My sitch was interesting again today. No movement. of course, but at least NO negative movement occured. I suppose I could count the holding pattern as a positive, couldn't I?
Today, W again asked me to dao some favors for her. I did some and said no to some. I am making progress on this front, even if I am the only one who notices my baby steps. Around 4:30 PM, W called and sounded stern. She wanted to discuss 'some things' with me. I began by just listening. The topics were, as follows: 1. W tells me that since I try to pass myself off as the PRIMARY caretaker of our children, that I need to get a sitter for our children b/c TONIGHT at 7 is D6's back to school night. I told her that I sensed her vindictiveness in that commnent and didn't appreciat it. I also said I would try, and asked for her cooperation in NOT waiting 'til 1.5 hours before events like this to let me know about them. She said she would work on it. I said thank you.
2. She then moves onto the next point which is that I always try to control her and that she didn't appreciate it that I was withholding information from her about our children. My first reaction was, What the F*ck?!?! That thought didn't leave my lips, but I did ask her why she felt that way? I finally got anwers from her about trying to control her and withholding info from her about our children.
She gave me the example of wanting to go with her to pick out our D6's Bday cake. I told her that I am simply trying to be involved in our D's life and when I saw that getting W to commit to 10-15 minutes to meet me to pick out a cake together (and I was the one who was going out of my way to make it convenient for her), I told her that I didn't want to add any stress to her day/life and, if it would be easier for her, to go aghead and do it alone. Her response was that, well, you finally gave in. I asked her to please not minimize my act of kindness to back off to reduce her stress. What a controlling b*st*rd I am, huh? How dare I want to paricipate in picking out our D's Bday cake. Sheesh.!! Every dad should be much more uninvolved in their childrens' lives to minimize the stress on the W. NOT.
3. Next was the issue of my D's homework. I took D home on T night and we did her homework. I explained to D that all of the homework needed to go to school with her b/c she has 2 homes now and mommy would help her with her other homework. I put all the homework in folder and put the folders in her backpack. D had a tizzy and took out the folders and handed me a folder. I didn't look inside the folder because we were on our way to take her to shool and assumed (wrongl) that she hadn't switched the contents of the folders. On Wednesday, W asked me about the homework and I told W that the only papers I kept were papers that were already graded by the teacher with a 'star' or a 'plus' sign. I told my W that I sent eVERYTHING with D6 to school in her backpack. My W didn't beliveve me.
Anyway, after my Taekwondo class, I opened the folder that I believed to be empty and it had the documents that my W was looking for. I immediately called W and told her what I found and how it happened. I said I would bring the papers right over but she said just bring it to work.
THEN, she hits me with this sh*t today, that she believed that I purposely didn't give her D6's paperwork to make her look bad. Part of the reason she felt this way was b/c some of the papers I had filled out the same evening I watched our D complete her homework. I told my W again what happened and she just argued that she didn't believe me. I asked her if we could at least agree that she wasn't at my place and didn't KNOW what happened. She agreed. I then re-iterated that I watched D do homework on T evening and filled out the papers that needed to be filled out that W was harping on me about. I then packed everything up and D unpacked the backpack in the morning and gave me a folder that I did not open at that time b/c we were in a hurry to get out the door and I didn't see any contents in the folder.
I told my W, you often tell me you know me 'in some ways' so well. I told her you know me well enough to know that I would not use our children to make you look bad. She finally relented and let that go.
4. W tells me that the swim instructor who gives our son his swim lessons is a nanny and would work at W's house AND clean the house while watching our son and an 18 mo old. My W askes me what I think of that scenario and I tell her that I will keep my comments to myself. She keeps after me to tell her my thoughts, so I do. I tell her that THAT is a horrible idea. I tell her that that daycare is the same one that our firstborn went to for 4+ years and she is doing extremely well and I am comfortable with that setup and preschool. W then goes into all of the reasons that she believes it is a great idea and I stop my W and ask her if she called me to have a discussion or if she simply called me to inform me of her new unilateral decision and I was just supposed to live with it. She said that she called to discuss it, but we didn't finish the discussion of this topic because she brought up topic #2.
My issue is that I believe that the best place for our S is to be with his mommy during the day, but since W won't relent and give us the opportunity to reconcile, I believe that the daycare is the best place, where he can interact with LOTS of children his own age and not in the care of this woman who I don't paritcularly care for. W then tells me that she has a problem wtih the daycare. I tell her that that is the first I have heard of that. she says no it isn't. I told her just because you have shared this info with your GFs, does not mean you have shared it with me. THAT sunk in apparently. She relented.
5. The amount I give her for child support she suddenly feels is woefully inadequate. Mind you, this amoutn just changed and I didn't pull this $$$ amount out of my a$$. The child support calculators abound on the internet and I had previously told her that I was trying to figure out what would be a fair and equitable amout to pay for child support. I posted this long saga previously. Anyway, the figure came out that SHE owes ME almosst $200/ mo in child support. I agreed that I would pay for 1/2 of S1's daycare expense or $440/mo. Yes, that is a $560 reduction in my payments per month to her, BUT it is also a $630 swing in her favor to go from paying me $190 to me paying her $440.
She then goes in to how much he expense are compared to mine. I again tell her that I would gladly switch places with her and stay in the house with our children. She says it's unfair. I ask her, am I living in the house? She tells me she isn't going to answer that question. I ask her, whose decicion is that (I'm not)? She says it was my decision. I corrected her. I told her NO, it's your decision. Yes, it was my decision to have an affair (as short-lived and stupid as it was) and I have atoned for my mistake and tried to make amends for screwing up. I have to live with that decision every day. I went on awhile about how awful I feel about my mistake and how awful I feel about the impact of my mistake on her and our family. Again, this is something I have to live with everyday and I cannot undo it.
W then goes into more about my expenses versus her expenses and tells me that she is just scraping by. I explain that child support is not based on expenses it is simply a mattter of income, % of time caring for the children and # of children. I then tell her, please tell me what it is that you want from me. She says you are ripping me off. I ask her how? I chronicle the fact that I gave her 100% of my pay for 2-1/2 months and then $1000/ month for the next 3 months and only in the last pay period did we change THAT setup. W then proceeds to tell me that I pulled the $$$ numbers for child support out of my a$$. I tell her that I would support her going onto the internet, NOT to the women she has been getting riled up by/with, find whatever documentation she can to support her position and to tell me she wants to review the #'s with me because MY numbers are wrong. I can always tell when she has run into another of her man-hater GFs, b/c one of these tirades always follows about how unfair I am.
THIS did not sit well with her. She snaps back, oh, now I need to go and research this sh*t on the internet? I answer by asking, what is it that you used to support your position that I am so wrong? Of course, no answer. She is often the queen of the baseless accusation when talking about me. Geez, her own sister told her that she was ripping me off at $1000 per month for child support.
To make matters worst, she contends that I didn't take into accout that she is with our children in the PM T-F. I tell her that her supposition is incorrect; that I did take that into account, and in fact I credited her an extra 1% credit for caring for our children when they are in school/daycare. I told her that I calculated it hour by hour and that it is accurate.
Next, I stepped on her toes. I told her that it is not my fault that she has so many obligations that take her away from our children on HER time to be with them. She then counters with, well, I was a stay at home mom and you sere supporting us alone. This is partially true.
She had maternity leave and Paid Family Medical Leeave AND refused to change her spending habits. This was after months of pleading with her to stop her spending because her $$$ ws coming to an end. She simply said she'd go back to work rather than reign in her spending habits. She also said that she ahd gotten used to a certain standard of living with me and that was my fault also. Heck, the majority of our marriage she made a LOT more $$$ than I, and now she's blaming me for more stuff over which I don't have any control over. This point fizzled also b/c she kept needing to answer other calls.
6. She called back again, and at this point, I asked her, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said why? I said, I'll ask you again, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said NO. I said, let me tell you and proceeded to tell her for over 10 minutes all of the reasons I hold out hope our reconciliateion. Never once did she interrupt me nor rebuff me. She just listened. I reminded her that she has NEVER given me ANY reason to hold out hope for our reconciliation, I simply did it because I believed doing so was the right thing to do.
Later in the evening I asked her if she had finished our conversation from earlier in the evening and she said she was too stressed to think about it, that she was much busier than I thought she was and then said yes, she had finished it. I told her that I had not finished it and unless SHE initiated the conversation about it again I would assume she was done and leave it at that.
She later text msgd me to apologize for being on the warpath about her house being a mess because D6 made a mess in the house and the babysitter and 2 of her family members were over W's house not paying attn to D6 making a mess. I made macaroni and cheese and was treated to the warpath b/c I was there. Nice.
Anyway, who knows what she is up to at this point. For all I know she is back in touch with OM for another round of disrespecting and emotional abuse. As my good friend said, I am probably extremey untrusting of her at this point after all of her behavior over the past 6 months and I AM!
Oh, what to do? My one question to her that I meant to ask her after I explained why I hold our hope for our reconciliation was, "What do I need to do to move our R in a positive direction instead of towards a divorce? Unfortunately, that question was never asked and I don't know when, if ever, I will have the opportunity to ask it.
