Need advice for a WW who left Part 4

[dwh15]

Spoke with my attorney tonight for 2 hours. That guy is awesome. He's given me 6 hours of consultation so far, and not charged me a penny. He's a member of my church and we have a mutual friend, so I think he's doing me a favor, and I can't be more thankful. I did give him an initial retainer today so he's officially on board, but I can't believe his generosity so far.

After extensively going through my situation, he thinks I have a VERY good case to get almost complete custody of all the children if I wanted to pursuit it. He knows the assigned judge in my case and says she is one of the meanest, but also fairest in these types of cases, and was not a "man hater", so he believes my odds are very good. Since my goal isn't to completely prevent WW from seeing the kids, but simply stick to the reality of what she has been doing for months, I'm going to suggest a schedule of her getting every other weekend, plus 2 weeks during summer, and alternating holidays. Works out to 84 days/year and is a standard schedule for a non-custodial parent.

That will likely apply for both S10 and S8, with me getting full custody of S16, who is autistic. Given that schedule, WW would end up owing me child support, which would greatly offset the amount of alimony per month. I'm looking at just a few hundred a month, which is far less than what WW is expecting to get, and about 1/2 of what I had been willingly giving her up until recently. It's great news for me, but not so good for poor WW, who only filed because she's looking for a paycheck. She even told me as much. Filed because she needs financial help; well, guess that plan isn't going to work out too well for her.

The funny thing is she told me just 3 days ago that she was done talking with me, and to speak with her attorney if I had anything else to say. Then this morning, she fires off a few TMs asking about the kids, as if everything is just fine. I thought about not replying at all, or sending something nasty, then figured why plan into it, and just sent a simple "kids made it to school no trouble". Then later she sends another TM asking about one of my cousins, since she has seen a news story mentioning his name. I'll never understand the wayward mindset.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good right now after that meeting. It's nice to know that I shouldn't have to take a financial beating on top of the emotional beating I've endured for months. Of course nothing is guaranteed yet, but I'm feeling optimistic. And I am feeling more detached from WW than ever. I really don't think I would want her back in my life now, other than as the mother to my children. I'm still sad about how it ended, and miss having that special person in my life, but I think right now I miss the companionship more than WW. But I'm getting comfortable being alone, or really not alone, but with my boys, since at least one of them is almost always around. And I know that some day I'll be in another romantic R, and this time around I will know much better what to do and not to do. Life is looking up.