This is the story of car4love's interaction with OM yesterday (pick up/drop off of their DD for visitation), and about her meeting with his sister, who is a new BS. Car4love is pretty good at plan A, though it's not budging OM any more than my efforts are budging the sparrow. Hope dwindles but springs eternal I guess.

I'm posting this because it's pretty inspiring plan A stuff, not because it amounts to a hill of beans w/r/t my own sitch. Except to say that we're both still trying to chip away, even though our divorces are under way, and we're helping each other with plan A ideas.

The "kiss" was a giant Hershey Kiss that car4love had for a while and wanted to give OM.

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Hi Spot,

Today was very amusing. OM picked DD up and was a little friendly. I said the necessary things about her, then I did the kiss thing. Hilarious. I said, "I was wondering if i could give you a kiss?" He exhaled and looked down and a little away. His face got red. I waited, curious about his reaction now. Finally he raised his head and started to say "I'm sorry...." I interupted and touched his arm. I said, "Relax, I'm just teasing you." I showed him the kiss and told him I wouldnt eat it so... He grinned and said, "You're going to give me a heart attack." I said again, "I'm just playing," then said bye to DD and started back over to my car. He called me back to say bye to DD again. He called me a "smart butt." I bumped his leg with mine and smiled and said I was just playing. Then I started to my car again. He was so flustered. He stopped me and asked if I was going to a mediation thing tomorrow. I said yes. He said he was too. Pretty much the only time that could have worked for us. He said, "Then see you tomorrow." I smiled and said, "Okay." Then he said, "Well, and tonight at 7:30 too." I just smiled and got in my car. It was sooooo funny. Totally made my day.

Then met with SIL. I took her flowers. Fresia. She was pleased. We talked until 7:30. We had a good talk. She said that she never would have been able to have any idea of what I was going through before, and now that she did, she was so sorry that she had not been there for me. It was nice to hear. We talked mostly about her. She wanted to know how to get over it right away. I said I didn't have a clue, but if she figured it out to let me know....

When OM got there, I thought he looked a little suprised to find us together (I don't think he knew we were meeting). They said hi, and then we all said bye. OM was chatty about what he and DD did. Then, when he was saying bye to her he said, "See you tomorrow morning." I didn't really catch it at first, and he closed the door. Then he opened it again and said, "Car4love?" I said, "Oh, yeah, see you tomorrow." DD and I came home and had a good evening until bedtime.

Car4love

Car4love:

YOU GO!!!

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
-ol' 2long

I think she did an excellant job. Next she can ask for a real live hug, cause they are safer than kisses. He might go for that.

Be sure and tell us what happens tomorrow.

SS

I'll pinch hit for car4love and do an update.

Car4love and OM met for mediation today. They were shown a video where children talked about how their parents' divorce affected them. Car4love cried a little, OM was pretty impassive.

Later, Car4love sent OM a lighthearted email about a cool car she'd seen. He didn't acknowledge this, and an email argument about money and the logistics of the first overnight for him with DD followed.

OM's sister has been leaving messages on car4love's answering machine, mistakenly thinking that she was calling his house. The basics of the messages are, I got your email... it sounds like you're having a really bad day... you'll get through this... you're in an abusive situation.

This is new. That OM's family is telling him his relationship with car4love was abusive and that is why he needs to get out of it. OM's mother counsels women at a shelter, and this sister lives with her. Car4love thinks they might throw the term "abuse" around pretty casually. Nothing I heard from the sparrow early on about OM's gripes regarding his marriage made it sound abusive. It sounded like he was pi$$ing and moaning about trivial discontents to make the sparrow feel sorry for him.

And car4love said the two of them were always respectful and kind to each other. So I believe her.

Very soon, OM's sister will discover that she called car4love "abusive" on car4love's very own answering machine.

Doh!

One last thing. If OM is having a hard time dealing with this, he'd better toughen up. They will have 3 months of mediation, followed by 3 months of evaluation before any kind of trial can begin. He's going to get taken to school many, many times during those six months. If he can't handle the first week...

GC