Hi everyone,

Just stopping by to say hello, see how everyone is doing, and give a quick update on my sitch.

I've not been around here much, since my hip surgery last winter. I'm back on my feet sort of, getting around and on the mend. Still trying to get my insurance company to pay the bills. I'm also still dealing with divorce settlement issues, and haven't had much to say that's new or different. I am actually stuck in the middle of Ground Hog Day, but this time it's a REAL hog!

On another note, I've gotten parts of my life back on track. My H was for awhile trying to interject himself into the same circle as I am in, but has backed out of that now. The relief of not having him around is tremendous. He is once again reinventing himself, and will move on as if the past 20 years were just a passing fancy. Doubtful our paths will cross again - now if he'll just stop trying to stay connected. Good riddance.

I have found a group of women friends - people who were always my friends but are now my close confidants. We do things together, travel together at times, and just generally enjoy life together. About half of us are single, and about half are married.

We all have dogs, and often get together to take our dogs swimming, or train, or other things. Yesterday we had 5 of us, and about 7 dogs playing in the water, eating pizza and reminiscing about getting old(er). And laughing our heads off. Can't remember the last time I truly had that much fun AND felt that comfortable just being myself. Quite different from my experiences when H was around.

I'd be REALLY enjoying myself if the medical and legal issues were all in the past.

Today was the last mediation hearing before the pre-trial hearing. H looked terrible, as if he's aged 10 years. My sister came to the mediation with me, and she commented on how awful he looked too. even his voice sounds like he's been beaten. Still, he advertises himself on Yahoo as not only divorced already (NOT) but also healthy well-adjusted emotionally-sound, with a wholesome and wonderful life going on... he has turned into quite a good fiction writer, it seems.

So, how is everyone else? My friends from Tough Love - and others? I hesitate to list names, cuz I'm gonna forget someone if I do. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hey Deja Vu,
GREAT to hear from you. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I had thought about emailing you last week but got side-tracked. I'm glad you are enjoying things with renewed friendships. If today was your last mediation hearing, what is the timetable for your legal issues to be settled? When you say "pre-trial" does that mean you will actually have a trial, in a courtroom?

It's really good to hear from you, and I'm glad you still check back here. Keep on posting when you can!

Well, guess what? The pre-trial hearing that was scheduled for tomorrow got cancelled late today, at the 11th hour. Seems like the 2 months he was given to produce his evidence wasn't enough time for him to find more loopholes.

Now he's stalling so he can get bank statements that he thinks will show he paid me $$ that I never received. He's claiming this based on his having transferred funds into the joint account. He thinks that proves he gave me the $$. He forgets that it will also show the transaction of him taking the $$ back out when he decided he couldn't afford to give me that money. Meanwhile, his incompetence and stalling behavior is costing me lots of $$ in attorney fees.

Too bad there isn't a way to force him to stop dreaming up ridiculous claims that are nothing but expensive red herrings. The last one was when he suddenly "remembered" that HE had purchased our home with a bonus from work, instead of me (which he'd agreed to repeatedly over the past 15 years). He came up with that new idea 3 days before mediation. He was counting on me not being able to react on such short notice. Until I located his W2 for that year that showed he made practically nothing that year - and then he quickly backed down. Funny that someone would forget soemthing as important as having purchased a house anyway, don't you think?

Then it was that the official certified appraisal was off by $125,000 and therefore my equity was all gone. "Too bad, Deja, you get nothing. Oh yeah, trust me on that - a realtor told me this."

And now he won't proceed until they have a reappraisal in their hands to prove the house is worthless. Funny - they want to use current value for the house instead of the value we agreed to when we split our assets, but then they want to use the original separation date to rule out all my current medical bills. Huh? Faulty logic is what that is.

So, here we go again. There is a final D court hearing scheduled for August 21. Why do I not hold out hope that it will happen?? In theory, there should still be another pre-trial hearing scheduled but the person who has to schedule it is out of town until next week.