Hi mirage, LT and Mighty, Thanks everyone. I realize that you are all right on the mark. It has just been a very stressing few days and this was just the "cherry on top" as they say. I got ANOTHER notice from the IRS that contradicts a pervious notice, I am having to write a "response" to the letter my W's lawyer sent to my lawyer saying why she should get to just allow me to live at the house until D14 turns "18 and one day" and then have to sell it and give her 1/2 (that letter was so full of bull poop it was ridiculous!) and I'm not making as much progress at work as I NEED to. I think all that added up to me being more "upset" than I should have been.
I know you're right about my D14 knowing that having me there is important for her, right now especially. She has been put through so much over the last year and a half and it hurts me to know that she doesn't have a mother that cares enough about her to just be there for her.
It was my greatest fear in all this....what would happen to my D's if my wife D me. Well, my answer is my D19 is now living with her boyfriend because she refuses to live with her mom and I can't afford to help her get a car (D19 really doesn't want to live with him but would just be stuck at home as I live in the country and there are no buses or anything. If she lives with me she would NEED a car. It hurts that I can't help her with that!) and now I know that my W is leaving her teenage D alone every night while she works "off the clock" and doesn't even get paid for it! I also was just reading someone else's sitch about how they aren't sure if they should start mediation because of how it would impact the kids....boy, do I understand how she feels!
The thing that upsets me ISN'T that my W doesn't have the decency to even acknowledge the effort. That I actually expected, as that's par for the course. It's just that there is nothing I can do about how she is treating my D. That it seems perfectly OK with the courts that when my W has my D14, she will leave her alone, not bother to take her to school, move her so far away from me so it is a 30 mile trip to get her to school when she's with me, really just not care much about what is best for her and just allow my W to have custody 50% of the time.
Since my W went back to work after her depression, this is how she acted. She just stopped being a wife and mother and her work became all she really cared about. All her friends are at her work. All her thoughts are about her work. All her time is spent there or going out with the same people she works with. She works 60-70 hours a week but only gets paid for 40, sometimes even less if her patient load is low. How is it that my W can see this as the life she wants to live? How can she NOT see that her D's need her in their lives? And the biggest question of all, why does my W even want to fight me on custody? Why can't she just see that D14 is better off living with me and that's that?
I know what is coming down the road soon and it scares me. At some point there will come a time when D14 is going to rebel, get into trouble, do something stupid because that is what teenagers do. It is part of growing up. The thing is that it's how the parents handle that that will either see that teen potentially ruin their life or if it just becomes a bump in the road, a lesson learned. I now know I can't count on my W to help her D through those "bumps" and I won't be around half the time to even be able to help. That is one of the reasons that I never believed in D. My W can say all she wants that D doesn't hurt kids but she's wrong. It takes away the stability of having a team to help them when they need that help most and it really hurts knowing that I just couldn't stop my W from ending a 21 year M. That I really, really tried to keep my m strong, not just for me but because I know that is what my D's needed and I failed. Not because of anything I did or didn't do but because my W just stopped trying herself. Because of my W's MLC and messed up childhood.
I think it's the feeling of helplessness that has me holding on to my anger. That in reality you can do so much, work so hard, choose a person who feels the same about family and in the end it just doesn't matter. That person can just change their mind about what is important in life and there is nothing you can do. You can't even count on the courts to see or care which parent your kids are better off with. THAT'S why I'm still so angry. The feeling helpless against someone who is so obviously in the wrong, who just doesn't care and not being able to do a thing about it!
Thanks guys. It really isn't that I expect my W to do or not do anything. It's more the fact that she has no consequences from her actions. She can act any way she wants and still she has the power to keep my d away from me for 1/2 the time. That she uses the fact that I care as much about D14 as I do to make her life easier, to not have to "bother" to do the things she should be doing and still I'm having to fight just to have a place to live after taking care of W for so very long when she couldn't take care of herself. How helpless this makes me feel and of course the nagging little feeling that I failed in all this somehow. That if I had only done a better job or done something different, my M wouldn't be ending. That's the thing that I need to get past!
