(((Sadmommy)))

Remember the staircase, catch your breath at this step, look behind you to see how far up you have come, then forge ahead after you take a break.

Thanks for that reminder, Jean.

Something bizarre happened today. Out of the blue, OW's XH calls me. He said that STBX and OW are really pushing for the settlement agreement to be signed ASAP b/c he has to give me 30 days notice in writing if he moves. Since he plans to move in with OW when his lease runs out, he wants everything done before that so he doesn't look like the a$$ he is.

What's really bugging me is thinking about DD being exposed to OW's negative influence. Anyone who calls me bad names, such as "the world's biggest c-word" (only she says the real word, which I have NEVER said in my life b/c it is so offensive) has no business whatsoever to be around my child. I feel like there is no justice. I only want the very best for DD, and it just KILLS me that I can't protect her from this [email]cr@p.[/email]

The guy also told me that her XBF was in town this week and had a big fight with her b/c he found pics of their little romantic trip to New Orleans a couple weekends ago and romantic cards and [email]cr@p.[/email]

What should I do? I'm very tempted to sit on the agreement for a few weeks and see what STBX does...

Anniversaries are hard. But, I made it through the D-Day Anniversary just fine! Well, o.k, not with flying colors, but I made it.

You will make it too.

My Wedding Anniversay is coming up in June.....It's already starting to haunt my mind.

Some think it's best to just treat it as another day. Others suggest pampering yourself. I am up in the air on that one.

Take Care!

Kim

Sadmommy,

Is there any advantage to you signing the agreement sooner, rather than later?? If not, I see no reason to break a sweat finding a pen, a stamp, envelope - whatever.

Does your parenting plan have something in there about neither of you making nasty comments about the other to DD? I completely understand your feelings about a person who could call you that, being around your DD. Did you and WH have to take parenting classes or anything?

((Sadmommy))

Jean, I don't know if there's any reason why I have to sign it right away. I won't know until I can discuss it with the lawyer, who's out of pocket for a few days with a trial. Even if we sign it, who knows when the judge will get a chance to sign off on it as well. One of my coworkers said when he and his first wife divorced (he's a BS, she was a WS), they signed their agreement in Feb but the judge didn't sign it until August.

And yes, we both had to take the court-ordered parenting class, and the part about not saying nasty stuff about each other is in the parenting plan, but he has given me no reason whatsoever to trust him. He has continually brought DD presents from OW, and he lies to my face and then doesn't even act like it bothers him when I call him on it with the truth. Plus, I know what kind of person OW is, I know how badly she wants children, and I KNOW they're going to "play family" with our daughter. It makes me sick. That's what she did when she moved out west on a whim to live with an old friend of an XBF and his two young children. She took over as mom and then when it got old, she moved back. I'm sure the kids were devastated.

If it makes you feel any better, YD was 2 1/2 the first time we seperated. She doesn't have a clue who H's first GF was. He briefly dated a woman before the 1yr girlfriend. OD remembers her dog, but not much about the person. YD doesn't remember her at all.

So maybe OW will tire of all this before DD is old enough to remember her.

I can only hope so, Jean. Otherwise, all I can do is pray: for STBX to do the right thing, for me to have guidance, for DD to be protected...

It's so tempting to say I'm not going to sign anything until STBX can tell me what his plan is to protect DD from OW's negative influence! Would that be bad?? I'm sure he's going to get antsy and ask me about the status of me signing the agreement any day now.

So, is he waiting until the D is done to bring OW around DD? Or have they already met? My WH cannot introduce DD's to OW until after the D is final (or he would be in contempt). If that is your situation, I surely wouldn't hurry until he could tell you how he is going to protect DD.

OW already knows DD. See, we were all friends, or so I thought, before the A. So she has spent a lot of time with DD, buying her many presents. Seemed like she had a new outfit for DD everytime she came to visit for a while.

WH has already had OW around DD, even though I asked him repeatedly to not. But after we had the temporary agreement done, Wh's lawyer promised WH wouldn't do that anymore, b/c the judge "would rip into him."

Last night, I called WH to see when he planned to come finish up the work at the house, b/c our open house is Sunday, and he's nowhere close to being done with everything he said he'd do. He said he'd come over Sat. evening to do it. I asked him why so late, and he said b/c that's when he planned to do it. He's not even going to paint the porch railing like he promised. I said, "WH, you're getting as much out of the sale as I am, but getting you out here to do work you said you'd do is like pulling teeth, and that's not right." He said, "But I'm taking care of things as they come up." I said, "WH, we've been talking about this since before mediation. It's been over a month, and you're still not done yet." Then he said very smart-a$$ed, "Well, I'm sorry we didn't talk about painting the porch railing at mediation." He hasn't even called the carpet repair guy like he swore up and down he would, so our carpet is going to look lousy for the open house (pet damage in a few places).

I guess I'm in such a bad mood b/c today is our fifth wedding anniversary, and it's our 12th anniversary of being together. After he said those jerky things last night, I said, "Well, happy anniversary tomorrow." and hung up on him as he was saying something like, "Happy anniversary to you too."

I just can't believe how awful things are. But you know, I was reading through some of my old journals from college, and it looks like things never were the way I thought they should be. Seems like from the time we started dating, I was always having to do things the way he wanted. That it was always me trying to make him happy and not being reciprocated. He never made accommodations to support me (like not going to see me play guitar at open mic nights, for example), but I always made accommodations for him. Looks like it always me pursuing him, when dang it, it should have been the other way around. There were many times he was distant and snappy with me, especially when he cheated on me with some tramp in high school (and then told me that she had sexually assaulted him). <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Why am I still so hung up on this, now that I can see he's been a jerk the entire 12 years we've been together??

That seems to be the $64,000 question for me to. Is it because we feel stupid for putting up with the crap all this time. Do we say "they changed" so we don't have to admit that we really love a jerk? Are we that delusional that we imagined this great guy?

But, at least this way, we will have a shot to know what a truly mutual loving relationship feels like. Yeah, we wasted alot of time, but I think this will keep us from taking a really good guy for granted. I like what Dr. Phil says about how we teach people how to treat us. Now, we have a much better idea of what it is that we want to avoid.

((sadmommy))

Well, I've survived today so far w/out crying. Bought a bottle of wine before I picked up DD and will probably have a glass later. This is gonna sound dumb, but I had planned to fire up the chimnea and burn some love letters tonight, but it's storming, so that's not going to happen. Instead, I guess I need to get to those last couple paint touch-ups.

{{{{{SadMommy}}}}}

I told a friend of mine the other day that at least I could hold my head up high when I looked at myself in the mirror at the end of the day. You know you can - that you have taken the higher road.

Pour yourself a huge bubble bath with your glass of wine -

Hey, I didn't know you played guitar. Do you sing too?

K

Of course! I come from a very musical family. Both my mom and dad played guitar, and my youngest brother is a guitar prodigy. YB does a lot of home recording with his computer.

I've been playing guitar since I was 15, self taught. At one point, I knew every song off the Indigo Girls' first three albums (except for a couple songs). I've written many songs, too, although nothing recent. You'd think I have tons of material to write about, but I haven't had time to sit down with it. Before I got pregnant with DD, I was playing at coffee shops around town. Back in college, I even played at Eddie's Attic in Decatur.

I feel very lucky I have both the guitar and bellydance as outlets. Well, not together, you know!

I got the guitar out yesterday, and DD was really interested. She wanted to strum the strings, and she danced a little. It was cute.

Oh, no! I just checked my email, and there was one from my lawyer asking me to come by the office Tuesday to sign the agreement.

I'm having some seriously mixed emotions right now. On the one hand, it's like, "Yes. Finally I can start moving on with my life." But on the other hand, I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. Now WH will have what he wants... life with OW w/out a pesky wife getting in the way. As awful as he has been toward me and our daughter these past several months, I just can't seem to let it go, to admit that we failed. That I must have failed, because obviously I couldn't make him happy. That this is really happening.

If anyone was to make it work, it would have been us. I mean, high school sweethearts, for crying out loud! I've been with him for 12 years. 12 years down the toilet. And now I'm going to have deal with being a lonely single mom while he's out galavanting around with his trampy OW. I can see him introducing her to his family. Of course they'll believe whatever he tells them, that nothing happened until after the divorce. I am so upset. Tempted to call/email/visit them and lay everything on the table. Yes, I exposed to them from the get-go, but only when I had suspicions... not when I had all the hard evidence I have now. I probably never will, b/c I'm the bigger person here. But, oh it would be sweet.

Part of me wonders how much of all this is going on my head. Does OW really want to play family with DD, or am I just paranoid? I mean, WH has had many opportunities to have extra time with DD, and he never takes it.

Sorry if this post is jumbly... I'm pretty upset right now.

Mommy,

I am so sorry, I know this is not how you wanted this to end.

I wish I had some words of wisdom for you. I know the pain your feeling right now.

Please take care of you and know you will come out the other side just fine, we all will .......

Someday he will regret this, I truly believe that......


(((((sadmommy)))))


Prayers for you and DD


Hurting

I can only imagine what you are feeling. I am sure it is in my near future too, though.

I am so sorry. (((sadmommy)))

I talked to the lawyer, and there's NOTHING I can do about it. No protection for DD, unless there's abuse. I am really, really upset about it.

I talked to STBXH briefly b/c he had called to ask about some financial stuff. Told him I was going to meet with the attorney tomorrow afternoon, told him I wanted to know what he planned to do about DD and OW. I told him how concerned I was about DD being negatively influenced by OW and asked him what his plans were for overnight visits, and he said that either OW would go stay with her mom or he and DD would go stay with his parents. He said that if it would make me feel better, we could "keep things the way they are now," which means no contact with OW. I said that would make me feel a little better. He said it wasn't a sure thing that he's going to move in with her anyway. "Just something he was considering to save money." But he hasn't renewed his lease, so you know what that means. He told me I should consider the source of all my info. I said, "yes, that may be true. But there's always a grain of truth."

I told him I wasn't trying to be difficult, that I didn't care that he picked her over me because that's something he's just going to have live with. But where DD is concerned, I am very protective.

So I go see the lawyer at 4 tomorrow. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Did your husband always like women with foul mouths?

I hope they DO move in together. Nothing like a little closeness to end the fantasy.

I don't know if he always like women with foul mouths, Believer... I've never been that way.

In some exciting news, we may have an offer on our house before the auction. Apparently someone who came yesterday to the open house is extremely interested. They want to check out the house again this week and then come up with an offer. I'm nervous... I hope it works!!

In some totally unrelated news, there are some freaky, creepy bugs crawling and mating all over one of my purple ash trees. There must be at least 200 of these things from the ground to the top of the tree... it's a regular bug 0rgy. I can't figure out what they are. They're not eating the leaves or boring into it, just using it to party, and just the one tree, even though there are other trees in the yard. They look like giant black stink bugs. Their bodies are probably over an inch long. They have wings, long red antennae and their legs are jointed at a 90-degree angle. I have no idea what they are. I even went to a book store to look them up. We live in Georgia. Any ideas as to what these nasty little things are?? I've never seen them before.

is it some type of roach? sorry palmetto bug is what I Think they are called around here.

I am new to Ga and am so ready to move back home. The bugs here drive me nuts!!! I live out in the country though and have a bug person, but it just doesn't seem to keep them all out.