moving on

[raliced]

Hey Ahoy - I'm sorry to hear about your AUnt. Your family has had a bad stretch the last few years. I hope they caught it early so that she has a choice of milder tratment options.

I know what you mean about your H. I vividly remember the feeling of peace and contentment in the weeks after our marriage that I had someone to be with me and hold my hand through life. Letting that go has been one of the harder parts of this for sure. I try to remember that I was actually pretty happy, befor marriage too. And now of course I have my two Ds - they certainly enjoy holding my hand!

Good luck with the lawyer. Hopefully the legal part will be pretty smooth for you.

[Georgiabelle]

Ahoy,

I'm sorry to hear about your aunt. Take this next piece however you choose. As long as you expend ANY energy wishing ANYTHING on your h, you are olnly hurting yourself and delaying your healing. Look, it svkks. It just does and although you have many good things going in your life, it is clear that you do have resentment and anger towards your h. Which, FTR, is normal. However, for your own benefit, work through that. Work on letting it all go.

It's a process and something that will benefit you and your D. Look, I'm not insinuating you should be insincere towards your h or say you only want him to be happy. We want you to be happy and live a rich, fulfilling life. Hang in there!

[Ahoy]

I am definitely trying to work my way toward not having any kinds of feelings (negative or positive) toward H. I know I will get there eventually, but I'm definitely not there yet. Once I'm back in my home state, with my job and benefits and a life truly my own (not one built around the convenience of my H, which my current life the past five years has been -- and years before that if I'm honest), I think I will be able to achieve a state of not caring. It will take time though, and I can honestly say that I will never trust or respect him again.

[rd500]

Hi ahoy great to hear you. You seem strong and that's great but you are moving on really quickly. As you know I am far from a pro but you have supported me from day one and I have seen your ups and downs in your posts. As always I am behind you 100 per cent Your a dry strong lady and that comes through in your posts. Take care Rd

[Ahoy]

Thank you Rd. Since my husband has told our D14 that he has a girlfriend, I want to set a good example for her of what is and is not acceptable in marriage. Having a girlfriend is not, and goes against my morals. So I'm at peace with it. Also, I'm not attracted or in love with my H anymore. He has become a person I would never want to be with.

[bdub]

I told her that for most marriages, that kind of thing is something to be worked on, not a reason for divorce. However, having a girlfriend when you are married is a reason for divorce, and that is the real reason why we are moving down this path. I know that's treading into risky territory, but I don't think my D14 should grow up thinking that you should throw away a marriage because one person likes to have the dishes clean and the bills paid and the other one could care less. Sigh.
My WAW told my boys that she left because I always had to control everything and make all the decisions. She told them this 20 minutes before OM showed up and spent 4 straight days with them. The weekend she moved out. Complete with buying them an Xbox, and a few hundred dollars worth of clothes.

When the boys came home singing the praises of OM I sat them down and told them what was going on. I told them that she had been seeing him since June and I showed them proof. I explained to them the value of working through the hard times and that running away was not right. . I probably went to far with this, but I also told them a male that would do what OM did is a dangerous person and should not be trusted. Real men have respect for, and uphold their marital vowels. To me, it is VERY important that my 2 young men understand that his behavior was not only inappropriate but also unacceptable.

[Ahoy]

bdub, thanks for posting. I agree -- I don't want to damage my daughter's relationship with her dad any more than he already has, but I do want her to understand the real reason why this is happening so she doesn't think that you just discard a relationship with no warning because of differences in household management that weren't ever mentioned until the time the WAS leaves. So many similarities in our situations. I too was accused of controlling everything in the household, even though he never offered to do laundry or pay bills and seemed overworked and more than happy to have me "taking care" of him.

Had a great meeting with L yesterday to tell her what I want in agreement proposal. I told her my objective is to make it look really good so that H's L would advise him to go with it. I'm being generous with money and visitation. However, later that night my H then balked at the idea of me taking D14 back to home state for school, wants to consider keeping her in her current school. I told him that we'd need to be on the same page to proceed with dissolution, and if we couldn't agree we'd have to let the courts decide, and I'd rather we tried to come to a consensus on our own so we can have more agency in the process. He agreed. (For now, anyway . . . I really can't trust him.)

I hope this means he will see the reasons why the move would be in D14's best interest for school (family support for D14, even in the new school, free time with H during summers when he doesn't work, better access to his family during break time, and consistent school for four years of high school). But if not, I'll have to convert it to a divorce and hope that the courts see the logic if he doesn't. I don't think he'll want to do that, because it will really make him look like the bad guy, and he hates that, but I am bracing for the worst. Not getting much sleep these days . . .

[Ahoy]

Any others out there dealing with custody issues while trying to move out of state? I'm wanting 70/30 time split (70 with me while in school in my home state, from where we moved a few years back), and 30 with H (during summer breaks when he's not working and then every possible holiday throughout the year). I'd love to hear if/how others accomplished this.

[raliced]

Hey Ahoy,

I'm not dealing with this but thought I would respond with a few thoughts and also give your thread a bump.

I think one of this challenges of giving actual divorce related advice is that all the states vary so widely.

I assume you're asking because your H is not ok with this?

I have to believe that given your daughter's age the courts would take her wishes into consideration.

That being said - do you think you could really achieve 30%? When I was a teenager, I would not have been enthusiastic about spending my entire summer vacation away from my friends. Heck,in High School I had a fully paid scholarship to be an exchange student in Switzerland and I almost didn't go because I didn't want to be away from my buddies for 8 weeks (happily I came to my senses.

When I read about issues that kids have with divorce, the disappointment that their time with their friends and their extracurricular activities are curtailed due to visitation is frequently cited.

Something to think about - if she comes with you - she may not be up for all that visiting.

[Ahoy]

Thank you, raliced! I appreciate the bump. I do think we could achieve 30%, only because D14 would want to come back to visit her friends in the town where H lives. She already has two sets of friends -- one in each place -- so I think that would facilitate the plan. I really want to be as generous as possible in the proposal, and of course we can modify later if need be, based on her wishes, and also if my STBX moves closer. But I do know how important time with friends is -- thank you for mentioning that. I welcome the advice -- and any other you can provide!