New Here-need reality check

[Jean36]

I hung around here a few years ago, during my STBX's precious separation. We coparented very well during a 2 year separation, then reconciled. Now, we are heading down the road again, and I am very scared that amicable coparenting is not happening right now.

Our current separation is due to H's adultery, I have tried to save M, but he is just not interested. He has been out of the house for two months, living in a by-the-week motel. He has the kids (2 DD'd ages 6 and 8) on the weekends. Our ultimate goal is 50/50 like we did before. I homeschool the girls (which he currently supports) so we each had them 3.5 nights a week and I had the girls every weekday for school.

H is self employed, his hours are variable depending on his work load.

Like I said, my goal in the 50/50 nights, but right now, I am just not comfortable with that. The girls are not happy at the motel, they say their dad spends his time on the phone with the OW. He brings them home and they are very emotional, crying and angry. I have started them in counseling, but only one visit so far. Counselor just said that OD is very angry.

My fear is that I am letting my "bitter wife" affect the coparenting. But, everyone who knows my H agrees that he is acting very uncharacteristic. I am going to go ahead and file for D, I don't want a divorce, but he is not giving me the money we need for groceries and stuff (he is paying mortgage).

Yes, I am insulted and angry, BUT I know that my DD's need their father in their lives and my goal is to have him around as much as he can be. I have seen too many daughters whose fathers disappear and I do not want that for my children. I do really want us to pull this off as well as we did before. My fears about our security (whether we will lose the house, the homeschooling, needing to borrow $ for food) that all has me on edge.

My H is now angry about the counselor, the counselor suggested that he stop talking to children about the mistress, and I need to stop acting to stressed about money.

I am dealing with my heartache the best I can, but losing faith in him as a father is much harder than losing faith in him as a husband. I have tried to protect my children as much as possible from the reality of what is happening, he told them about the mistress, I didn't want them to know.

He doesn't call them at all during the week. He expects us to accomodate his work schedule and refuses to nail down a parenting schedule.  

I am just scared that I am letting my sense of betrayal affect my ability to coparent. But, he is just not giving me any hope that he has the best interest of the children in mind. His behavior changed after speaking to an attorney, and I hate thinking that he only calls his daughters when an attorney reminds him to. But, I am tickled that he called them and I wish he would call more often to talk to them.

I am rambling, I just needed to introduce myself, I am going to need some support.

[gipsy]

divorce  is chaotic , You seem to be very level headed about this , The unforunate thing is this will effect the children , I have found that during this  court process you will Be effected , And the worst you can do is fight about the divorce , It's been my expierience that Any thing you think you will be gained by useing atty's will be spent by the atty;s after they get paid to get you divorced , And the more contested issue's the more they make , SOOO If you have to as a last resort hire atty's I think one of the best things you can tell the atty  At the interview is ," You don't want them to make it worse "
    They will tell you about getting you your fair shake of the stick , But I will garuntee ,they will get the most of the excess money you would save by just giving in ,
   The state  Will have child support guidlines and you can pay an atty to enforce that , But the atty will make money  by the time it is done ,
 As In My case the mother decided to be difficult , And the atty got well over Half of the amount she got for four years of child support !
   So consider court as a last resort ,
  The first thing the atty's don't tell you in Wash state is , The court requires that you go to pre trial settlement , And or mediation over the issues at hand < And the atty's facilitate this for a big fee ,
    SOOO Try the mediation your self ,
 Here it is called pierce county center for dispute resolution ,
 And you could call the court and ask if they know of a mediation service ,
  Even in the face of a terrible person to be married to. Divorce is a big decision ,
  But if he has run off ' what can you do ?
   My opinion , Is this try to settle up with out atty's and get it over with " If" You choose to ,
   But if you get atty's don't say I didn't warn you , Then there will be a trial date In About one year , And once you get an atty Mt expierience is the battle is on , And the atty's make money ,
  Again the example is If you propose a 5o% split of property , And then proceed And get a parenting plan that can be for now, loosely worded then get  A child support set , You can modify the parenting plan because  Plans can be modified , Especially when it has not been heard By a judge at trial , So If for now you say OK we'll go with a parenting plan you agree to , . Get the property split out of the way , The later if you modify the parenting plan that will be ONE issue to contend , And the children and you won't be under the stress of the whole divorce at once
  Of course I have to say , This is just my opinion , And you will get a few on here ,
  But Again I warn' Vendictive and war causing reply's are usually not productive ,
  All this crap about how to win the divorce war is feeding the war machine $$$$$$$$$
  So maybe just try to word the parenting plan that you are the custodial parent , But he can have a good parenting plan and plenty of time with the children , Then you have already slanted it your way and the Judge won't be likely to change custody  if some one  later contest's it ,
  And try not to talk to the children about this even if he does , And if you have to give adult answers about what he say;s to them about the mistress try to keep it civil and adult , Fighting through  the children   hurts the children , I do advise when you file for divorce to use the advice of an atty Don't have the atty's name on it , Just have one help you fill out all the papers and the proposed decree , Parenting plan and child support order , Make  the atty fill it out to what is reasonable , And I would not use an atty that tries to tell you how to really stick it too him , Call a few and tell them your objective is to make a reasonable and fair dissolution as to not attract Him to hire an atty , And hopeful;ly he will take it to an atty that say's it looks pretty fair , And the battlle will not be on . Remmember the money you will pay to be mean and vendictive will be regrettable ,
   As an example I went through this for an out of wedlock birth , And I told her their will be an end result of a parenting plan and a child support order , And why does she want to fight , This will be the result and thats it ,
   She drug it out ! Once she even refered to her atty as the bulldog atty ,
    I knew it was a joke because I had researched about her atty and his tough tactics really didn't make a noticeable difference , Except for the stress he caused , And maybe a vendictive sentiment was expressed on her behalf ,
   At trial they asked for $20,000 For one year of the fee's she incurred
 Well not to mention Because of her unrelenting fight, this drug on for four years , So what were the rest of the charges ?,
   And guess what , ?  At trial her atty said they wanted fee's because I was the one that caused trouble "
  The Judge 'Whom I feared because she was a woman' Said " I see Mr XXXXs actions were a reaction " And "if this comes back to me we'll see who get's fee's "

[Jean36]

Thanks for the reply gipsy. I wish we could just do this amicably. The issue is going to be the finances, he is going to be really PO'd about paying alimony. I just don't want the kids to suffer emotionally as we bicker about money. But I also don't want the kids to be homeless because my H has decided to run off with a married woman.

A part of me says roll over and take the financial beating for the sake of amicable coparenting, but that just isn't logical. I'll probably file this week, he refuses to come home, wont give me $$ for food, I have tapped out my resources.

This all just stinks

[MixedBag]

You can always go back to 50/50 down the road on your own...

Get divorced, move on, and when you feel more comfortable then let the time with the children increase back to 50/50 even if the order doesn't give dad that much time with the children.

[gipsy]

no matter the situation you have my sympathy , Never listen to any Vendictive advice ever , My post was long but the bottom line is as I wrote , Being mean just costs money , And trying to change the way things were with the kids and him will be very likely to cause a court battle ,
   However you have to move on to the direction that is best for you ,
     And why be in a compromised situation when you may learn to pick a better Man and be happy , Thats what I had to do , Except It's woman for me . I divorced her because she could not deal with life in a calm way and I am not an argumentative type , Of course untill  They push enough, then the battle is on , And we are all that way ;
   And is what My previous post is about ,
Yes, I am a man And of course None of us are in support of some one interfering with our relationship to the children .
  Then there is that word BUT ! I see men I know not, pay child support :
   And Here is a proposition that I would want you to consider ,
   First if he does take care of the children , And he wants them regularly , And that seems to be genuine , like it could last , then use that to allow your self to better your own life and carreer ,
  One thing that perplexes me about these battle's is :
   There is no retirement future in child support , And I don't know how alimony laws read in your state , But its likely that again if you get an atty and tell "it" to put up a divorce decree that is within reason of the law , And tell they atty you don't want to shoot for the moon or really screw him , And start from the standpoint of "if" he goes to an atty , the atty will say it seems reasonable , then you have a better chance of not spending all the money on atty's
   SOOOO In wash state you get a temp order , My atty explains this is the case because trial will be out one year , And in the interim kids still have to get to school and eat and have a shelter , So Hence your atty should be able to get a temp order of support and maintenance or alimony , Fairly quickly , this temp motion won't really be a trial with a real judge , So Back to this" If "you get an atty that really does agressive crappola , ' My psycho did " Then he  will be back to court a number of times trying to fight you " I did it " Hence the agressive vendictive behavior from atty's gives a predictable out come .
    The atty makes a ton of money
  Then in the end the real judge will hear the case and you will get about what the law states you should as far as child support and alimony and the division of community property ,
    so I say again maybe try to get an atty to draw up a very fair divorce decree , And temp orders , If he is not paying child support ,Get a temp support order ,  then submit it to the court and follow the atty's directions and get Him served and move on ,
   Or pick a big vendictive fight and fight it out miserably for the next year or so and go through the lenghty, expensive  court process,
   But for now keep the vendictive angry feelings out of it ,  I filed immediatly as advised by my atty , And that was to get a trial date set and the clock ticking toward the divorce , And she fought it all the way , And it costed a lot of money , between the two of us I bet the atty's got 30 to 40 thousand ,