IW ~ Thanks for chiming in. You touched upon a lot of things I am striving for.
There is so much going on with my situation - custody, the house, support, finances - but I prefer to leave most of that out of my posts. It is a frustrating mess, but I feel good that I am taking non-emotional steps.
Unfortunately 3 months in we have almost zero agreement on any item. My W wants to grant me another weekend each month, but keep S8 at her house while I have the girls, and I want more involvement during the weekdays (school, activity, etc.). She wants to defer final parenting decisions down the road, with the advice of evaluators and therapists. After how things developed the past year, I don't trust her to ever truly be open to a more balanced parenting arrangement. I understand that the erosion of trust between parents can have awful consequences for the children. But it is what it is... I need a clear custody arrangement that gets us headed to 50-50.
My W does refer to the letters. She mentions how S8 is having difficulty adjusting, and claims he's scared of me. I know that custody evaluators see this sort of thing all the time. I know without a long-term custody plan spelled out up front, she will never grant me more time in the future.
Regarding the house, my income is short several thousand dollars per month to pay for everything. The mortgage on the marital home is larger than the maximum support I would ever have to pay. Each month this delays I am depleting everything that we worked for, my future, and the kids' future. We had agreed to sell the home 2 months ago, and now she wants to visit a complicated buy-out even though she doesn't have cash to do so. The clock is ticking and nothing is really resolving.
I hope we can co-parent well in the future. It is going to be difficult with her "safety concerns" constantly in the way of us effectively communicating. Hopefully at some point she relaxes. Maybe we could mediate and work through this. It would probably take at least a year. MC2 last year (for 6 months) resulted in no substantial changes. Or... I can go the legal route, establish custody, extract myself from this financial morass (to a degree). It will add to the rancor and discord between STBXW and me. It is probably worse for our kids. It's not necessarily going to make me any happier. It's not entirely within my control whether she wants to be reasonable. Unfortunately, if she's not willing to compromise in mediation, then I'm really forced to choose the legal options. I'm comfortable with this. I've been tormented about it for months now, but I have come to peace the last month.
I took a co-parenting class this winter on my own initiative, and also have read 2 books thus far. I am ready and willing to make this work with STBXW. Unfortunately, we may be on the parallel parenting track for awhile. I am informed enough to know what works with co-parenting, and trying to do my part, but realistically STBXW and I are going to need a trained counselor to help us out.
Unfortunately, STBXW has been digging in her heels on custody, clearly does not see my involvement in the kids' weekday lives as valuable (or wants to postpone the decision - which, c'mon, how many times has a father signed up to postpone custody and then actually gotten it?), to the point I am left with almost no options except one. She sells the mediator that we can work this out in the future, and I don't believe we can. It's the same sad story that plays out in a lot of high conflict divorces and other than backing down, I see no way at this point except to use the legal machinery available. It's disappointing, but hey... I'm not going to let my disappointment stop me from doing what I think is right and in accordance with my values.
