i think i just may have had a breakthrough

i went back to what my wife had previously agreed to verbally... with a slight adjustment. Instead of $4000 I split it up over time and made this offer:

1) I pay $2000 alimony at the time of the divorce and another $2000 alimony within two years; 2) after the second payment, you sign off on the deed; 3) joint custody with liberal visitation; 4) I get to claim Cory on my taxes so long as you are working nights and living in a two bedroom dwelling; 4) if you stop working nights and get a three bedroom dwelling, we alternate the child tax credit; 5) you pay me $105 per month in child support (half of daycare and medical insurance combined); 6) Cory can't be moved out of the county without court approval; 7) we keep our own cars; 8) we share medical costs not covered by health insurance.

Okay so she agrees to this and then I told a friend about my predicament of not actually having the cash. So my friend tells me, "It sounds like a perfect agreement to me... alimony is deductable."

So I looked it up and he was right!

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc452.html

Topic 452 - Alimony Paid

You may deduct the alimony or separate maintenance payments you are required to make, and you must include in income the alimony or separate maintenance payments you receive. This topic covers alimony under divorce or separate maintenance decrees or written separation agreements entered into by you and your spouse/former spouse after 1984. It explains what is deductible if you pay alimony, and what is taxable if you receive alimony. Alimony payments you make under a divorce or separation instrument are deductible if all of the following requirements are met:

You and your spouse or former spouse do not file a joint return with each other,
You pay in cash (including checks or money orders),
The divorce or separation instrument does not say that the payment is not alimony,
If legally separated under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance, you and your former spouse are not members of the same household when you make the payment,
You have no liability to make any payment (in cash or property) after the death of your spouse or former spouse; and
Your payment is not treated as child support.

Child support is never deductible. If your divorce decree or other written instrument or agreement calls for alimony and child support, and you pay less than the total required, the payments apply first to child support. Any remaining amount is considered alimony.

Noncash property settlements, whether in a lump sum or installments, do not qualify as alimony. Voluntary payments (i.e., payments not required by a divorce decree or separation instrument) do not qualify as alimony.

You do not have to itemize deductions to deduct your alimony payments. You must claim the deduction on Form 1040 (PDF). You cannot use Form 1040A or Form 1040EZ. You must provide the social security number of the spouse or former spouse receiving the payments. If you don't, you may have to pay a $50 penalty and your deduction may be disallowed.

If you are the spouse or former spouse who is receiving the alimony, you must report the full amount as income on your Form 1040. You cannot use Form 1040A or Form 1040EZ. If you do not give your social security number to your spouse or former spouse who is making the alimony payments, you may have to pay a $50 penalty.

More information on alimony, including rules for divorces and separations before 1985 and recapture rules, is available in Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals.

-------------

So I pay the alimony, deduct it on my taxes and use the return check to pay the second half... then get that back too.

I have a stimulus check coming and I receive three bi-weekly paychecks in July... wham... there is $2000.



All we have to do now is draw up the agreement in the form of a legal document and get a court date.

the divorce hearing has been set for mid next month... we reached an agreement so it's become an uncontested

can't wait till it's over. i've lost around 40 pounds so far and people are starting to notice. i want to buy a motorcycle afterwards too. maybe it's a guy thing but freedom and motorcycles seem to go hand in hand



been spending a ton of time with my son and putzing around the house with gardening and such

life aint bad

Quote: i want to buy a motorcycle afterwards too. maybe it's a guy thing but freedom and motorcycles seem to go hand in hand

Nope, not just a guy thing :)I love my new bike!!!!

lol i already signed up for the motorcycle training class... woohoo !

on a side note, a few minutes after i posted this my stepdaughter called to say she was standing outside my home at 10pm. my wife still wasn't home. stepdaughter gets home at 2pm and gets left home alone so her mother can have time with her boyfriend. "i hate him," she said.

i invited her to come over or call whenever she likes and invited her to an amusement park this weekend. hope she makes it through all this... can't imagine having her childhood

i had a blessed one and wish i could have returned the favor

Quote:lol i already signed up for the motorcycle training class... woohoo !

Pish tosh, i got a 2 minute lesson from the salesman and have spent a week riding for about an hour a day. Your gonna just love it..I promise

there are three reasons why i'm taking it:

1) cheaper insurance
2) it automatically qualifies you for a motorcycle endorsement on a florida license
3) The class uses 250cc bikes so i will get a chance to ride them all and figure out which one i like the best. i'm broke and will probably end up buying a 250cc bike for my commute to work. (80 miles per gallon will pay for the bike itself)

Ah, I see. Different rules in NZ. I have to sit a handlers cert soon to prove that I can pick it up from flat on ground and can operate safely in traffic. the I sit my learners permit which allows me on the road with restrictions for 6 months, then full graduation. I have a 250cc suzuki mud bug, not allowed anything bigger till full licence.

charlie, you're a great step-dad. Nothing says you can't continue to be there for her. Good for you. And her. Try to help her learn not to hate her mom for what she's doing to her daughter. She'll appreciate it in the long run and be a better person and you'll have done a good thing.

{{{charlie}}}

yea she is a good kid and i know she misses her brother

btw cat i've been meaning to post on ure thread again. sounded like you had a bad week

That's ok, charlie, you don't have to. I appreciate the thought, though.

I started anti-depressants recently, so I've been having trouble until I get it regulated. So I'm blowing everything out of proportion, lol.

Our most important job on this earth is being good parents to a child. You're doing great.

I no longer have the internet on at home so I don't come here as much as I used to come but I wanted to update this thread a bit.

Yesterday was the divorce hearing and it went well. I got primary custody of our son, full ownership of the marital home, child support, my car, my motorcycle and the right to claim my son on taxes every year.

My ex-wife (hey I can finally type that!) has been clingy. While we were waiting to see the judge, she told another couple that I would "come around" and eventually I'd ask her to marry her again. She called me last night around midnight to "come take care of her."

I tell her it's not my responsiblility anymore because she left me but that doesn't seem to phase her.

At any rate, it doesn't really matter. My conscious is clear... and my new motorcycle is fun to ride.

Great to hear! Thanks for letting us know.

You made out great as well you should!

CONGRADULATIONS!!!!!

Now you can move on with your life.

I am very happy for you and your son.

Congratulations!!!!!

It's been a few months so I thought I would update my diary. Like the rest of us here, I guess I just like putting it out there because it helps me heal.

The divorce has been final for two months now. My ex is on a path of destruction and it's really sad to watch her morph into her sister. Her sister has like five children. She lost custody of them years ago and has never been a good mother. Now my ex is showing signs of doing the same thing.

Many times she has either skipped visitation with our son or ended it early to be with OM3. Her daughter (my step daughter lives with her) is practically always alone because she leaves her to go off with OM3. The little time she spends at home, rarely is it alone with her daughter.

She is about to dump her daughter off on her bio father because she can no longer handle her daughter. (Go figure) As such, she will lose child support and it is likely that she will be evicted at the end of the month.

Our son is regularly asking his mother when she is coming home. It's been rough on him. He knows she left because she didn't love me anymore and that she has been dating the man she was dating before we split. I don't really hide the fact that all this has made his father sad.

Sad? I'm a sorry sack of doo! After seven years of on and off adultry, one would think I wouldn't still love her but I do. But as time goes on, the love is fading. Yea it's hard seeing her with OM3 but I'm learning that it only bothers me because I let it bother me. For a long time I blamed her but I am finally starting to see that I will be better off on my own. Tough lesson to learn.

Take this weekend for example. I had not talked with the ex for a few weeks for all the above reasons and then I did something stupid. I invited her to dinner with our son on Saturday. Big mistake. We are driving in the car and she plays some love song by Faith Hill and tells me that she told OM3 how this song reminded her of me and how that bothered him. She does crap like that just to mess with me and once again I let her do it.

I am recommitting my resolve not to contact her unless it has something to do with our son.

Might go to one of those DivorceCare groups this Wednesday.

I have enjoyed reading your "diary". Your progress is remarkable. I relate to some of what you went through.

From a dude's perspective I would like to say that I hope you listen to your own instincts and be selfish about your needs for your future. I spent two years listening to everyone else, caring what every one thought, and thinking I should be doing things a certain way to "get over" my divorce. Please don't do that. Now is your time to make what you want out of your life and be the father YOU want to be. Therapy was great for me. So is church. So are the best friends I have ever had. But what really helped me have the life I currently have, which I am enjoying, is listening to my heart, working off my instincts, and occasionally being selfish about my needs. Those amazing qualities you bring to the table as a dad? - transfer those to being a friend, employee, son, father, cousin, etc.

Keep writing, this thread is really well done.

thanks gekko and sorry i started crap in the other thread

i read a book titled, "no more mr nice guy" by robert glover last night and the author said similar things as you. (dang book was like reading an autobiography)

the good doctor said being selfish is a good thing because nobody can focus on your own needs as much as you can

in the past i would do nice things for my ex as a way to manipulate her into doing nice things for me. i would be nice and expect others to be nice to me in return. but life doesn't work like that, does it? it just plain makes more sense to tell people what you want and focus effort on getting that need met in a more constructive and direct way

my wife leaving me is probably the best thing that could have happened to me in retrospect. i was (ah hell it's a work in progress so i may as well say i am) such a wimp!

but the key is i am learning to be a man... finally. i have some FOO issues that caused my wimpy lack of manhood but i'm not focusing on the past. my plan is to start reconnecting with some of the guy friends i lost touch with over the years, get in shape, join some recovery groups or maybe sport teams and hopefully the confidence will grow so that i will attract the right kind of woman

for years i have been unhappy. to combat this, i'd simply do the same things yet try doing them harder... doesn't work. ya gotta do different things

maybe i married my ex because i knew she had problems that were worse than mine and it allowed me to hide my problems

i'm sick of hiding though. . gotta do something different. if you can't love me and my problems than get to stepping

i'm not sure if i have posted this yet but i am trying to get into a law enforcement academy. i am taking my fear head on. i can get into shape, meet strong positive male friends, help my community and make more coin for me and my son to spend all in one swoop. wish me luck, it kinda like army boot camp!

this thread is titled "new guy." ya know what? i'm starting to feel like a new guy all over again

feels good

First thing you learn after a divorce and meeting new people is that most folks have an idealized version of you. As long as you are happy go lucky, there for there problems and needs, and exhibiting the best parts of your personality then everything is great. The minute you show yourself to be complex or whole the rats scurry away until you come back to idealized version of you again. I experienced this is dating.

After my divorce trial I committed myself to healing and changing my relationships with my family, my friends (the ones who stuck by me), and making my complexity work. I am now close friends with with my dad. We watch games together, talk a lot, and just get along like buddies. I never thought that to be possible. I have repaired relationships with my sister and and mother and now they call me every two or three days and yell at me for not calling them, it's hilarious.

The aforementioned healthy realtionship with my daughter's mom and her new family has really been a blessing.

A few months ago, through close friends, I was introduced to someone and never thought of her as anything more than another female friend. Now, I believe I have found the person I will spend the rest of my life with, and we both are enjoying each other. She is organizing a surprise birthday party for me, her, her two kids, my daughter, my parents, mi sis and brother in law and their daughter and my close friends and their two kids. Don't tell her I know about it, I am supposed to be surprised on Saturday. (lol)

My point is, by letting life happen naturally and on my own terms, I am finally getting the happiness I want and deserve. Forget high school or college, this has been the best year of my life.

Keep being strong for yourself and you'll get yours. It can and will happen.

Good for you! And you, too, gekko!

You only have one life. Don't waste it.

For years, when I did something nice for my ex, I expected something nice done to me in return. It was an unhealthy way of getting my needs met and when I realized this, it was a positive learning experience.

This weekend, I learned another lesson. To the people who have posted to this thread, it's something you have been telling me for months but it took awhile to sink in.

I learned that my ex was not only a crappy wife but she is also, I think, a crappy mother.

Every other weekend, she has our son. For the past three of these visitations, she has dropped her son off early and immediately gone off to be with her boyfriend.

All last week, my co-workers and friends were telling me not to answer the door when she comes or don't answer the phone if she did it again but I just couldn't do that. If she doesn't want to spend time with my son, than I will show him who does.

So Saturday morning I was out with a nice woman riding motorcycles. (Not a date... just riding motorcycles.) We stopped at a lakeside restaurant to take a break halfway through the ride and there are two messages on my voicemail. The ex was in a panic about how her daughter was being mean to our son and to come get him.

So I came home and my son spent half of Saturday and all of Sunday with me. Both nights my ex was with her boyfriend and both nights her daughter was somewhere else. She had no reason not to be with her son aside from the fact that she'd rather be with OM3. She denies it and blames it on her daughter being mean but she just does not get the connection that even the fact that her daughter is being mean is because she seems to have no time for her children anymore.

My ex is on the verge of terminating her parental rights to her daughter and signing over custody to her daughter's father, who just got out of prison and is living with his parents. I can't even fathom doing that. Her daughter hasn't lived with her father since she was like four years old. My ex has no interest in working on her relationship with her daughter. It's all about her needs.

Her daughter emailed me the other day and it was hard reading about how much she hates her life now and wishes things were back to the way they were. Of course things were obviously not perfect then either but my ex is like an alien now. My step daughter didn't have a perfect life in my house but compared to now it's probably like being punch drunk.

When I do something nice and expect something nice in return, that is dysfunctional. But when you expect the ex to be a good mother and she starts acting... so selfishly...

There is a big difference between those two learning experiences.

And my mind is racing between that discovery and my need to learn more about why I stayed for as long as I did and why I loved her even after she left me for the OM3. I mean I know it was from some sense of duty to my child needing a two parent home and my step daughter needing stability but the part I haven't figured out yet is why that sense of duty was so strong.

My parents got divorced and I promised myself at a young age that it wouldn't happen to me. Six months ago if my ex wanted to stop the divorce I probably would have even knowing that she was seeing OM3 on the side. At least it was still semi secretive then.

It seems like the only reason why there is no way of wanting her back now is she is no longer secretive about it... she makes it plain as day almost like she wants to hurt me so much that I'll just leave her alone. Why did it take that much for me to say enough is enough?

I don't know that yet but I have plenty of time to figure it out. I'm in no rush to hop into a relationship and it would only be fair to work some of this crap out before I'll be ready.

So yea, that was my weekend.