Divorced, Dating, and Parenting

[*KS*Chick*]

Hola Sol - glad to see you are doing ok. The single parenting thing is tough but you can do it. You will know when you are ready to date. No hurry.

[cat03]

[quote]was to get her a cell phone, and it's worked out great. I talk to my XW less this way! One of the biggest things that has worked for me was to not be involved with my X in any shape or form whatsoever.quote]
bingo!!!! great realization, will help you heal faster.

As for the phone, you buy her minutes..when the need arises, my 11yr old son loves to text me when he's away, it feels nice to hear from him like that.

[~Sol]

It's good to hear from all you guys!!! Miss ya! Yes it takes longer to heal, but taking it one day at a time. My daughter really is the one person in this life that is keeping me sane and focused. All I do now is for her, and I'm sure I'll know when I am truly ready to date for real. From time to time I do get those "lonely feelings" - I'm sure all can relate. Even so, I am working on getting my act together and pushing myself to be positive about succeeding in many areas. How one looks at things in his/her life makes a big difference in trying to make real changes. One of my biggest struggles is not believing in myself enough - which makes it harder to see the light at the end of many tunnels. Well, working on that on a daily basis.

A big issue came up this weekend about my daughter wanting to attend a gifted middle school. XW was totally against any school except the ones in her school district (daughter goes to mom's district by day - sleeps with me by night). I guess XW still wants "control" over my D's schooling. Well, instead of fighting her on it, I am letting this one slide and pick my battles wisely. D will be fine in a regular school, and this ain't worth going to court over. Heck, I thought long and hard about when it would benefit my daughter for me to intervene, and I decided to wait it out till she reaches college when she's 18. I'm still part of her life, I will be at all her school events, I will be there when she has her first serious boyfriend, when she goes to prom, all that. But when it's time for my baby to pick a college, I am supporting anything she will want to do, even if it's an out of state college. See, I will be there for my D in adult life as well, supporting her 100% and I know her mom will not want to - especially when it comes to my D moving away. My D knows this, we talked, and she seems happy about it. Her mom is kinda weird about wanting control over our D - she's gonna get a rude awakening when my baby turns 18 and flies away from the nest. XW wants "control" of her schools right now? - Fine. I'm supporting my D, not my X, and telling my D about all the choices and opportunities she will get as she grows into adulthood. My baby wants to be a marine biologist, she's 11, but it's her current dream right now - I support that. If she sticks with this, it means she will travel - a lot. If that's her dream when she's an adult, I am there supporting her. All this is showing me that my XW is really being selfish, she can't "control" our D's life forever. 7 years is not that long, and soon my D will be on her own, making her own decisions. Plus I'm glad she's still interested in going to college!!

I will need to keep labs in mind - they are great companions. We both give whatever our D needs, but X still likes to claim to be giving more - whatever. Well it's late, I can rant more but this is longer than I wanted to post!

[oldtimer]

Sol,

FWIW, before your decide that avoiding court is worth preventing your DD from going to a gifted program, it might be a good idea to talk to her school counselor, and a school counselor who works with the gifted program.

High school is hard enough for everyone. Being gifted makes one a bit of a freak. It may be a whole lot better for her to be in a gifted program than in a regular program that bores her to tears. For that is a sure recipe for poor grades and poor, risky behavior. I think letting this slide may be far more harmful than you think. I hurt for your daughter that she will be getting less than she has earned and less than is freely available to her and less than she wants in terms of an education that could really let her flourish over the next few years.

When she is 18 she can go where she wants. It is now that she needs your support. When she is 30 she will wonder why she didn't have the opportunity to go to one of her favored college programs because her high school education was lacking, and lacking for no good reason.

[~Sol]

Hey OT, I will keep that in mind. My D already has had some good opportunities while in a regular K-12 school, and the only reason she wants to go to a gifted school is becuase some of her friends are going. I already checked it out, it's a tough program and they do kick kids back to regular schools. My D has a hard time keeping up with the advanced stuff she already gets, and putting her under more pressure, staying up late doing far more homework, and the mandatory extra-curricular activities she must do in that gifted school will be too much. This time around both my X and myself don't have the luxury to drop her off an extra 20 miles and pick her up. I know she will excel in her future schooling, she gets A's and B's. When I went through my college-prep classes in a regular school I had a hard time keeping up, it all depended on the teacher whether they were strict or easy. But putting all that pressure on my D at this age is something that I tend to agree with my X, even though I have different reasons. When my D turns 14, she can request that we go to court if she wants to live full-time with me so she can go to a different school district. She doesn't need to go to a gifted school right away, there is still the 7th and 8th grades but she will have a better chance when she is 14 so a judge can rule in my D's favor, and on that note I need to have my act together by then, be debt free and put all of my energy into my D's education.

I am being patient but I also need to plan for this. This is why I am picking my battles with my X. Right now is not feasible or economical to go into a court battle, much less transport my D everyday to a school that is far. My D's education is of prime concern for me, more so than her mom's. Bottom line is that it will take money to drag my X back into court, and it will probably add more gray hairs to my head! I am already working towards this, by creating a new business to supplement my income and perhaps replace my current dead-end job.

[~Sol]

I am monologuing here:

Currently, what I hear from my ex when things don't go her way is this: "If you do this or don't do that I will take you to court".

Empty leg to stand on, especially if I know that she probably does not have the legal ground, cannot afford an atty or pay court costs or afford to lose time away from work. If we need to go back into court for something, fine. I am getting amused at her empty threats, and that's all they are. It's her defense mechanism I suppose, a way to get me to react. Anyways, what I see in my daughter is that she is happy when both parents are happy - and NOT fighting or bickering. Yeah, I get extremely angry when my X rears her ugly head when she wants to threaten me, and the court argument is her current strategy. But there is also what my D will go through if we get into another legal battle again. My D's education is not at risk. My D has all she needs, she is well taken care of, and I am there to help her with her homework - actually doing the math problems and working out the other subjects with her - her mom doesn't do that, she's not academically inclined like I am. So I'm the parent that does more for my D's education - and I know that can add some weight in court. The one thing that I see that benefits my D the most is that I have time for her, and so does her mom. Would I like to put my D in a private school? Yes I would, just can't afford it, but public schools also have its own rewards. From experience, I have seen kids in private schools behave just as badly as those in public schools - it's not the schools, its the kids and the dynamics of their relationships (or lack of) with their parents. I know my D will excel in any school she attends, and I know the benefits that a gifted school or a private school may provide, but are we all going to benefit? Me, my D, her mom? It's kinda hard to answer that since we are limited on our resources - my job barely allows me the time to take care of my D during school hours, and don't get me started on the pay! What I see is that my D is doing really well, and her teachers are noticing. It's her mom that needs convincing when a good opportunity arises for my D. She currently is taking self defense classes (karate), and I enjoy paying for that and taking her every week. It does wonders for kid's self esteem. Then there are summer programs and middle school activities I will support her on, and be at her games (she wants to play softball).

I believe in this: In order to have a functioning and healthy relationship with our kids and X's as a whole, we sometimes need to compromise and weight the pros and the cons.

[oldtimer]

Sol,

How did private school come up? I thought you were talking about a gifted program in a public school. I'm surprised the school system won't pay for transportation to the gifted program. Or, is it that she doesn't want to go to the gifted program in her own school district?

[~Sol]

Oh, I was just thinking about private schools on my own. Yeah, the bus for the gifted school is a logistics nightmare - I would have to drop and pick up my D - X will not drive that route when she is half-asleep from her night-shift job.

My X is weird about keeping our D in her own school district. If it were up to me, I would want to try out a private school but I would be the one ponying up the dough. But the fact of the matter is that my D actually has good teachers, and she is learning a lot. On occasion she would get homework that is a challenge for her, but its the extra credit kind that forces her think and use those critical thinking skills that she needs to hone. I think she will be challenged enough in a normal middle school, and I am sure that her teachers will probably put her in a gifted program at her middle school. If a gifted school comes up again, I am going to get the backing of her school teachers when my X tries to oppose it - she just doesn't want to let go of the "control factor" over D's school district.

We both have joint legal custody, but we also have a unique joint physical custody, only in the divorce decree it states that D attends mom's school district since mom is able to care for D after school until mom goes to work at 9pm, but I get my D right after I leave work so D can have a parent that is actually awake and help with homework, dinner, and bedtime. I drop off my D by 8am and we do this daily. We alternate on weekends, holidays, etc, etc. Now, add a school that is beyond the current school district, and X throws a fit, and we would need to amend the divorce agreement. If I want it, I would need to pay $$$ for a dam good atty that would make it happen - else why go to court if I wasn't going to win this new arrangement? And if I did win, X would be on the rampage and we start a war all over again. My X will not change, she can be extremely vile when she is stubborn. The best thing is for X to agree voluntarily that our D should go to a different school, whether gifted or private, and I would need to quit my job for a better paying one and move closer to the new school but it just opens up a new can of worms, and we just settled on the agreed arrangement we now have and everyone gets along for the most part.

When my D starts middle school - I am going to be involved with her school, join the PTA, and be more proactive from the 6th grade all the way to her senior year in high school. If I want to make a change to the agreement, I need to build a strong case, but the judge is the final decision, and in family civil courts in VA the judge is more likely a female judge. We had a female judge when we got divorced, and I was made to look like the bad guy since I was the one that filed for divorce - LOL.

[~Sol]

OK, X calls me at work and starts mouthing off on how it's all my fault that she lives in a trailer now and that I "forced" her out of the house because she couldn't "take it anymore" and is struggling with taking & picking up D from school and for me to give her gas money and to even start giving her child support now (not in the divorce decree - no one pays anyone anything, plus she gets to claim our D on her taxes every year, which is included in the divorce decree). Then she goes off on a tangent on how I don't do anything to support our D at all, and that I live in a comfy situation with a better job and blah blah blah. (I do live quite comfy though - without my nutty XW in the picture!!)

I think she's going through that part after the divorce on realizing how good her situation was when we were still M and living under the same roof. You know - the part where 86% (or something close) of x-spouses regret ever leaving the M and divorcing and realizing that things were much better off then than they are now?

I was wondering when she would make that realization....

[whatisis]

Hey, if I recall, your wife was always railing on you about something...what's changed! Please tell me her trailer isn't still in your backyard