And I know you'l all get on me for spending the energy writing the above, but it is truly a release for me. I told LK so...

I can't thank you enough, LK. You have no idea...you really, really don't...I have felt so alone in dealing with him; so scared of every interaction, and you've saved me from it. I don't see him, I don't talk to him, I can deal with things this way and know that you've got my back. You have no idea how reassuring that is. I'm not so scared anymore, and I've been able to feel better and have more good days.

It's the best gift I've gotten since this whole thing started.

And I DO ABSOLUTELY intend to clean house and go on with my day.

RE: the timeline...it is rather pressing, actually. I can't put this off very long. A basic, unemotional response that buys me some time would be:

June is fine. I will reiterate that LS has planned for the boys the first week in August, as previously agreed between the two of you. Your pronouncement was unexpected.

She's carefully considering how she wants to deal with this. For the moment, she's considering three viable options:
1. You go alone to the cottage.
2. You graciously offer the cottage to LS and the boys so they can go as LS intended. She would pay you the deposit.
3. You cancel your reservation and identify an alternative week to spend with the boys, either at the cottage or another location.

If one or the other of these is preferable to you, please communicate that with me as soon as possible.

my gut agrees w/ MEDC.
i hate when that happens. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> (just kidding)

I guess it is not appropriate plan B.

it would be so nice if there was a court appointed intermediary who could cut thru his crap and TELL him the facts...but, since it is YOUR friend, i am afraid he will disreguard much of what she says anyway.

i vote to stay simple w/ your reply....whatever one you choose.
more impact, less possible complications.

Give yourself the weekend to think it over.
There is no obligation to rush into a response for every little thing he sends your way.
Put him a little lower on your priority list -- somewhere below cleaning your toilets.

Enjoy the spring days....

Give yourself the weekend.

nia: LK is MY friend, but WH knows her pretty well, as well as her FWH.

Therefore, he knows full well that she is a take-no-prisoners, stick to her guns woman who does not suffer fools and won't be taken in by his games.

Thus, the same reason she changes the wording of my response is the same reason it makes her a great intermediary...she's her own woman, and she stands up for me.

She'd go toe-to-toe with WH in a heartbeat, and won't back down.

*****

Reactions to my "condensed" response? Again...the timing issue just because I don't want to appear uncooperative and I also need to make my travel plans...Cape Cod, remember???

LS, since you had the conversation with your MIL about this, I would call the cottage lady and get that info and pass it on to MIL. Then... back to dark Plan B. I wouldn't respond to WS until next week. Let the jerk stew about it. You go have a fun weekend with your sister and enjoy yourself.

Bwhaaaaaa! DONE!

It's already Friday. Vacation plans can wait until next week. A non-response from you -- absolutely nothing -- is the thing that will drive him nuts and give you the most peace. It takes control away from him and gives it right back to you.

I LK is your friend and that she won't back down from WH....that's great. i am glad she has your back.
I am sure WH is a bit afraid of her.

i meant that i wish there was someone who cared less about YOUR interests that would state the facts for him in a way that he would see what an arrogant, manipulitive ****** he has become.

anyway..i agree w/ others....if you can hold off 'till monday...do so.
HE shouldn't be at the top of your priority list.
let's pretned you really don't give a crap about him for a minute.....couldn't you easily say....."that can wait 'till monday."?

Lilsis's Plan

1. Make travel plans to Cape Cod. Cuz those boys need their first plane ride -- and wow! will it ever be fun by the ocean!
2. Call Cottage Lady and find another week/weekend that you can get The Cottage sometime during this summer, so that you can revel in memories of your Dad. While you've got her on the phone nail down how this whole scene went down so you can inform MIL.
3. Clean house, including toilets.
4. Maybe on Monday (after letting him stew all weekend) have LK shoot over a version of the e-mail that you feel comfortable with. And add the new vacation time that you will be taking with the boys at The Cottage (preferably before he goes ALONE, hehehehe or even better yet, takes RT and makes her spend the week going down LS's memory lane remembering all the happy times spent there. You KNOW she would HATE that.)

I disagree - that response should not be sent by anyone, even reworded.

1. He'll know there is a reaction. 2. Drama is engaged (this is plan B!) and 3. It enables him to justify his crappy monkey turd behavior.

Don't offer him any solutions. This is HIS problem to solve, why on earth would you do the work for him!?!?

Plain and simple, the reply should be sorry, the kids and I have plans that week based on our previous agreement.

OR - Sis, and this is totally up to you, but if I were in your place I might consider simply refusing to fight (which is really what he wants), and just sending the boys to the cottage (A place important to them also). Just make sure that RT wont be going.

Remind yourself: How important is it?

Being the Plan B Goddess that I am, may I politely point out something, LilSis? Did you notice that most of this week your energy has been spent whirling around the drama of WH and this cabin? My dear killer bee sistah, that is not what Plan B is all about. Plan B is about detaching from all the crisis and drama that exists around an A and living your own life. Plan B is about letting go of all his little hurtful barbs and not letting them affect you.

In the spirit of Plan B, I think the perfect response would be:

"June works for me; August does not, as I told you in January that I already had vacations plans with both of the boys that week."

PERIOD

Let HIM stew about cheating you out of the cabin and not having anyone in it! Let HIM stew about planning his vacation without his own children! Let HIM stew about how he is going to fix all this!!

See, LilSis, what he did was indeed sneaky and underhanded and inconsiderate, but the part that YOU are contributing to all this is that you are allowing him to suck you into HIS attempt to hurt you. Just say No! He no longer has that power over you unless you give it to him, so be brief and business-like. "June is fine. I have had plans for that week in August since January so that does not work for me" is sufficient because it doesn't involve all his deception or your emotional knee-jerk reaction--AND it does not give him any ammo. You give him ABSOLUTELY NO POWER OVER YOU.

Does that make any sense? All your sobbing and talking to MIL and accusing him of lying--it may be true, but what it really says to him is that he can still affect you. OTOH, if you had only reacted like I suggested, he might have said to himself, "MY GOD! I can't have my kids. All my lies and manipulation were for nothing! And I didn't even MOVE her! I can't get her anymore!" Now he knows that all he has to do to set you off is make plans without you.

Finally, just so you know, all your talk about "being considerate" and "doing the thoughtful thing for the mother of your children" is not going to hold one bit of water in court., I know for a fact you don't want to hear that, but I'm telling you the truth ahead of time so you can start to think in ways that will be wise in court so you can maximize your custody. See, LilSis, there is what is MORALLY right and there is what is LEGALLY right. Morally, WH is up the creek without a paddle because he's being a completely evil person. But legally, he is completely allowed to leave you, have another woman, and move on with his life, half the stuff, and his kids part time. That is LEGALLY. Now that may seem all wrong to you (and it is) but that is how a court will view it. So you want to MAXIMIZE your case legally, and having emotional reactions and refusing vacation because he lied to you" is not going to look good LEGALLY. However, refusing vacation because you dispassionately already had plans looks fine.

I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm telling you in love. It would be far worse to find this out in court by losing time with your boys. So I tell you to PROTECT you. Stay in calm, dark Plan B. Don't let him rattle you. If he does rattle you, take a day or two to calm down before you respond. And then respond LIKE A ROCK.

Your faithful friend,


CJ

I think I agree with BR and CJ... don't let it be sent...you really don't need the drama and YOU have the power to make this happen the way you want it to.

Same stuff that I posted about Tuesday...

same drama
same wasted energy

ss/dd

has to be a payout of some sort there...

committed

refuse to fight. becuse that IS what he wants.
i think that is a very good idea. at this point, you can say it's ok for him to take the boys to the cabin as long as RT is not going to be there and drop it.

i didn't mean to imply that i thought you should send the first email....i just agreed w/ what it said.
I defer to the plan B experts.
send the simple reponse and turn off your computer for the week-end! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

CJ is a voice of pure plan B reason.

LilSis - WH knows all the best baits to tempt you to grab onto that hook.

Do I have something wrong, or didn't you ask LK to no longer tell you all the details of WH's correspondence? She is free to have whatever exchanges with him she wants (hopefully tempered with your best interests at heart), but you should not know anything except the bare facts. As you told MIL his words mean NOTHING.

My prayer for you for this weekend is for STRENGTH - the strength to ignore his plots and schemes and drama - to stay on the high road and not let him pull you into the muck and mire of the ditch where he is living his life.

LS, your WH is an expert at pressing your hot-buttons, and I’ll bet that RT is even better. They know exactly where you’re sensitive, and how you’re likely to react to known stimuli.

Is that OK with you?

Reacting is something you ALLOW yourself to do.

If you don’t want to be at WH’s and RT’s mercy, work out where your hot-buttons are and how to avoid reacting when they’re pushed. And why you are so eager to react.

Which brings me onto…

A lot of your distress is coming from the idea that your WH shouldn’t be hurting you, that he should care about you, that this isn’t the way the real H would act.

You’re constantly measuring the difference between the way he ought to be, and the way he actually is, and gasping ‘Look at the gap! He ought to see the gap and do something about it!’

Every time he does something callous and dishonest, you are reminded afresh of how big the gap is, and you are wounded all over again.

This is not helping you.

Mimi keeps trying to get you to understand that you have to accept the gap as a fact; she’s right, because each time you bemoan the size of the gap, you hurt yourself and stay stuck in a helpless place. Accepting the gap means accepting that your WH is, and may remain, a mean-spirited, cruel and callous excuse for a husband and father. THIS IS REALITY. Expect him to be rotten, expect him to try to trip you up and hurt you. It’s appalling, it’s unfair, but IT’S THE WAY IT IS.

(Just as your MIL is behaving differently from how you want her to behave and how you think she should be behaving. Separate the observation from the anxiety to force them to behave the way you expect, and you will be a much less stressed person.)

Which further brings me onto…

I think your IC is trying to get past this helplessness, but in a different way. He’s trying to get you to see that the H you knew was possibly a bit of a fraud – someone who looked good on the surface but who had bits of that surface propped up on twigs. He’s trying to move you past the idea that your H was a fairly perfect man who just got unlucky in running into RT, and that without RT he would revert back to Mr. Perfect.

MB works on an addiction model, and everything I’ve read about addiction suggests that the addiction is a way to fill a hole. The point is that the hole – the weakness – the bit propped up with twigs – already exists in people who get addicted to anything. Ergo, your H had a hole, a weakness, a bit of him propped up. There were likely small, subtle indicators of that – things you dismissed because they didn’t fit into the image he projected, things that jarred with the rest of him and were therefore ignored. Your IC, I think, is trying to help you ‘get your eye in’, so you can see those small flags from the past.

As many have pointed out, the WH isn’t your H. But the brutal truth is that the H wasn’t the H you thought he was either. Mimi’s H is again the sweet man she married – but he is the sweet man PLUS the emotional hernia repair to protect the weak muscles against further bulge. The sweet man was a sweet man with major weaknesses lurking out of sight.

Even if WH were to come home tomorrow, those holes would still exist.

TA

Sorry to cause trouble here but as a father who went thru a long nasty custody battle, it appears to me that some facts are being ignored or disregarded. I think a frank talk with your lawyer (whom I'm assuming is a good one that knows the law) might help you from tripping yourself up. Not a councilor or feel good person - a facts person.

I think you should get a written visitation agreement done. Verbal = zero in court. Who's telling the truth ? Any decent judge will take his word and yours as equal thus the ending result is zero. "Play it by ear" arrangements almost never work in the early stages of divorce.

A) He has the same and equal rights that you do regarding the kids. You do not get to dictate when he will see them and what they will be doing any more than he can do that to you. If pushed too far, he can go to court and has a fair chance of getting temporary 50/50 custody/visitaion (most states). Are you prepared for that ? Do you want to gamble on it ?

B) You have zero say on what he does and whom he does it with during his time with the kids - as he has no say in what you do with them and whom they visit/see when with you. He is the childrens EQUAL parent - he doesn't *have* to clear things with/thru you. If he wants to include RT he can do so with no legal reprecussions (in most states). You have stated if she has any contact with the kids you'll take him to court. Talk to your lawyer about this - because IMHO you'd lose - and look like a vindictive possesive wife in the courts eyes. Please be careful.

C) He has told you he has made arrangements and wants to go on vacation with the kids the first week in August. You said no and he said he will not give it up. He has plenty of time to put it into court - and he'll most likely win. There is no legal visitation agreement times established and you'll need a really firm plan that you can prove was ALREADY IN PLACE in order to win/prevent this vacation for him and the kids. Is this a fight that is really worth all that ? Please examine your motives. I don't understand why this is really a problem - except you "verbally" said you wanted them that week yet have no firm plans.


I understand the emotion - I've been there. But please don't let it get in the way of sound legally correct decisions regarding the kids - especially if you don't have an EASTABLISHED court order to back them up. No order means no restrictions. My advice is you get a signed specific legal temporory agreement - then this kind of stuff will go away and you can start focusing on your future.


Keep truckin...

CJ: I know that I am very prone to these emotional reactions. That's something that I'll have to work on over time. However, I CAN control my "public" response to WH. It's a step in the right direction, but emotional reactions are still there, and very real. WH gets my Irish up.

But at least I'm not giving him the satisfaction of knowing it.

So my strategy this week as been to work through the emotional reaction, then formulate a measured, Plan B response. LK didn't quite cooperate on the first response, which I think escalated things a bit. This won't happen again.

BR: I have thought the same thing about just letting it go for the sake of the boys. I do not wish to engage in a pi$$ing match with him in which the kids will just end up the losers. I have no wish--at all!--to deny them a trip to a place that they love, with their dad, whom they love, so long as RT is not a part of it (and it is qute possible the D will not be final by then if I am successful in dragging it out).

I do, however, want to set a very clear boundary and firm with him. The way this came down is unaccepetable. It was manipulative and underhanded, and just plain thoughtless...not to mention a violation of our temporary order (I looked up the wording, "...parenting time as the parties shall agree..."). Quite simply, he demonstrated a total lack of respect for me.

I can't and won't stand for that.

THAT'S what's important...more so than the cottage itself, who goes or when. (RT notwithstanding)

Honestly, I wouldn't care that much...at this point I'd rather do Cape Cod and can't afford to do both. Part of me says let him have that week, but I'm not giving it to him on a silver platter; no way. My turn to yank HIS chain. Let him sweat this one out. Let him figure it out.

I did check the online availability, and the other cottage (a twin to ours) is available the third week in August.

Is it wrong to want to teach him a lesson? or set him straight? or whatever you want to call it?

I feel like he still sees me as this weak, ineffectual puddle of grief and agony that he can just wipe his feet on. No. No way.

By all means refuse to fight LilSis...I tend to lean toward what BR said about letting the boys go to the cottage if there is any way that you can reconcile that-I was trying to figure out the least offensive way to say that to you when I read her post...ANY peep that you make will be used to bolster the affair...They desperately NEED you to keep it going-NO LIE-Please believe that...They use you as fodder for their sick conversations-they bond in this way, as nuts and as hurtful as that is, believe me when I tell you that it is TRUE-sadly, I know this firsthand...Don't feed the infidels! Let them eat monkey crap!

Also wanted to add that I agree that he is no worse than any other WS, myself included...I could tell you stories of cruelty that bring me to my knees now-(stuff that I cry in the shower over)...I understand that emotional reaction in thinking that he is "even worse than"... Sometimes I read stories of WSs here and falsely think that some are worse than I was...Not True...What I've realized is this...I was, at that time, CAPABLE of inflicting ANY pain on Mr. W so long as it served my addiction-I was no better than anyone here because I didn't do certain things-all that was needed for me to do them was opportunity and a continuing addiction..."There but for the Grace of God go I"...

Mrs. W