Lost in Fangorn Forest

[Zues126]

OK, time for an update.

Housing/Divorce. Unbelievably good news. I am not going to rent after all. I am going to buy a house. I didn't think this would be possible for me, but rent is so expensive in my area that my dad didn't want me to piss away 100K over the next four years in rent. He made a tremendous offer to help me buy a house providing the down payment, co-signing, and even subsidizing the mortgage for a while. I was absolutely speechless.

I hate the idea of relying on help from my parents at my age, and I can't understand why it's so hard to keep up on my own. I make very good money at work, but my XW is getting a shocking amount of money monthly (like 2500 net) and my lawyer is costing me an average of 1000/month, and that's all before I pay my own rent. I've never worked harder or made more, and yet I'm literally going backwards. I can't keep up. I didn't know how I was going to keep up on a higher rent payment. So when my dad made this offer I couldn't refuse. He told me that he had help from his parents when he was raising kids, and he received a modest inheritance. He knows exactly what I'm up against and how hard I'm working and felt he wanted to make my life feasible, and that it was an advance on my inheritance when I needed it.

I just don't know what to say. I am truly grateful.

Divorce process. This is the frustrating part. It seems like it will never end. I remember 2/15 asking my L what the best case and worst case timelines were for getting this thing done. She said best case was June/July (of 2015), worst case was "if XW fights on every piece, custody, assets, finances, everything, and we end up going through the courts", in which case she said November/December and we might actually hold off on signing until 1/16 for tax reasons.

Yet here we are coming into summertime and we only just signed the parental agreement last Monday. Now my L is going to float the financial proposal to her L and we'll try to nail that down.

In theory this should go quickly, now that the parenting time is agreed on it's majority formulaic, so I'm hopeful this will be done in 30-60-90 days. But Lord Almighty, I thought that a year ago as well. In the worst way I want this over. It is such a disruption emotionally and logistically, receiving emails from XW, L, having to sign/fax docs here and there, updated pay stubs here, updated 401K balance there, and meanwhile I'm paying hundreds of dollars an hour endlessly.

What makes it more frustrating is that it puts all my plans on hold and it's creating a lot of stress. Work has been very, very hard, and I am already stressed out about it. In two weeks I start 50% parenting time and it will get tougher at work with more responsibility and less time. Then come school starting again that means 2-3 days a week I'll need to take the kids home from different schools at different times between 2:30 and 3:30. This means that from 2-4pm I will be unavailable 2-3 days a week. I don't know how I'll do this while working full time. My whole plan hinged on having a place to live on the bus line so I could work from home and have them bus home, but if I'm playing chauffeur all afternoon I don't know how I'll hit my sales goals. Doing all of this on top of looking for homes, packing, moving, etc, is just overwhelming.

I really wanted to get it all done before summer was up, but I can't buy a home until our financial agreement is inked because I don't want to risk messing things up. Oh, I could ask my lawyer about ways to proceed without letting any new assets be included, yadda yadda, but I don't trust it at all. So far it's all worked against me. We had an "evaluation date" of 6/30/2015 yet our alimony payments are being formulated off my year end income (12/15) despite the fact I'm trending much less this year, we're crediting me for my 401K balance as of last summer despite the fact it's gone down, yet XW gets the house which has appreciated 30K on paper and that total hasn't been adjusted. It's been the 'worse of' on every category. Which is fine, I don't care anymore, my point is I don't trust the courts or the legal system to be fair or reasonable. If my dad helped me buy a home today it wouldn't surprise me if they said it belonged to XW too for some reason.

Point is, no matter how urgently I want to move on this, I have to wait. Whatever comes, comes. I will handle it. It's stressful because there is so much to do and I can't get started on any of it right now. But I am grateful because in the end I know I'll be ok, even if the torture continues another 6 months.

Kids. S just had a birthday. Had a nice party. Nothing huge like Donald Trump. Just a little get together. My dad is back from his 6 month travel so he came over and we had a nice get together.

We are trying to figure out what to do with my son. He is a computer whiz. A little obsessive like me. He has taught himself to do so much on the computer. He spends many hours messing around with operating systems, coding, and lord only knows what else. I really want to get him some type of formal coaching but I don't know where to start because I don't understand any of it. My friend has helped him with a few things (they did a computer build last year, and he has him working on a few programs as a project), I was thinking about contracting him as a mentor/coach and having him lead my S through some type of online courses or something. My dad is a computer guy and talked to my friend, they are brainstorming different things they can do towards that end. My friend found an online course but my dad said "this might not be good for him, it is geared towards college students and assumes a lot of prerequisite coding experience, and the language in the directions may be beyond him". Then he spent an hour with my S and told me afterwards he had no idea how far my son had come, he is writing programs in multiple languages, taking on challenges, teaching himself, and solving them at a level he can't believe. S told him he wasn't interested in the formal classes, he thought they were boring, he is more into taking on his own stuff and then figuring out how to do what he wants to do. And while I think some good coaching would help, it's hard to argue with what's working. I'm at a loss, I want to open up some resources to him to help him bloom, but maybe just letting him run is best. Hard to know when I don't get any of it. But it's all good, he's doing cool stuff.

So with my dad over we didn't read tonight. Tomorrow we'll go back to middle earth, and have some more normal family time. It will be a good long weekend.

Me. Ha. With so much going on I don't have time to think about me too much. I think I'm doing good. Like I said, lots of challenges over the next 6 months, but they are all because of positive change. I know I'll make it through, and by 2017 all will be well. I'll have more experience at work, and that makes a difference because there is a learning curve, and I know I'll get better. I'll be adjusting to the 50/50 schedule. I'll be living on the bus route by then. I'll be done paying my L. So many things that will make life easier. I just have to put one foot in front of the other for a little bit longer, I've been saying that for 2 years, but I know it's true.

And I'm doing pretty good overall. Anxious. Exhausted. Yes. But I'm still me. And I get some reprieve. Chess. Reading. Pool. Poker. Shoot, I played billiards the other night (three cushion billiards), that is a BEAUTIFUL game, it's played on a table with no pockets. Just the cue ball and two object balls. The goal is to shoot the cue ball so it hits both object balls in one shot, but before it contacts the second ball it must hit 3 or more rails. So lots of shooting into one ball, bouncing off 4 rails, then into the 2nd ball. It's a very tough game, lots of intricacies and finesse. And I LOVE it. I haven't played in two years because I love pool more, but man, it was so fun I could've played all night until dawn.

And I've got some good friends. My buddy is going to Vegas for a big poker tournament, I helped him with his preparation. He told me he is inspired with how I prepare for competition and he knows that's one of the reasons I tend to do well, so I talked him through how I prepare and he wrote out many pages of what his goals were, why they were important, the adversity he'd face, what tools he'd use to overcome them, and then really visualizing how it would play out. More to it than that, but that's a start. I'm excited for him (and I have half of his action ). And I am excited because I know I'll have the opportunity to get back into serious competition again soon.

So all is good. Time for some chess. Just watched Chessnetwork's video on exploiting holes in the opponents pawn structure, I'm ready to plunk a knight onto d5 and cause some dark square pressure!