Detaching & setting boundaries w/ clingy boomerang

[DnJ]

Good Morning MG

Please don’t tangle/confuse selfish with self care. It’s ok to look after you too! (((Hugs))) And yes, it gets easier.

H reached out this morning and requested that we talk in response to an email from D about college pymt coming due. D took the bull by its horns despite me recommending that I handle it. For her own health, I let D know that if H doesn't make good on the payment that I would fund it so she didn't get any more anxiety and lose sleep. Be honest with me, am I compromising D and/or D and H relationship by her being involved?

You are doing fine. I agree letting daughter know she is ok for tuition, and that you’ll cover Dad’s portion if necessary.

The ideal is “this problem is between Dad and I, and not about you two kids”. Unfortunately, crisis folks are so consumed and running that kids, especially adult kids, the relationship between them and their parent gets strained. Missed appointments, birthdays, graduations, convocations, fighting about and at weddings and socials, threats, trying to force the other man/woman into the kids’ lives, not keeping their financial obligations, and so on.

Mlcers blow up their life and cause a heck of a lot of collateral damage. Sadly, they continue along their destructive path and mow down anyone and anything that gets in their way or doesn’t go along with their narrative. It’s surprising how quickly nonconforming kids, family, and friends are tossed aside.

D and H’s relationship is theirs. If they do not find a way, then there will be no way. It’s not for you to facilitate it or mend it, just not to destroy it.

I ended up responding with a confirmation that I rec'd a similar message from D and I that I would pay my half of the fall semester to her. Short and factual. I didn't inquire about what H is doing or how H will fund.

Perfect!

What do you mean by the sentence about leaving heavy lifting to H?

Heavy lifting refers specifically to formal seperation/divorce proceedings/agreements/arrangements.

Most LBS feel against seeing a lawyer. It’s pretty standard that we don’t want to push for a divorce; one of the reason we likely found this place.

So, advice is to seek legal counsel - just for information. To learn one’s rights, obligations, likely outcome, worst/best outcomes, processes/procedures if/when things turn, etc. Knowledge is power. And being fore warned or fore knowing is to be fore armed.

It’s about learning, and of course rationalizing, which helps with detaching. Just gathering information while leaving the heavy-lifting to the spouse who wants out.

However, and this is a big however, if (when?) one needs financial protection or security - get it!

I’ve seen many people go too long to their financial detriment. There is a business side of this mess we didn’t want to be dragged in to.

Your low energy wallower is likely to continue wallowing in his pit of misery. Confusion and depression twisting him about. He’ll flake on his obligations. Maybe even purposefully.

How high is the risk of H dipping in to nest egg accounts and going on some spending spree? Likely low. Yet, some do. There are situations where funds are just gone! Frittered away. On all kinds of stuff in their futile effort to feel younger/better. Cars, motorcycles, drink, drugs, clothes, trips, illegal/illicit behaviours, and so on. Do keep tabs on your accounts and be fore-armed to know what you can legally do, quickly do, if things turn sideways.

My XW was/is a high energy vanisher. There was no mistaking, she was on a rampage. She pushed for a seperation. She even demanded she get charged with adultery (although in the revised agreement I had my lawyer remove that clause, and XW didn’t notice. Boy was she mad.) We were separated/divorced in 60 days! And she had surgery during that time. Which she didn’t listen to the doctor’s recovery instructions and had to have another three weeks of rest. She pushed her seperation agreement and got it done. Against her own lawyer’s advice. He made her see two financial planner and a psychiatrist. He even had her sign a waiver that stated she was going against his legal advice.

Regardless of type, low or high energy, clinger or vanisher, the overall crisis is slow. Very very slow! Any type may push/force a divorce or drag their feet. As the LBS, we just don’t put boulders in their path, yet not pave it in gold either. Leave the heavy lifting to them.

In my case, XW definitely was all over the heavy lifting. In your case, I can see H dragging his feet. Lots do that.

So, the financial part. Do you, your kids, require financial security? From my vantage, yes. (I’m figuring H is the major breadwinner and neither of you are millionaires.) In mere weeks that joint account will be depleted. H is not keeping his “I promise to do” obligations. Again, lots do that. You require a court order and a court enforceable agreement in place.

It depends on your locale how far along the seperation/divorce road such an agreement has to go. Some jurisdictions don’t have legal separation only divorce, and others do. Some can have financial deals without any formal martial status alterations, other places won’t. It gets messy with joint ownership and assets. A lawyer knows what is and isn’t allowed, and what is usually best for you. After all, they are not emotionally invested, rationally looking at the facts - money and custody, and have expert knowledge of the legal system you are within.

Hope that makes sense. Leave whatever heavy lifting you can to H, yet get your financial security.

Definitely did a poor job of enforcing in May and an even worse job in October as I don't have the handshake documented at all. Other than a verbal commitment, I do have bank stmts that support the activity.

It’s fine. Make it better going forward.

Take your statements with you to the lawyer, along with a list of questions you have. (Maybe a few starting ones: Can I move half of the funds from joint accounts to my own accounts? Am I liable for debts H incurs going forward if we don’t change martial status? Can I change the locks? Is H considered to have moved out and not living here? Tax implications as well. Not his primary address?) Write them down by the way. We forget those questions once we are seated across from the L and information starts pouring in.

Yes, I still wonder what H's thoughts, reactions, feelings are in response to my numerous 180s.

Perfectly normal to wonder.

MLCers do watch. However, H is on his wild ride, and on his timeline. It moves glacially slow and has little to nothing to do with you.

Just ensure your 180s are for you. That way, those changes will become permanent. MamaG2.0. Best version of you!

D