All right, Matt! So glad to hear the PMA! So sweet to for d14 to text you. I'm sure she wants to see you doing well and happy. Whew... keep moving in that direction, Matt. It's about YOU right now.
Thanks Heather, T2 and Mighty, I'm so looking forward to getting my financial life in order so I can get everything else moving forward. It's just so hard when you don't have any money to do much of anything. It's also had me in a state of anxiety about whether I'll be able to pay my basic bills! Added to the other stresses in my life it can really get overwhelming. Thank goodness for all my friends on the forum!
Hi Whytry, When you say central TX, do mean Austin? I live in a college town between Austin and San Antonio on I-35 (Hope that helps you know what town I'm talking about...hint, hint). I have worked in both Austin and now in San Antonio. While San Antonio is just a bit farther, with the awful Austin traffic it is easier and faster to get around. So, if the town is Austin, let me know what the company is, please. Thanks!
No sorry Matt about 2-1/2 hrs North of Austin
W-37 Me-37 M-16yrs & 5days W "Done" Day = Valentine Day 2014 D-8/13/2014 S16 S13 S11 D8
Well, seems like every time something good happens in my life, stbxw can find a way to knock me back into reality!
Got a call from my lawyer and looks like my D may be final just in time for the holidays! Seems that my w's lawyer and her want to meet with me and my lawyer and "hash something out". I'm trying to figure a way to get enough money together to pay for the course I would need to get new job, find the time to go meet with the staff at the place I interviewed yesterday and the woman from my lawyers office wants to get the meeting in next week as they are in a hurry (I suppose because the holidays are coming up and they will be off all week of TG). All I wanted to think about this weekend was trying to come up with enough money to live until I can start a new job, keep looking for other places to interview, try the Uber thing and now I have to deal with this.
Of course, the finality isn't making me happy either. I suppose that there was a small part of me, deep down inside that still clung to the hope that she wouldn't take this all the way. The reality is I knew as long as she had her father pushing her, she wouldn't ever stop until it was final. I don't do well with the talking about the in's and out's of who gets what, visitation, holidays and who gets D14, who pays for what, etc. with W there. It's so upsetting when I look at her and see how selfish she has become. It's goes so against my ingrained feelings of needing to "protect" her, to stop the pain when she is hurting to try and "fight" her for something.
I'm going to be really honest here, I still love my W. I hate the things she has done over the time of her MLC but I still love her. I still see the woman who gave birth to my D's, the one that was my best friend for so very long, the one I gave up everything for to move 1600 miles away from my family and friends for because I knew we would be together forever. The one who I was so worried and scared for when she was depressed.
I would rather wait until I at least had a new job before facing this. I am already so much just hanging on by a thread, I'm not sure about facing this as well! If I had my life a little more under control, at least knew I was going to be offered this new job, it would help me. In the state I'm in right now, I'm not sure how I will do in a "negotiation" on what will boil down to whether I get to stay in the house or not, what I'm willing to give up to make that happen. I'm sure she will talk about how she is paying for health insurance for D14 and D19, how she has put more money into D14's lunch account and in a way she is right but I just don't have the money! I'm trying to change that and to be honest it didn't help that she left me with $1,000 negative bal. in checking accounts because she didn't tell me she stopped putting her check in and I was still paying the bills thinking she did. That she left with only paying a couple of the bills before she left. The money I have made would have gone a lot farther if she hadn't done that! But once she knew she was leaving she figured she didn't "need' to pay the bills for the household she was leaving, even if they were from from when she lived there! MLC entitlement at it's finest.
Should I talk to my lawyer and tell him I would rather delay this until I find out about the job? I think he is wanting to get my case over with as he is on a flat fee and he isn't going to make more by delaying but at the same time, he does work for me. I honestly believe that I would do better if I knew I had this new job and knew I would be able to take care of things. I don't know. Anyone have any thoughts please let me know what you think. Thanks!
Hey everyone, Really looking for some input on this one. I am just so over whelmed right now. I had hoped to just try and deal with job sitch and making some money this weekend and now I can't stop going over what I'm going to say in this "meeting", let alone when the heck I'm supposed to have it. I really have a full plate next week with trying to find a way to get my D14 to school, get to meet with the staff at the place that may want to hire me and now I find out we may be losing the office as the money guy hasn't been paying the rent on time either! I had to pack all my personal stuff today before I left. Only good thing about that is I would need to do that anyway if I get this new job. May need to move everything to a new office and all this at the same time we just put a new well on line and I need to get with my clients to update them and try to make a sale at the same time (best chance I've had to make money in months!) and now all I can think of is this stupid lawyer meeting! Not only that, I should be out trying to do the Uber thing but now I just feel like curling in a ball and doing nothing. I'm spent. I've had it! Every dang time I've started to feel better, take a step forward, stbxw kicks me back down a notch! It's almost like she knows!
I agree T2, Of all the weeks to pick to push for a meeting that has no "real" urgency, this is about the worst. Before I got that call I was trying figure out a way to get all of what I need to do done AND still try and find time to send out more resumes and make sure I have enough to pay for the course and enough to pay for gas getting my D14 to and from school not to mention paying for food while she is here.
I have a feeling this is about the fact that my lawyer asked me to put together a list of the assets and liabilities that my W and myself brought into the M. I brought in about $50,000 in assets and no liabilities while my W had over $35,000 in student loan debt and very little in assets (about $1,000). According to my lawyer, I have a right to recoup this money now that my W wants to end the M. We (mostly I since W didn't work most of the M) paid all but $1600 of that debt over the years and the $50,000 was in a retirement I cashed in just weeks before my W bombed me. I cashed it in after she told me she had zero thoughts of ever leaving the M, we were going to grow old together, etc. 12 weeks later was B-day. (When I asked her about why she would say this she said she had "changed her mind" in that amount of time and that she "can't help" that she no longer felt that way. Typical MLC as later she would say she had felt like she didn't love me for "years". Which was it? Only she can make sense of those statements!).
Now I also can't be sure about the office either. I still have an opportunity to make some money before I leave this job and this week is the BEST time as now that we put our last well on line and it's making money for my clients, it's the perfect time to sell more! These times are very few in my line of work and I need to be thinking about that, not more D bulls#it! At the same time I need to make time to meet the staff at the place I think I will be offered a job. It's like I'm running out of time and the world is conspiring to just make everything harder! It would have been enough to hear an hour before closing time that we may not have an office on Monday morning and it's best to take my personal stuff home for now. That was stressful enough! Add all the rest (and the fact that I can't let the place I work now know I'm thinking of leaving so I can have a chance to make some money and they don't just push me out before I have a chance to sell my clients) and I'm feeling very stressed!
I need to tell my lawyer that next week is just not going to work. I just can't do all I need to do and have that meeting at the same time. I would need to prepare for the meeting, decide what I'm willing to give up and what I won't, getting the paperwork together to prove out the numbers, not to mention the stress it will cause me facing down my W and her lawyer! I'm already stressing that I will be needing to drive 120 extra miles every day when I have my D14 with me to get her to school and back and add to that the 30 miles each way to and from work and that's a heck of a gas bill and wear on my car, not to mention the extra time before I can get her from school. So much to handle I really don't need more right now.
I will make a list of what is the most important things that NEED to be done and go down in order. I will say this, what my W wants isn't my top priority for sure. She wants to get the D over with fine. But I will not let that get in the way of what I MUST do if I want my life to work and this new job has to be my my first priority (other than my D14 of course).
Thanks T2, I forced myself to get a huge thing done today. I had to pretty much detail the inside of my car before I could drive for Uber. It was a huge job as with the kids and all the driving I do (104 miles a day at least), it was in bad shape. It took me several hours but I got it done! Now I need to get my butt out on the road and try and make some money! It's 6:00 here and I figure I can get to the city in about 40 min. and hit the "going out clubbing" people around 8:00. I'll have to depend on GPS as I don't know the area well but I can do it.
While I was out cleaning my car, my W texted me one line..."Can you bring my student loan info with you when you pick up D14 tomorrow". Seems I was right about the fact that the info I sent my lawyer is why they are wanting to have a "hash things out" meeting. Thing is I don't have a lot of info. I only was able to put together an approximate number based on the small amount of info I have. She took all her files when she left so she should have more info than me! Plus, I would feel better if I asked my lawyer if I should give her any info I have. Let her do her own homework! I haven't responded yet. I just saw the text. I will need to get copies of everything before I give her any info and for that I will need to go out and get copies made since my printer isn't working.
I have noticed that this stress has really brought out some feelings that I thought I had under control. Feelings about how my W picked leaving when I needed her and her income more than ever before. Feelings about how she said for so many years that she wouldn't ever get a D, would never put her kids through that pain, all the way up to 12 weeks before b-day! How she has involved her father knowing how he screwed her mother in their D and letting him take the lead. How, even after b-day every time we talked and agreed to do something a certain way, she would talk to her father and a week later "change her mind". All the anger is back on the surface. I'm also angry at myself for letting her do things like put D14 into the school near her instead of one closer to me. I kept trying to be "reasonable", trying to cooperate and all that accomplished was giving her her way and making my life harder.
Should I give her the student loan info that I have? I won't be able to get in touch with my lawyer before I have to meet her since it's the weekend and she will get the info sooner or later anyway. Man, I just don't need to be worrying about this right now!
