Journaling/Venting: Friday was difficult. We had our first divorce mediation to deal with the financial issues. The mediator saw that we do not have much to fight over. He told us to just keep what we have and don't go to court b/c it's not worth fighting over.
W had claims for a tax refund, she wanted half the value of my self-employed law business, she wanted me to deal with the van titled in her name which is dangerous and sitting in her condo parking lot.
I had a claim for $4,900+ which she "misappropriated" from d20's education UTMA account. None of it went to the school and she spent it all.
The mediation got heated when the mediator wanted us to sign an agreement, and I told W's lawyer "I'm not signing anything today." and when she persisted I said "am I being unclear? I'm not signing anything today." The mediator pushed in and told me there is no reason not to sign an agreement today, and I said I wanted to wait until we dealt with the child custody issue which is coming up Tuesday.
W blurted out "do you see what I have to deal with? This is why it's taken so long for us to get a divorce. (referring to our 3+ years of separation.)
I lost it. I wanted to start screaming at her. Telling her I gave her the exact same divorce papers in March of 2014 (pre-DB) when she told me she was dating other men. She just started the divorce this past March, so we are still early on in the divorce. But I didn't say a word and just left the mediation. The negotiating was over. --------- OK, which leads us to the custody issue for s14. He had dinner with W last night and when he came back the first words out of his mouth are "I don't want to live with you for the school year." This is heartbreaking, but it does not break my resolve.
This is why I want s14 to live with me: S14 was recently arrested for shoplifting a knife. Last January he pulled a knife and threatened om who is living with W. And last August, om broke into W's place in front of s14 and d19, assaulted W, and took a handful of opiates with om attempting suicide. The word I am going to use at Tuesday's custody mediation is that om is "unstable".
S14 wants to be back with his old friends and not have a change in his life. I get it. But going into high school is a good time to do this sort of transition.
