Cherry, filing, moving. Gaining strength

[Cherry]

Thanks blu, I guess we all have a habit of being much harder amongst ourselves. But you're right, I'm not as detached as I would LIKE to be, but again, you are right. This is my life, h, m, family- I'm bound to feel hurt and for this to take some time.

You're also right, maybe it is an attempt at blame shifting, or to enable him to use it against me at any point and say "but you agreed".

I liked the point about the birth and creating boundaries. Funnily enough, when talking to me this evening, he mentioned something about the birth (after offering a back rub for my back pain!), he expressed wanting to be there- I asked if he would be able to support me if things went wrong. He said he wants to be there t support both me and the baby, and then told me to stop worrying and leaping months away (again not looking into this, is he making out things could change by then?!) again, not worth worrying about this. I shall leave this be. I have it in my mind that if he is capable to be there, he will. If not, my mum says she will be ready to drop everything and be there. So that shall be my plan for the time being, I'll put a pin there and leave it at that. I do think that he will only feel the consequences of what he has done when he leaves. But I shall not hold out any hope of him changing his mind.

Surfer, this is basically what his L has said, they would draft up the reasons and if I didn't agree to them they would re-write. I'd say he has no grounds, but when speaking with my L he advised me that they can say anything like "they didn't put the toilet seat down" and that could be used, and even if contested, the likelihood is that it would still go through the divorce, we just end up racking up grands worth of legal fees and still remain divorced. Mediation would also be on the cards for us in the near future. Yet another thing I have no control over so will face when necessary. My main concern regards custody of the children which he has agreed I would have full custody, no sleepovers but he has access and can take them out. This is something he states he wants (though I know not to really take his word for anything), so I would want this in writing and drawn up legally, which is why I feel I need an L to fight my corner.

In a sense I'm in a hopeless situation. And by that I mean, if he wants a d, regardless of me agreeing, or viewing the papers- he would get it. I just need to remain focussed on the me part and what I can control. I can choose not to join his circus, or to take the bait of temp checks. And I can control myself to being the best person I can be, firm but validate. I can choose to navigate any interaction with grace but yet be firm, rather than be angry and bitter.

What is important for me is that we both put the needs of the children first, but I can only control my side. What I would like to avoid is getting to the point we cannot be in the same room. As a child, many friends had divorced parents, and not one of them had parents that communicated in the slightest. I would like us to be able to be in the same room and communicate with each other. I don't want my children to have any kind of event wether it be a school show or graduation and feel they have to choose which one of us to be there. But this right now is out of my control.

No tears today. I stood my ground that I would like things to go through my L. Obviously he wasn't too pleased with this and said he wanted us to talk this through. But I stick by my decision