Wow! Does your mojo protect you from waterboarding too? Just amazing how you withstood that tantrum.
Yes, the WAS have a plan and a vision. Don't wreck it by getting a life or standing up for yourself or anything like that. No sirree!
Ok, enough sarcasm. But we've read (and lived with) the script. Our GAL has "artistic differences" with their writer.
Hold fast.
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
I am amazed at the ostrich mentality of your wife going into this. Did she not consult a lawyer herself before now? didn't she hear the same thing? Is this really news? And if it is news, then does it make her want to rethink her choice? Cuz it seems like she really just wants to unleash her very ugly anger on you. No, you have no incentive to protect her from what is considered fair in the world. You don't have to make her life perfect. And it seems that you are doing just fine.
@Sara wrote, "I am amazed at the ostrich mentality of your wife going into this."
Man, that gets the DB pulitzer for best metaphor. That is it to a Tee. She recognizes it, too. I asked her about that once and she said "There's a lot I would have done differently since February if I'd known what it would be like."
Now mind you, her "plan" -- and the air quotes are deliberate -- was to keep the D secret in her mind while pursuing Signore Schmuckatelli, and I finished my (now 5 months behind schedule) book. [Person, you're mind-reading! No -- that's what she told me.]
Her friends -- including 2 who were in our wedding party (nice) -- would know. A couple co-workers -- both of whom regularly saw me (nice) -- would know. (About the D and Signore Schmuckatelli.) She would know.
Of course, I wouldn't know.
She doesn't get how that hurts, either, incidentally. How the idea that she'd let me be ignorant, thinking I was married, would be hurtful to a person -- let alone this Person.
So given that "plan" -- which really wasn't much of a plan, really -- she presumably would have figured out the nit-noid details. But that IS mind-reading, because who knows?
"Ostrich mentality." More common than not, I'd think.
So here's a tip from Smiley's Person for both LBS and WAS, with respect to the money. This might be unique to Coastal State, but it doesn't sound like it.
For a while now, WAW has been saying that, after she moves out, it will be okay for us to "not rush" the D. "What's the rush? Why hurry?"
[I'm not accusing WAW in what follows of nefarious intent -- as one can gather from the past 2 days, thorough planning is apparently not her strong suit -- it just came up in the convo with Mojo Lawyer.]
Now this notion, "let's not rush," can sound very appealing to DB'ing LBS. Great! I get time to DB! I get time to chase the snakes out of my brain!
But it's dangerous for LBS in legal terms, as I understand it. Here's why (and this is why it's a tip to both WAS and LBS, depending on who is the higher-earner):
Courts are actually reluctant to intervene in marriages and divorces, @fb2's experiences and anger to the contrary notwithstanding. As Mojo Family Law Guy said yesterday, "You think judges don't want to go home and have dinner with their families?" So courts like the Status Quo. Whatever the SQ is.
So if WAS says, "let's not rush," and then pays LBS some amount of money -- pays the bills, for example -- AND if that amount of money is less than LBS would get as alimony/spousal support and/or child support in a full, adjudicated divorce settlement (i.e., the state's defined minimum or "guideline"), the courts are likely to take that amount as the de facto agreed-upon alimony -- even though it's less than the "guideline" or state minimum -- once it's gone on for a certain (undefined) period of time.
In other words "let's not rush the D" can -- can -- be a strategic delaying tactic by the would-be alimony-payer. You think WAS (for example, though not always -- see @Thinker's thread, not that he'd do this) is being "cooperative" or "open," when in fact WAS (particularly if advised by counsel) is setting you up to get less than you are entitled to under the law.
----- Again, I'm not saying WAW is doing this, and in fact I don't think she is -- that would presume knowledge she has demonstrably not had. Would she have done that, had she known the facts?
Blechh. Much as it pains me to say it..... I don't know. I'm not confident she wouldn't have done. And man how it hurts to say that.
@Sara then wrote -- being a very smart @Sara indeed! -- "And if it is news, then does it make her want to rethink her choice?"
If it does, she's not indicated as such, in word or deed. (The moving boxes and suitcases piled high in the garage would tend to support that conclusion, IMO.)
@Coach wrote: "The ROE say you can't take out WAS. Just handle it the best you can right now."
That's right. I know that. And like I wrote, I might get plenty of revengy glee out of it -- when I write my divorce book, maybe I'll use my real name and not "Smiley's Person" as a pseud, LOL -- but it would do the girl-child and boy-child no good.
And what's good for the girl-child and the boy-child is my lighthouse these days -- it illuminates the Way I Must Roll.
S9 has started biting his nails. All of a sudden I'm constantly nagging him to get his fingers out of his mouth. It's a pacifier. A reaction to the stress he must be boiling over with inside.
Picked him up at day-camp yesterday, and he said, "Daddy, I don't know why, but I feel all teary."
D6 was sitting at the table, cutting out some pictures she'd drawn while I was cooking their dinner, and she said, "Lookit Daddy -- this is the doggie's new house." Pause. "But I don't like talking about that."
Fairness. Justice. Validate. Really hear. Chase the snakes out of the brain. Spew raincoat. What Would Jesus Do. Differentiated. Does this get me closer to my goal or farther away. Hold on to your N.U.T.S. Don't mind read. No control. Drop the rope. Judge not lest ye be judged.
For some of us, for the Heathenic among us perhaps, this is why the idea of sex during separation isn't an unappealing idea.
To have that human connection, even for a half-hour (yeah, right, keep dreaming, old boy! ), sure sounds good right about now, fleeting, transitory, and even meaningless though it might be. To just be wanted, regardless of the reason why, by another adult, for one day, instead of constantly picking at the scab of our rejection by Who We Thought Was The One. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, said the Dane.
No words of wisdom, just wanted to say your descriptions of what you are going through with your kids have made me redouble my efforts not to have to tell our kids the same if I can possibly help it.
I'm about to post a barn-burner, I'll take my godd*m mojo and football and go home.
SP - I say this was all good. You would be surprised how many times I've had to do this FOR ME when I was in a discussion with my H. The WA gets so caught up in THEMSELVES, THEIR feelings, what THEY want, that they stop seeing us as living, breathing, feeling people.
My H recently told me how much he respected me at the times I did this. Because DB by nature is easy going, validating, non-confrontational, whatever you want - THEY forget US. Yoo - hoo, remember me? A person you once loved enough to marry?
And this is necessary for US sometimes, because you can only let the rain roll off you for so long.
Now I might be wrong - and I am sure someone will tell me that - but we all need to dig deep and find our brass ones once in a while.
Me 45, H 46, S 23, M 26, Together 30, Bomb 6-2-08, S 6-19-08; H left 12-29-08. H home 12-09, Still MLC in 2012! Me- I have my big girl panties on. Bring it.
), sure sounds good right about now, fleeting, transitory, and even meaningless though it might be. To just be wanted, regardless of the reason why, by another adult, for one day, instead of constantly picking at the scab of our rejection by Who We Thought Was The One. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, said the Dane.