and so it ends….

Mediation took about 7 hours;  the mediator spent her time shuttling back and forth between rooms with X and me.  All in all, she probably spent 2 hours with me, and 5 with X.  Most of her time was spent talking X off the ledge, and gettign her to come to some reasonable offer.  Basically, I spent $675 today (half of the mediator’s fees) paying for X’s therapy; she vented, she cried, she wailed, she moaned.  The end result?  I pay $200 more a month than my initial offer.

I feel pretty good about the solution; it’s gonna be financially tight for me for the next few years, but I’ll survive.  In two to three weeks, I’ll be legally divorced and we can go back to being planets, circling around our children and hopefully we can put this mess behind us for good.  In a few months, I’ll be back on the market (How YOU doin’, ladies?) and hopefully I won’t fuck up the rest of my life.

That being said, I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna keep this blog up.  I’ve revealed far too much for me to admit to it, and I don’t see a need to continue to chronicle my life anonymously.  I’ve made some friends along the way, but the point of this message was to purge myself of the feelings of anger and frustration while planning my divorce.  I’ve done that, and there’s a new life waiting for me out there. 

Peace.

Well, THAT went well (rolleyes)…

Just got out of the meeting with X about the oldest child; I’m not sure if much got accomplished today, other than a whole lot of yellign back and forth.  I admitted I was wrong where I was wrong, and refused to take any of her shit when it came to rest of the blame-laying.  I stood up to her.

The therapist was frustrated, and said that we’re both using the oldest to fight each other.  She’s right, and I need to do better at NOT doing that.  Still, I think the therapist saw through X’s little game of blame-the-guy; X, as usual, is still clueless.

Two days until mediation.

one more week till face-off…

Mediation is Thursday.  I think I’m prepared, but the truth is, I’m scared shitless.  I’m worried about my financial future, and more importantly, I’m worried that I’m going to lose time with my kids.  My lawyer has assured me that I’ll be OK, but it’s like doing your first school play; you rehearse and rehearse, but you don’t know how it’s gonna turn out until it does.  Adding to my anxiety is the fact that I recently made a mistake as a parent, and I’m going to have to admit that in front of a counselor and X during a meeting on Tuesday.  Let me back up and explain.

In case I haven’t mentioned this already, X has accused me of having an affair over Facebook.  Not accused as in the legal sense of the word, but accused as in she’s told half the town that’s what I’ve done.  As of now, our divorce is still considered uncontested.  On a recent weekend, I discovered my oldest daughter (who’s 12, almost-but-not-quite 13) had opened an email and Facebook account.  I didn’t know what to do; considering what X has accused me of, I didn’t think I could have a rational discussion about Facebook, but I didn’t see any harm in what the oldest had done.  I figured she had done it once, and she’d do it again even if I told her not to.  I made the stupid decision to NOT inform X about it, but I did tell the oldest that I wanted her password so I could monitor it.  I also told the child that she needed to inform her mother about it.

X found out about it, and of course, flipped out.  She immediately called the counselor (and her lawyer, I’m sure) to get this appointment set up so that she could demonstrate that I’m a bad parent.  So, now I have to eat crow in a meeting TWO DAYS before the most important negotiations of my life.  However, I want to be clear what the mistakes I made were:

1.  I should have checked the age policy for both Gmail and Facebook.  Point blank, the child is not old enough according to their policies; you have to be 13 to use the services.

2.  I should have told X about the accounts regardless of my concerns; I thought I was protecting the oldest from X, but I was just setting her up for the inevitable discovery and argument.

The content that the oldest posted was not inappropriate for her age, and her conversations weren’t out of character.  There were some things she had done that were a bit risky (like her privacy settings were out of wack), but that could be dealt with as a lesson, not as a disciplinary act.  The Internet is part of our kids’ lives, and we can’t protect them forever without teaching them.  If we keep saying “No” without explaining “Why”, the kids will never learn.  I thought that it would be better for the kid to do something knowing that I could check in at any time than to keep sneaking around without some sort of parental guidance.  I don’t regret that decision; I do regret that I didn’t run it by X.

I guess the question I’ll have for the counselor is “what do we do when we disagree?”

titillating title; deeper substance

Found this online today; very awesome advice.

http://divorcedwomenonline.com/2010/01/she-doesnt-like-oral-sex-or-much-cuddling/

I am learning that I can’t control the world, and that I need to be careful before I start dating again.  BTW, mediation is in two weeks; think happy thoughts that this mess will be over soon so I can start living a new life again.

the light at the end of the tunnel…

I know the old joke; “it’s a train”…

Interesting thing happened today; I acknowledged that I was a failure, and I was OK with that.  For some people, that’s no big deal, but for me, that’s HUGE.  All my life, I’ve been trying to prove that I wasn’t a failure and that I could change the world by my sheer desire to succeed.   This overachievment complex comes from a fatehr who refused to acknowledge anything I did was good, and it carried over into my marriage.   I picked a woman who I thought would help me be a success, but wound up with someone who hated me when I didn’t become the man she wanted me to become.

Anyway, today I realized that if I added in the car note, rent, my student loan, back taxes, and then child support and alimony, I’d be earning exactly -$1000 a month.  That scared me at first, and then I realized that there were bankruptcy laws for a reason.  I failed, but the truth is that I’ve been living on the edge of failure for a long time, and this is just the dues for the piper.   Yes, I’m probably going to have to declare bankruptcy.  Yes, the future is quite uncertain because I’m not sure how much of my debt can be discharged (if any; I don’t really have a lot of credit card debt).  Yes, I’m OK with it.

You see, despite the fact that I’ve never wanted to fail at anything, my need for success has always been augmented with a strong sense of engineering; I make the most of a bad situation.  Now that I’ve determined that the worst case scenario is going to happen, I can plan for it, and step 1 is making sure that while my kids are provided for, X gets as few of my assets as I can give her. 

Now that I’ve seen the bottom of the pit, I can start climbing.

the dirty little secrets…

Few things in life are as painful as having to present the last 3 years of your financial transactions to your X’s lawyers.  Even worse is when your X is a poster-child for OCD.  Every transaction, every action, is audited with a fine tooth comb, and believe me, although I’ve been physically faithful in my marriage, I have purchased a LOT of porn over the years.

I got addicted to porn when X was pregnant with our first child; she immediately quit having any sort of sexual relations with me.  If I’d have known what was to come, I would have walked away then.  I’m not proud of my porn usage; as a Christian (albeit a continually fallible one), I’ve tried to quit many times over the years but my crappy sex life kept bringing it back around.  The last few years, pornography became a near constant solace for me.

I did a good job of hiding it from my kids and my wife (she’s a religious prude and would never have understood); however, she caught me in July as I was closing out some of my accounts.  I promised to stop, but when the sex stopped, I started.  I know it’s a lousy justification, but I’ve always felt that porn kept me faithful in a bad relationship.  It’s an evil, but it was less evil than going outside my marriage.

However, X has decided to make this an issue in our mediation; I’m not sure what she’s trying to do, but I think she’s trying to blackmail me for more alimony.  At this point, I a) can’t afford more than I’ve offered, and b) don’t really care if she parades our sex life (or lack thereof) in public.  I guess the question she’s forcing me to consider is: is pornography adultery (in the legal sense of the word)?  I don’t think so, and my lawyer doesn’t either (at least, she didn’t say it was).

progress?

X and I actually had a civil conversation today… over email.    I think she and I have finally begun to accept what seemed so inevitable 2 months ago: we’re getting a divorce.  It’s real, and it’s not going to change.  I still think she’s in denial about why we seperated (she still wants to blame me and refuses to acknowledge that it was a mutual problem), but at least she’s finally decided that she doesn’t want me, and she’s able to let me go.

The content of our conversation was the only subject that I’ve allowed us to talk about: the kids.  Any other subject, I cut off the conversation because I’m damn tired of getting a lecture about finances when she wasn’t there to help with the financial decisions when we were together.  As for the kids, we had come so close to a mutual parenting plan before she decided to get petty and throw in an unreasonable request (I wanted the kids every other weekend and 1 weeknight out of the week; she agreed about the weekends, but wanted the weeknight to be the night that both kids had activities in different towns.  Petty shit.)  Anyway, she asked me about it because my lawyer had communicated that I was going to forego the weekly visits until the mediation meeting, and she was being pestered by the kids about when they were going to see me again.

She at first tried to pin the blame on me, saying “don’t you want to see the kids?”.  I told her, I wanted to see the kids, but it was her unreasonable request that was stalling the negotiations and I didn’t want to waste time on her bullshit anymore.  A few emails back and forth and she actually agreed to MY idea; kids every other weekend, and 1 day a week alone with each kid.  Of course, she claimed it as her own success, but I don’t care anymore.  If she has to protect her fragile ego, whatever.  I get to see my kids, and hopefully, she’ll remain reasonable when we sit down at the mediators table.

tick tock goes the clock…

It’s been two months since I left.  Time both flies and crawls, as weird as that sounds.   I’m so ready to move forward with life, to be happy again, and yet every day I get sucked back into the mud with X because of some detail dealing with the legal situation.  We still don’t have a visitation agreement worked out, and finances are a LONG way rom being settled.  Note to future self: don’t ever put everything in your name again.  X has torpedoed me time and time again when it comes to bills.

I’m also lonely; I’m ready to start flirting and laughing again with some female companionship, but the old-fashioned part of me thinks “I’m still married”.  Besides, given the accusations that X has brought forward, it’s probably best that I continue to live like a monk.  I gotta tell you though; I’m not cut out to be a monk.  It’s really sad when every conversation I have with a woman causes me to wonder what she looks like naked.  I even started eyeing the 60+-year-old greeter at Walmart yesterday.  I’ve always been a sexual being; I always managed to control those feelings during the dry spells with X by reminding myself that I was a married man.  Now that I’m one step closer to being free, those feelings are raging.  I just hope the day the day the divorce becomes final that I don’t ravage the first woman I see…

I know that time will open up new possibilities, and I’m excited about the new year, but in the meantime, I’m still figuring out what the hell I’m gonna do.

you failed…

Dear X,

Remember when we were discussing the seperation, and you uttered the famous line “I don’t want to become the bitch in this…”

Guess what?

Me.

and the X goes psycho…

Haven’t written in a while, mainly because I’ve been trying to make the most of Christmas vacation with the kids (the few days I’ve had them) and also because I’ve been trying to keep myself busy.  I still haven’t found the proper outlet for energy (I need to start working out again with a trainer friend of mine), but I’ve really been focusing on channeling my negative energy into some form of outlet.   My therapist is having me write letters to express my anger, to “puke out the emotions” as she puts it.  It works, but there’s always something more to be angry about.

X has started acting very aggressive lately; I found out from some friends that she’s accusing me of having an affair.  She can’t accept any responsibility for the breakup in our marriage, so obviously I must have been cheating on her.  And if I was cheating on her, that must make me a bad parent, right?  She’s working very hard to minimize my contact with my kids, and yet still make me fork over as much money as I can to keep her lifestyle intact.

Basically, I’m waiting on the lawyers to intercede.  I refuse to communicate with X because it just leads to petty disputes.  I just want to be free from her (as free as I can be and still coparent). 

Life will be good, even if things are a bit uncertain right now.  My pastor keeps reminding me to be like Christ, controversial, but not reactive.  Keep my mind on the big things (like being a good parent), and ignore the petty stuff.  It’s hard.  I keep wanting to call X up and scream at her, to post what a stupid person she’s acting like (I guess I just did).  

Sigh.  I remember when X and I had the conversations about us getting a divorce; how amicable, how neat it all seemed.  I guess we’ve finally tapped into those buried emotions we had during our marriage; unfortunate.