Jim0987 #8 - A bit clearer on the rebuild

[jim0987]

Thanks Wonka,

I made a couple of minor alterations but sent them as you've suggested

[JCred]

If she is the one with the timeline then it is far better for you to take your time and do what is right for you. Her timeline is probably more important to her than getting her way. She is pushing you so she can get both. As the timeline nears she will have to compromise or not be on her timeline. That will work in your favor. The closer it gets the more she will just want to compromise to not miss her timeline. Use that to your advantage. Don't let her hurry you.

Please don't let her anger or pressure of her timeline get you to agree to something you don't want to do. Tell her the same thing she told you.. "I'm not signing anything that isn't fair."

[Dawn70]

I don't really have any advice for you but I am continuing to keep you in my prayers. Best of luck with your agreement.

[jim0987]

Having refused to discuss things for ages my wife is now complaining that we've left thing until the last minute. Brilliant!!!!

Oh and she says its important we are all reasonable.

This week has really seen a change in her overt attitude

[jim0987]

Today is not a good day. We've had a big exchange of very formal almost passive aggressive emails

She referred to not liking being in limbo

[jim0987]

OK think I went wrong on the last with a relationship reference. Said

I will, as I always have done, do what I can to respect your decisions and not add any unnecessary delay.

[Ggrass]

Maybe you should have left it as I can respect your decisions and not add delays.

[jim0987]

What do i want for christmas......... A broken foot apparently

so fellow DB'rs today is an excellent example of how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

for this sorry tale i'm just going to quickly recap the last couple of days building up to this.

On monday morning while getting ready for work there was a stunted discussion/arguement between my wife and I about the fact that i was upset at the prospect of christmas without my kids. During the course of this discussion highlights of my statements included
- It wont be as bad for you next year because we will have had a year to adjust and besides this is what you want
- I always trusted you, i've dont understand why you think i didnt
- You've been seeing him for several months, at least do me the courtesy of letting me know before you introduce him to our kids

The response to this was a lot of emails written in a very business like and detached way. similar in style to what you would send a poorly performing member of staff. I've sort some advice on how best to respond to these and i'm grateful for the assistance.

So this morning my wife and I have exchanges some 30+ emails reagarding various things in relation to the financial settlement and christmas schedule. I'm clearly not going to repeat all of these but i will would just like to pull out some highlights of the conversation to give you a sense of it

Wife:
I think we need to revisit the split. The nursery bill, after childcare vouchers are deducted (of which you pay £XXX and I pay £XXX), will be over £XXX this month. That is far more than half the mortgage. As such, if I pay that, I won’t be putting any money into the joint account to cover the bills. As I said before, I will continue to pay the cleaners, which equates to a further £XX a week.

Me:
I think the best thing to do is to sit down and go through all the joint monthly outgoings and split these 50/50. Can we arrange a time to do this please.

Thanks

Wife:
Yes, that seems like a good suggestion. Although for January, as I said, my intention is not to be in the property for the full month. Your buying me out is the final piece of the jigsaw, I am ready to exchange on my new house. Therefore I don’t believe a 50/50 split is fair, but we can discuss that further. I will hold off paying any bills until we have done so.

We also need to discuss the ongoing payment of the nursery fees and write down our agreement on this. Can I suggest we discuss on 31st? My Mum will be available to babysit and I don’t think we’ll be in the same place for a great deal of time between now and then.

Me:
I can't do the 31st as I have plans.

we don't know the exact timeline at this stage and so I believe we should work out the figure as a 50/50 split and then adjust it when we know.

Wife:
OK, we can discuss it further when you are available.

To be clear though, the only thing that is holding up my move now is our agreement of this document. Given that the sum of money I have asked for and the furniture have been agreed for some time, I see no reason why this matter shouldn’t be concluded swiftly. The move date we are working to is 13th January, and I would like you to acknowledge that and support working towards it.

We have both been living in limbo for some time now, and it will be healthiest for both of us, and the children, if this matter is concluded swiftly and we both get the space we need to move on, and I believe that will also mean that our ability to co-parent will be improved as we will no longer have the tensions of living together.

Please support me in working towards 13th January. This gives you clarity too with regards to the move date and when you can expect me to move out, so you can sort the replacement of the large items of furniture I will be taking with me.

Thanks.

Me:
I appreciate that this has been causing you concern and I do not wish to add to that. I will, as I always have done, do what I can to respect your decisions and not to add any unnecessary delay.

You should, however, also be aware that you have asked for significant revisions to the document in the last 2 days and I need to discuss these with my solicitor. I am unable to give you any commitment beyond that.

hopefully this gives you a sense of how it was going and obviously if you can see bits where i could have validated more, been stronger or generally whatever to handle it better then I would welcome the feedback

Anyway the conversation continued like this for a bit and it seemed to be getting more and more formal with more mentions of solicitors doing things. To the point where my wife said:

wife:
I am in the process of instructing my solicitor to discuss the matter directly with yours.

This is never good so I started trying to look at it from her perspective (I know, mind-reading) I feel that she is really anxious about the timeline she has set out, she is desperate to move as soon as possible and she now has a finish line in sight and going back to previous comments i think she thinks (or at least fears) that i will deliberately try to muck that up.

with this in mind I said

Me:
it would be useful to know to what end?

we seem to have got into a level of formality that seems unnecessary and im not really sure why. I am pretty confident its not doing either of us any favours though.

I would rather we had a discussion about what we are both thinking and concerned about to see if we can work out a good way forward.

Wife:
OK. I’ll hold fire for now. We can discuss and agree a way forward from there. I am concerned that we won’t be able to get to a mutually agreed way forward – there was considerable space between what you wanted in the agreement and what I wanted from it. I also didn’t understand some of the legal terminology used and how this fits with any future divorce proceedings.

Me:
Hopefully we can come up with something. We've always been great at figuring stuff out when we sit down to talk about it (not many couples would be able to have the childcare discussion we had).

To be honest im happy to ditch the legal terminology as long as we can get something that works for us both.

When would you like to talk?

went back and forth for a bit but we agreed to talk before she left for MIL's house. I felt at this point that i had done a reasonable job of calming down a difficult situation and felt vaguely positive about talking to her because when we sit down and talk it tends to be constructive (I just can never get her to do so)

Anyway she got home and basically ignored me while she got ready. as she was about to leave, 30 minutes earlier than planned, I said.

M: I take it you would like to discuss that issue another time
W: Well I don't have time now
M: Ok well let me know when you do want to talk about it
W: I want to know what your concerns are
M: In short exposure, but it needs a proper conversation not an in passing one as one of us is on the way out the door.
W: I dont understand what you mean by exposure, everything is covered by what i've suggested and i wont sign what you proposed so i dont see the issue
M: I'm happy to discuss it but properly, when we have these conversations as one of is out the door or passing in corridors it just leads to misunderstanding, like the christmas schedule
W: that wasn't a misunderstanding that was terrible communication on your part
M: If it helps you to blame me thats fine, but from my perspective it was a misunderstanding. I want to avoid that by having a proper conversation about it

A few minutes later as the car was all loaded up we had a bit more of a continuation of this conversation with me basically saying we need to make time for these kinds of issues and my wife sort of agreeing. I thought but didnt say that maybe if we had done that during the marriage rather than snipe at each other we would have actually worked on our issues.

My wife did also say that she knows christmas without the kids is going to be very hard on me. I didnt thank her for this acknowledgement.

Icing to all of this comes in what i said just before she drove off

M: I'm not doing anything to try and hurt you or delay you. I never have and i never will. I need to make sure i'm protected for my future life but other than that i'm not trying to get in your way
W: well it feels like you are
M: I can assure you i'm not but if you've got concerns talk to me about them
W: well I need to move by the 13th and so you need to get things sorted by then

M: I only found out there was an issue 2 days ago and i told my solicitor straight away, maybe a 3 hour delay.
W: I told you ages ago.
M: I only saw your proposed changes 2 days ago and i'm already working on this.

I said bye to the kids and wished my W a good christmas (it wasnt reciprocated)

And now the cherry on this marvellous cake.

As i came into the house after waving them off (more briefly than usual) my anger which i had been restraining boiled over, I slammed the front door and walked into the kitchen and lashed out at wall, furious that my wife had left me for another man, that she could betray me and take my kids like that, that he would get to spend christmas with my wife. I kicked the wall have a dozen times and then broke down in tears.

So now I'm sat in my house, with a 12 inch hole in my kitchen wall, a broken foot, and it looks like i'm spending christmas alone as I cant drive anywhere. And to top it off i missing the last bit of my D3s christmas present.

All in all not really turned out very well

[raliced]

Ouch, Jim. That sounds very painful. Pamper yourself a little and put that foot up!

(((hugs)))

[Little]

I'm sorry you're feeling this much pain (physically and emotionally). Love and light to you, Jim. I hope some how and some way even a moment of peace will reach you during this holiday.