STBXH has now offered to pay for my property taxes and insurance on the house if I wanted to stay in it! The house is beautiful but very BIG! I love this house! HOWEVER, bad karma all over the place! I have about $100,000 in equity all of which I would get, if I leave his race cars alone!

I have worked my hiny off the past week to get teh house ready for sale. I have also looked at other houses and it makes want to puke! The house payment is $1300.

In court he is offering me the BARE minimum on CS, which is $1600...OW is getting $850...I dont get that one...I will get alimony for only 3 years...I am going to ask for more of course in Mediation, but in Texas it is capped at $6,000/month net income...obviously he makes way more than that...but will not give me more...

I am not sure what I should ask for...I thought about asking for $5,000/month until DS5 is 18...but I have no idea how this works....

and here is the kicker...he wants to reconcile again.! yup, he brought it up yesterday. Not even going to go into the logistics of the whole conversation, but there is nothing TO reconcile and I told him he needs to move on and get over it!

Mediation is not until Sept 6...so I have plenty of time to plan and figure this out...however the house is on the market. I just dont know what to do about this. I am so confused!

Mom - I would keep the house. Forget about the bad karma - a house is just a house. Your payments are low, and you like the house. Keep it. You will enjoy it even more now that it is all fixed up.

MF4M-If you can keep the house, the equity will just increase and you can probably make more when the boys move out. But get it in writing what he is paying and what you are paying.

As far as child support I know in my state SD there is a calculator that they use to decide child support, it's online TX probably has one too. You put in both incomes and the CS is figured from that. My CS continues til my YD is 19 and still in school. My alimony continues till I remarry or one of us dies, and if it is him I have a life insurance policy on him with me as the only benfactor that I pay for monthly. I asked for alimony and got it as I stated in writing to the judge that I had forgone my own career to support him in his and that at the time it was a joint decision and that I didn't think that our YD should be denied the time with mom that the two oldest kids got as her father chose to cheat. Blew my lawyer away that I got it as alimony is usually not award in my state.

Anyways hope that this helps, keep your chin up and your smile bright (always makes them wonder what you are upto!) And gain as much knowledge as possible between now and the 6th of Sept, knowledge is power!!!

Dawn