Today's convo: * She asked if I could pick one of the kids up tonight and I said I couldn't as I have a therapy class that I signed up for. * She asked if the additional money I gave was for gymnastics and if I would give more. I said that I would kick in a little more as she is moving this month. I think we do have to agree to pay our respective halfs to the gym, as per AS previous suggestion. * She then proceeded to unload every kid expense incurred over the past month saying it was killing her. I told her it sounded like she was overwhelmed. She said I had no idea how hard it is for her to keep it together financially.
I then stated: if we'd split the kids up, I could shoulder more of these expenses. i mentioned if she'd going to work nights, that I want the kids to stay w me then. It dawned on me - what if I was a jerk and said, "if i don't get 50% custody, then you are on your own to run them around. I just get supervised visits" <-- I didn't say that, but I sure thought about doing so.
She replies "you buy and do whatever you want and I get to take [so and so out] on dates. I replied, "none of that is true. I am currently supporting 2 households". I wasn't going to say that [so and so] and I split up a month ago.
She states I've never appreciated what she does for the kids. I replied: I always have, but maybe not the clearest way you'd see it.
She states "...but not enough to take the financial burden off me when it would be so easy for you to do so. You have no idea how hard this is" I replied "I can see this is extremely challenging to hold things together".
It's pretty clear to me - her keeping the kids means 1) inflicting pain on me by barring me from them and 2) more support $$$.
She has to realize - divorce doesn't mean that you have to finance your former spouse and make sure she has her complete married lifestyle. You wanted to be independent? WELL, HERE YOU GO.
