It just takes time and a few projects under our belts. I probably could find another job but I would be working for others once again and in sales (at least in the field I'm in, oil and gas, it will take some time to get up to speed).
I know I'm spinning a bit. It just seems like when it rains, it pours, if you know what I mean. My W wanted to be the one to get all D14's school stuff done and never bothered to even tell me about registration, parent meetings, etc. until AFTER they happened or at best the day before. When I would ask her she always had answers but those are turning out to just be "made up" (like she was going to take a bus, that she had all her records from other school approved, etc.). Then there was the fact that she knew a month ago that D would need another eye test and didn't tell me until 2 days before school was starting and expected me to take care of it. Not to mention her changing custody arrangements and not even telling me until D14 showed up at my door (even then she never said a word, her mother told me that I was going to have her another week and then she would spend the next 2 with her mom). It just seems like my W is just willy nilly making decisions about our D and acts like she can just do whatever. The fact that my D14's 19 year old sister can see that my D isn't handling all the change very well while W thinks all is just fine doesn't help me feel good about the future.
Also the fact that until I got the last paperwork from her lawyer, I thought we had made agreements and acted accordingly is also upsetting me as I should have known better. I blame myself for that.
I guess the thing that bothers me most is how out of control I feel. With D14 going to school near my W I'm out of the loop, I don't trust W to do the right things (for good reason) and I'm not there for my D. Something I always swore I would be! And there's nothing I can do about it as I'm at the whim of a person who is acting like a teenager and trying to relive her childhood with her father there this time! There are steps I can take, like going to the school and letting them know I need to be kept informed of things with my D. The stuff relating to the D is also so up in the air as I was so trusting and did so much that I would have never done if I thought D was at all a possibility. Lack of control, feeling betrayed, worrying about my D's because I can no longer count on my W to do anything, these are the things that are wearing on me right now.
Thanks Wonka. I know I wasn't clear and am rambling a bit (a lot!)sorry.