And still struggling

[Jim1234]

AS, thanks for that. W lets them get away with stuff like that at her house. I don't, so all parties take place at her house. I am trying to work with her to come up with some consistent punishment, and rules. We'll see what happens.

He came by today and we had a long, frank talk. He is very contrite, totally accepted responsibility for his actions, recognizes the magnitude of the issue, and accepted the consequences without comment or complaint. We talked about why he started, and discussed how to address those issues, and he's on board, enthusiastic, even. Of course, he could just be blowing sunshine up my ass, but time will tell.

There are also consequences among his friends, and at school that have been pretty devastating for him, probably more so than any thing I could have done. All in all, the punishments are pretty severe, whether W enforces what we agree upon or not.

I'm texting with W some today, after our conversation last night. I admit she understands our kids better than I do, so I'm trying to hear what she has to say. I am hoping to get together tomorrow to discuss things like how we are going to file our taxes, and I am going to suggest moving the settlement process forward.

Getting back to the topic of my D, I know I have been hoping that she would have an epiphany and accept her part in the collapse of our marriage, and work with me to fix it, but I've lost that hope recently. I guess it just waned over time.

Maybe because I realized that when I talk to people about her, I do a lot of apologizing for her. I'm realizing just how messed up our relationship was.

I was at her house on S18's birthday. It was a mess. Crap everywhere, and literally, there was dog $hit under the dining room table. I mentioned it, and she said oh, yeah, she thought the dog had done it last night. So she knew about it, and just didn't bother to clean it up. I just don't want to live like that any more.

She just went home to help her mom, and I guess I had hoped that in talking to her mom, she would realize that I wasn't the cause of her problems, and she'd come back with second thoughts. That was obviously a pipe dream.

And working on my taxes has also been good. I've realized that being married, filing separately has a much worse tax rate than single, jointly, or head of household. I now have to give her a say and convince her to file jointly to maximize my refund. If I were single, I wouldn't have that issue, and my refund would be just as big.

Also, we have to get the D finalized before 2019, or alimony won't be deductible to me.

So, I'm growing, and moving on. After all, Divorce is just a piece of paper, right?