This is a gift

[may22]

Here are a few thoughts/suggestions for you to take or leave:

-- with January 15 as your date to move forward with mediation, try to stop thinking and worrying about it now. Put it out of your head and focus on enjoying the holidays. When is your upcoming meeting? Can you just state it then and then put it out of your mind?

-- are you taking any time off work to hang with your kids over the holidays? Assuming they are off school-- maybe plan (if you can) a fun dad day just for them. Day trip or take a night in a hotel. Maybe let them each plan some part of it. I don't know how that will all work with your custody situation and the fact that your wife doesn't work, but maybe you can ask for an extra day during the week (she may appreciate the opportunity to do her own Christmas shopping and such) or, just plan on one of the days you do have them. Your head is full of negative future thinking right now, thinking about what if you do X and what if she does Y... lots of worrying about things you don't have a lot of control over, like her actions. Take all that future planning energy and put it into something positive and under your own control.

-- Are there workbooks or anything like that in your state that you can fill out together to see what the post-D financial picture will look like? That could be something you suggest in front of the mediator-- and also the mediator should know just like an L should know the law in terms of how post-D finances work out. I would guess that any D mediator has been through this before and has seen it all. He or she should be able to steer you and your W through her freak-out when she starts to understand that she is living in fantasy land. And/or, you could say in your upcoming meeting that you've started to look into the financial picture of what legal S or D might look like under your state's D laws... you could or could not say something like "it might not be a bad idea for you to do the same" but even if you don't say that, she might be clued in to take a look.

A good friend was D in CA with a lot of complicated assets in different states. Splitting that all up was incredibly complicated and there was spousal support in the picture as well. She retained an L for consulting even though they went through the mediation process.