I spoke with my W earlier today. It was an unpleasant reminder that W and I have poor communication skills together. So W called me, and I asked about s13, some light talk, ending with W telling me out of the blue that if I want s13 until he turns 18, then I can have him.
Then I asked W about taxes. Last year we had a disagreement about taxes, b/c we could not agree on who received the deductions for our youngest 3 kids. We ended up filing a joint tax return to avoid the fight.
So I asked W if she wanted to file our taxes jointly again – and she scoffed “no way.” I wasn’t going to fight, I just wanted an agreement. So I asked her ok, we have to agree on who gets the deductions for our kids, what if you get the deductions for 2 of the kids, and I will take 1 of them (the 3 youngest are who we need the agreement on). I thought I could avoid the disagreement by proposing this.
But she would have none of it. She said “I get all 3 of the kids b/c I took care of them”. I reminded her that I provide a monthly support payment, as well as having s13 every weekend and holidays, and that splitting this up 2 for her/1 for me was fair.
Now this is when W brought up an odd argument, she said she should get the deductions for s13 and d17, but that d18 gets her own deduction. D18 worked part-time at a minimum wage job for little over 2 months last year, and she doesn’t need to file a tax return. So again, I am trying to avoid a fight on this, so I told W I would negotiate with d18 on this. But W would not agree.
I tried to explain to W that the difference for her income of having 2 or 3 deductions wouldn’t matter. She got mad and hung up on me. I did not have the chance to speak with W about our kids.
As I look back at our M, I see our problems in talking with each other. W and I did not have many fights, mainly b/c we both avoided talking about difficult issues. The fact that I waited until today to bring this up is an example of this. We both are annoyed with each other right now, and so maybe this is heading to court sooner rather than later.
