Thanks for checking in DS9. My court date is tomorrow and we do not have a final agreement yet. My L says at this point we are probably not going to get things finalized until after the holidays. He says we are just going to notify the judge that we are still working on it and we will get another court date in a few months. He thinks we can finalize a deal before then and file the papers with the court and not have to show up again - in an ideal world....we'll see. W's turnaround time has been very slow.
This may sound hard to believe but i'm really not nervous or concerned about the court stuff. Between my L and several friends who went through D's, I feel like I know what a judge would order if W doesn't agree to terms. There are no issues with abuse or parenting abilities or finances or anything, it is very straightforward so it should be easy for the judge. We already have a 50/50 custody agreement signed. All that's left are some specifics about certain holidays and school breaks and a few other things like introducing kids to new partners.
High anxiety often leads to behavior that is very destructive to a R - controlling, criticizing, nasty comments, aggression and anger, the list goes on. There is a guy who has a series of 4 or 5 youtube vids discussing an "anxious wife" that are really good. One of them nailed my W and my M perfectly, it was uncanny. I don't think i'm allowed to mention the guy's name here but maybe you can find the vids, they are a pretty good and would probably resonate with you. While I have enjoyed them and they have really helped in doing a post-mortem on my M. Most of us will have to deal with anxiety in a partner from time to time, but I will never EVER get linked up with a high-strung woman again, it is too much of a grind over the long haul.
As for dating all I can say is that I still feel ready but again that has not translated into action yet. I had a conversation with a female friend of mine about how most quality women are probably very wary of a guy who isn't even technically divorced yet. The fact that BD was over a year ago doesn't matter so much. They will have questions in their mind about it being too soon, about lingering feelings, about possible recon, etc. I said to my friend that if she were interested in a guy who had only been physically separated from his W for 4 months and he was still M'd, I would probably tell her to hold off until the D was done. So there's that perspective. I'm not going to overanalyze things though. I'm cool with where i'm at because I know it's going to be game on in the not-to-distant future.
