I did have a fairly quiet weekend. Almost too quiet, since I did not have my boys with me. I went to a "pool party" --- really just a gathering of a few friends around a swimming pool, sunbathing in the mostly cloudy weather and casually talking, but primarily just sitting quietly and casually together on lounge chairs. It was mostly to catch up with each other and to just enjoy being in each others' company.
And I went to church. All in all it was very uneventful, but that never seems to stop me from obsessing internally over my situation. I need to relax internally as well as externally. My mind is too often a seething cauldron of thoughts and emotions. Praying helps a lot with that.
In any event, my weekend was a piece of cake compared to what you had to go through.
I talked to my L on Monday. She explained that the orientation scheduled for today (!) is just that. It's a three-hour meeting including other sets of parents to discuss the process of Custody/Visitation mediation. By the end of this we will have our actual custody mediation scheduled and a mediator assigned to our case.
My L has come to the same conclusion that I already have, that given xW's methodical approach to what I call her "plan for Happiness", the mediation will have no sway on her. xW is too pre-determined and close-minded to alter her course or compromise one inch. Thus, since I have no room left in which to compromise, we both figure she is still going to press on with a very contentious court battle.
So between now and the middle of next month I need to secure the cooperation of several of my friends, co-workers and neighbors to write and notarize affidavits in support of my character and my ability to parent my sons. Several people have already offered even without my asking. But it is still a lot to ask of people.
I really hope what I am doing is best for my S's. I feel that it is, but it may turn out to be pyrrhic.
I have tried to contact S8's teacher, to schedule a one-on-one conference with her. I wanted to talk to her about S8 and how this growing battle bteen his parents might be affecting his behavior. Academically he is doing okay, often very well. But sometimes his behavior in class is not where it needs to be.
More importantly I wanted to ascertain whether my xW has been contacting her to try to win her support to her cause. I fear that xW has subtly communicated to teachers and staff over these last two years that any of S8's misconduct and poor performance is directly attributable to his father's behavior. I have witnessed first-hand xW's words and actions to do just this very thing with S8's first grade teacher. I am certain with all of the classroom functions that xW has volunteered for, she has continued to cultivate that notion with everyone she encounters.
S8's current teacher has not responded to any of my emails, not like she used to. And she has not responded to my latest one asking for a conference.
I guess my next step is to go to the school counselor. I am now trying to draft a letter to her to seek her guidance on how best to proceed. I have two goals. First to help lessen the impact all of this might have on S8. Second to determine if my Xw is trying to garner support from the teachers and staff for her legal action to remove custody from me, S8's father.
I don't really know what it is I should be doing. I am struggling to figure out what actions I can take to avert xW's hateful actions. Much as part of me wants to scream to the world about her crimes against me and our family, I also want to curb my tongue and to not malign this person who is still my S's mother. I love my S's more than I value my own personal outcome. While I seek to lessen the injury she continues to deliver to myself, I am more concerned that the impact to my S's, both short-term and long-term, be minimized.
I hate what she is doing to you guys also. But I know you will come out of this ok and as long as the boys have you they will be ok too. I have no doubt that you will have numerous friends who will say the very best about you, you are a great father and there is no denying that!
Your in my thoughts and I hope that you will come out stronger because of all you have been through.
There is someone out there for everyone, I do believe that
me: 37 H: 44 Married for 18 years this june S7 S3 porn issues, and much more... since 7/06
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
I'm just feeling a bit melancholy today. For the last couple of days.
Two years ago today, June 15, marks the day I discovered the horrible truth about my then wife, that I was being betrayed and that she was not the faithful, honest person she had always purported herself to be. I found out my wife did not love me and even hated me, even wishing me harm.
...
The orientation last Thursday was uneventful. We saw a video about mediation along with many other former couples. We scheduled our mediation session for June 25. And we had a nice lecture about how mediation was our last chance before we get into the hair-ball of litigation, in which neither party gets what they really want and everybody loses, especially the kids.
Do I think it had any impact on swaying xW from her insane course of action that she is dragging us along? No, not likely.
As if to underscore that feeling, I later got the following mind-blowingly insane email from her, just hours after we left the courthouse apparently:
Quote:
NCB,
We had an agreement in (former hired mediator's) office a year ago. I gave you more than a judge will. Your refusal to sign any separation agreement has cost your children $16,000. Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting them like this?
xW
I just forwarded this insane drivel to my L, but I did not reply to it. What can one argue with a crazy person after all, huh?
...
I have now begun an email campaign, writing to select members of family, friends, neighbors and mutual acquaintances -- to clear the air of all the misconceptions that xW has cultivated about our marriage, our separation, our divorce and now our custody battle. I have decided that, after trying to help protect her reputation for these last two years, I won't be silent any longer.
If she is going to try to harm me and our kids to merely justify her own shallow ends, then I have to set the record straight. For S8 and S4's sake.
Im sorry for your pain. It seems like a nightmare you can't wake up from, though it's like it happend yesterday.
She will continue to try and justify what she is doing and go to all lengths to do so, that's why you MUST set it straight, I totally agree with you. No more playing the nice guy, because she certainly has raised the bar on that one.
Im sure she thinks you will not do this, so she will get the rude awakening that she sooooo deserves.
Try and have a better day, I think it may be the moon, im feeling the same as you.
me: 37 H: 44 Married for 18 years this june S7 S3 porn issues, and much more... since 7/06
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
Sorry, NC. My guess would be that your W is freaking out a little as a control-freak maybe she is realizing she's now losing control of the sitch if she hasn't realized this before, which she at least thinks she has had for the past 2 years. I think they have this fantasy that life is going to be so perfect and happy and I don't think it's that for your W (or any of them prob.) Karen
Amazing... What a sad, pathetic woman she is. Sounds like she is so miserable that she has to try to make everyone else that way also. Unreal.... Hmmmmmm...wonder what happened to "The grass is always greener on the other side"?
Thinking of you dear friend, Yoyo
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are. -- Bernice Johnson Reagon
None of this would bother me were it not for the boys we have to share between us. I understand that tolerating her insanity is part of this package in being S8 and S4's co-parent. I accept that reality, why can't she?
Moreover, to then blame me for the mounting expense of the lawsuit she has filed against me, as if I had twisted her arm into doing this?!?
She's either totally insane or is trying to drive me there ...or both.
Oh, and a little bird told me last night that xW and the OM are now making their R more open, calling themselves now "a couple" and "boyfriend-girlfriend". At the same time they'er also attemtping to make everyone believe this was a recent event -- that they have only just now "found" each other after their respective divorces.
Such duplicity and deceit. Who can really trust these people?
