Well - mediation was better than I thought. She's saddened by the fact she has no money and is leaving our old neighborhood. She stated the kids weren't sure if they'd have snacks at mom's new place and that triggered some tears. She asked for full custody and I said 50/50. After a few rounds of back and forth, the mediator said we were looking at an autumn court date for child custody. After some more discussion, we agreed to try a 75/25 split starting next week to see how it goes. If it works - we will go to 50/50, and if not, we will keep it 75/25. Either way, we avoid lawyers and courts for now and I get to see my kiddos more. Either one of us can stop the mediation process and trigger a custody court date to be scheduled. The mediator actually said we seemed like 2 great parents and she was sorry to see us splitting up.
I did mention once to my WAS that, although, she is leaving, this is what she wanted! In so many words, she said, this is what I felt compelled to do out of years of frustration. It didn't happen overnight. I told her I understood she was upset for a long time.
We left the session and hugged for about 2 mins. It was just an intense session.
We did walk to our cars together and she stated she did notice i was a much more hands on dad. I caved a bit and stated "rather than gove our money to the courts and lawyers, why don't we try to get expert help somewhere and just see if things can be fixed? If things can't be fixed, at least we know." She got really quiet and said she was thinking about that too. I said - just a thought, thanks for being collaborative today.
