Post Christmas Update:

The kids and I had a great time over Christmas playing with all their new things. We spent more time with my parents and they and the kids are really enjoying each other. What a huge difference from last year when I was home alone.

WW had sent an e-mail asking to have additional time with the kids - but to be able to have it in our home. I politely declined. She got some extra time with them over New Year's, but I don't know what she is going to do in the coming months. Not my problem but I will deal with it when the issue arises.

My attorney sent a counteroffer for settlement back to WW's attorney today. We are set as a "B" court case on March 25 and 26, meaning if all the "A" cases settle or get continued that we will go on one of those days; otherwise it will be another day. My attorney feels like we can settle and I am as happy as I can be with the my counteroffer.

I've been in a strange place the last few days, thinking of the past, contemplating the future, but trying to just live for today. I got lazy on some things towards the end of the year that I need to correct. Looking back 2007 seemed so long and so fast at the same time - hard to believe all that happened. Hopefully 2008 will bring better days.

Happy New Year to all my friends here - may God bless you in 2008!

Yes my friend! What a year 2007 was. So many ups & downs for us all. I hope & pray it's all uphill from here. We are all in such a different place now.

I'm so glad we were all able to enjoy our holidays this year. At least a little more.

As long as we're all here for each other, we can get through the rest of our trials in 2008.

I hope to get my update posted shortly. A lot has gone on here also and coming down to the wire on the legal front.

Keep your chin up & know we are all in this battle together. God will have favor with us all. Just look around at all the little surprised around us.

To strength, great prosperity, peace and happiness in 2008!!!

Hi everyone,

I got an e-mail from my attorney that the agreement has been finalized regarding settlement, so it looks like March 25 this thing will be over. I guess I managed to drag it out almost a year and a half, but in the end I got what I wanted - the assurance that my kids will be taken care of in a stable environment.

To be honest, I am not sure if I want to wait around another year or so for her to come to her senses. Any time I have to interact with her (mainly exchanging the kids) I am completely indifferent towards her and rarely look at her. A part of me is looking forward to something new as scary as that is.

I am pretty happy with my own recovery over the last year, even though I know I am not completely done - I'll get there - it's a marathon, not a sprint right?

If nothing else, my story is here for others to see.

Eph,

You fought the good fight for your marriage. You know it, we know it, and God knows it. Time will tell if she ever sees it.

For now, just live life. God will take care of the rest.

{{{Eph}}}

tomorrow around 9am EST it's all over unless, like the prodigal son, she comes to her senses.

God bless. I will be praying for you tomorrow.

Good luck... she sounds so far lost... but I know things will turn out well for you.

Eph,

Just checking in,,,,,,,,,,,,how are you doing?



Amen!! I am so glad to hear that. Yet, you still need to take care of you, too! How's that going? I know you have been reluctant to post much while the proceedings were in motion. I hope to hear more about you and how you are doing very soon.

{{{{EPH}}}}

(Eph lifts up a large rock and waves at everyone)

Well, as promised I am back with an update. So much has happened since that fateful day...where to start?

It was a dark and stormy night.....nope, that's not right.

Once upon a time.....nope, not that one either.

Oh, yeah, now I remember....


The weekend after the D was final, exWW told me she was going to a treatment facility up in Virginia to deal with her eating disorder. Huh? Well, she kept that "problem" hidden from everyone else, but in my heart I knew that is was still there and probably got worse through this whole ordeal.

The story was it would be 30 days.....well 30 days turned into 3.5 months at the first place and also included a some time in Arizona. She sent letter to the kids every week while she was gone, and phone contact was minimal...a lot of fishy things to me but I won't get into all those details. I made sure the kids sent her some stuff regularly, even sent her flowers for Mother's Day and a few other times the kids wanted to do that. She finally came home on 7/17.

While all that was going on, I changed jobs and got a great opportunity as a work from home consultant. Talk about a lot of stress being relieved! It's a lot easier to take care of two kids as a single dad w hen you have a much more flexible work schedule. God has really blessed me in this regard.

Well, once exWW got home, we had to slowly start integrating her back into the kids lives. I was not comfortable with her just taking off with them like before, so after also consulting with my IC and the IC that DS7 has been seeing, we agreed the best approach was for her to come to our house the first few times and spend time with the kids. We have since moved on to her having one overnight on the weekends, and plan for Labor Day weekend for her to have them the entire weekend.

That part has been frustrating, because it seems she is content with playing mommy on a part time basis. She has talked about her recovery and hard work she has to do to take care of herself now which I can understand to a point since she has been in a protective environment for so long....but the kids are desperate to see her and spend time with her and I don't think she gets that right now.

Anyway, the kids start back to school next week...DS7 is in second grade and DD5 starts kindergarten. Luckily they are at the same school near the house, so this will cut down on driving for me. During the summer they have been at camp each week...that's been a love/hate thing for them especially knowing that mommy is home now.

I guess since her return I am not in a true plan B, it was easy when she was gone to be dark because when she would call I would just hand the phone to the kids or have them call her directly.....we have seen each other at DS7's IC since her return as we work through that and have had to exchange TMs and e-mails for scheduling purposes, maybe some idle chit-chat while she was at the house...things I feel were necessary with her being gone and coming back now...it's still pretty much business like and by no means are we friends since I still don't trust her and I have still not seen any remorse or anything about her behavior from all this time. I am just glad she got the help she needed so maybe at some point she can be the mom the kids need her to be.

I probably left some details out and if so I Can fill them in after I reread this. Glad to see so many of you who helped me are still around, and glad to see that many who were in the heat of their own battles with me have found themselves in a better place now. I owe so many a debt of gratitude, thank you all!

And they lived happily ever after.....well, we will see about that one yet

E!! It's good to hear from you.

Wow, sounds like times have been tough for your xWW.

Thank goodness you are such a great dad, your kids are blessed to have you.

That is so AWESOME about working at home. I am so jealous!


This is the most frustrating thing, I'm sure. You wonder if some of them EVER get it.

She'll be shocked one day when her children are graduating from high school and she missed it all. There is no going back.

Thanks for updating us, Eph. It's nice to see how things are going for the people that arrived about the same time I did.

Fox

Well I guess it's another update. Not too much eventful going on, but some discoveries made.

When picking up the kids the last few times I have been inside her apartment...this was a first. What can I say, it's an apartment....and quite a drastic change from our house. There are enough signs that someone else lives there or at least frequently visits there. Oh, and I have seen and smelled signs that indicate she has started smoking, which is quite surprising given the fact that her allergies used to go haywire when she was around that, oh and the fact that she has asthma! I guess she traded one addiction for another. She also got a tattoo, which I found humorous given the fact that she about blew a gasket wondering if I thought about what the kids would think about it when I got mine last year. Oh the irony.

We have kept the same visitation schedule for the most part and discussed it with DS7's IC a few weeks ago. She has come to pick them up on Wednesdays to spend the day at her place, and also had them for one night over the weekends...one weekend it was Saturday night and then we got on the normal schedule of Friday nights. She will have them the entire weekend next weekend (Labor Day), which will be her first long weekend with them since she has been back. Otherwise, contact between her and the kids has been at a minimum.

Couple of other interesting things from the IC visit:

I asked about how I was perceived to have played a role in her eating disorder and she seemed to act as if she did not even understand what I was asking. The IC tried to clarify it better, but even then she had the deer in the headlights look. It was hard to tell whether she was just playing dumb or whether she truly did not understand what I was asking...honestly I think the former - it was a pretty clear question I thought.

The other thing was I explained why DS7 had made the comment to exWW about how he wanted her to come home so that he would not have to go to the after school place or the camp they went to in the summer. Both of the kids had asked me earlier this year that if she was home would they have to do those things, and I told them no, that because I had to work and no one was home to watch them they had to do that (because we had both agreed when we had kids that she would stay home with them as my job afforded us that opportunity). Well, the IC said in the future we need to discuss how to best answer those types of questions so as not to make anyone look bad - because, by her logic, exWW "may" have gone to work at some point - all speculation, and "what if" stuff which basically lets exWW escape the reality of her poor decision. And the thing is, I pretty much expected that response from her. I did not want to take any more time away from her seeing DS7 so I did not argue at that time, but I will be sure to set the record straight when we see her next time. What a bunch of baloney.

Anyway, the kids started school this week on Tuesday so we are trying to get back on our normal schedule. Both exWW and I met with the kid's new teachers last Thursday and we had a Kindergarten orientation on Tuesday to attend as well. In both cases I made the arrangements for the time and exWW planned to be there at the same time - those were not things I negotiated with her as to what worked best for both of us, she has to be on the kids and my schedule for these kinds of things. I mean, who knows what she does all day anyway.

And I know I might get nailed on this, but I wanted to get a peek at her frame of mind so in a conversation somewhere along the way I made the comment that I still believed (even after the D is final) that the best case scenario is for the kids to have their mother and father together in a loving home, and if she believed that as well and would she even give thought into looking into that (still with the Steve Harley pitch). Her response was that she could not say yes or no at this time, that right now she was putting her effort into her own recovery. In reality, that is probably the best thing that she could do for the kids anyway, the last thing they need is to lose her entirely.

But of course, life goes on for the three of us. I won't touch that again unless she brings it up herself.


Oh, also exWW was over Tuesday to spend some time with the kids at the house, and I got fed up with her sneaking and lying about the smoking thing (she would go out and then come back in and tell the kids she had to make a phone call)...I wanted to say something to her but could not get a moment without the kids being around so I sent her an e-mail Tuesday night. I know, I know...I probably should have just left this alone.....


Her response:

My reply:

I guess she just wants people around her who will tell her everything is great and the decisions she makes are great despite the fact that they are not. Just more glimpses of her still foggy wayward mind.

My initial thought to her reply was that it was not me making her feel "sad, hurt, inferior, and guilty" but i thought that I would rather use her own words (positivity and encouragement) against her so to speak. And I don't think that what I said was being judgmental...I stated my feelings, stated a fact about her allergies, and asked my questions.

Also I am concerned about how the kids will see that. They ask me all the time why my parents do that. They already know it is bad and it's something I do not condone.

Ah well, I am looking forward to this weekend and getting some things done I have been putting off for awhile.

Hey Eph!

Glad to have another update from you. Keep up your great life with your kids- you are doing such a wonderful job.

From what I read, ExWW is still totally self absorbed. It's all about Her and everyone needing to support her. Bascially feed her a diet of Sunshine enemas and life is all good.

I know it's hard, but try to refrain from any of those types of interactions with her going forward UNLESS or UNTIL you see something from HER indicating a change. I won't analyze who said what or how it could have been said better by either one of you, there are other's here better equipped to do that for you. I will just say that you know the type of response you got from the smoking email will be all you are going to get from her.

Keep what boundaries you can to protect you and your kids. Frankly, you are doing more for her than I could ever imagine doing if I were in your shoes. I really admire your giving soul. Just don't forget to keep some of it all to yourself for your own good!

Thanks Bugs.

I agree that her response is a good indicated of her frame of mind so its pointless to try to engage those kinds of conversations. After all, I am not obe who believes in giving those sunshine enemas :RollieEyes: