A peaceful life

[Livnlearn]

Sorry, LNL, he's right here. If you are taking D with you, he has a right to know. Just tell him "sorry, I couldn't make these plans until you had decided when you were taking D, next time I will inform you as soon as I make my travel arrangements".

Ellie, I couldn't make my plans until he told me when he wanted D for sure. I first asked him early April. The Agreement says the parent who has priority that year has to decide and inform the other parent by the end of April. This way one can make plans as the holdiays start at the end of the first week of June. Summer is the peak season, and I am paying lots of extra money for my tickets as they were booked late. H only gave me his answer on the 27th of May, after I reminded him many times, and he finally emailed me "...I already told you" which was a blatant lie. But I have come to expect this. I am realising just how this thing works, which is that he can lie, "forget" or make up stuff any time he wants, and if he is aggressive enough about it, I will back off (he thinks) and not challenge him. Do you think if he had really told me his dates, I wouldn't have gone straight out to make my bookings?

I let him know our plans to visit my family as soon as I bought the tickets (within three days), on 14th June. I had already told H weeks ago it would be in July, but something came up for me, workwise, in the other country, so we are leaving a week or ten days earlier, on June 24, so I can get to it.

You know that H is free to travel at any time he likes, and he doesn't have to clear it with me, he merely informs me. Whereas if I wish to travel (more than a few days) on my own, I can ONLY do it while he has D during his one month of summer visitation. So it is critical that I know well in advance the dates available to me. He knows this prefectly well, and uses it to jerk me around.

As it happens, I have booked a flight to my country of origin for August, and will be working flat out on my project, the nature of which you are aware of.

I don't think H likes the fact that I can do this either. He always talks about having been behind me, but his resentment is HUGE. I have got a literary agent interested in my work, and have set up some work appointments in the country of my family too. So it isn't all just HOLIDAY, the word which he LOVES to use. But you now what? This work is stuff that has to be self initiated. It is a labour of love, and hasn't been commissioned by anyone. I had the idea and started it. Like IOVVA wrote her book and has just got publishers interested in it. I started this project way back in the late 90s. The last two years it has been on the back burner due to my being an emotional basketcase or not having the opportunity to work on my own, without D in tow. The work requires extensive travel. My H leaving has well and truly grounded me.

H took up the same profession as me in the late 90s and has since discarded it as "boring". Typical narcissist trait, it seems. Easily bored. And another thing, when he first took up this interest, it was subsidised almost fully from my money/work, for about 17 months worth of travel. Yes, you read that correctly. But remember, I didn't do ANYTHING in this marriage. We were staying with MY friends and relatives in my country of origin. Spending MY money.

All this stuff is so much water under the bridge, I wouldn't think of bringing it up here if it wasn't for H constatnly going on about how I contributed nothing to this marriage and trying to get out of any responsibility now.

Stuff like this - bills that you have to pay - need to be set up so you don't have to go through your H - also so you don't have to rely on him.

It's only in this blessed country that one can receive a tax demand without the amount due specified!

I will find out how to get the info in the coming years without going through H's accountant.

H likely doesn't want to face them, and who could blame him? And H's fears that you might keep D from him are very common in this sitch - WASs often start to think the LBS may be capable of the kinds of things the WAS has been doing. (And, to be truthful, in your particular sitch, it has crossed your mind to move, which would limit him seeing his D).

Ellie, the very first thing H said to me after the bomb was, you take the house, sell it and when you go to other country you can send D out to me here a couple of months a year. (He was proposing to put a seven year old on a plane, unaccompanied - little did he know or care that low cost flights don't take unaccompanied children, and he would have blanched at the price of scheduled flight prices in our part of the world.) Not only was he expecting me to do that, but almost suggesting it. How damn convenient! I just quietly slip out of the picture, and he can then parade around with OW1, former friend of mine!

That way, he would lose all the equity, but he could perhaps shack up with OW1, keep all his earnings for himself, and see D a couple of times on holiday. Voilà - no responsibility, no getting stupid lawyers involved, and free at last! He actually told my own friend in my country of origin that he was free at last! That's how sensitive he is. All this, while I was in hospital with D who had two operations for a broken elbow.

It gets right up his nose that not only do I get to use the house, but he has part of his income going on maintenance, so he can't live the life of Riley. He is not so FREE. What decent parent can think like that?

Livnlearn