Good luck Pomdbd3!

May the force be with you young padawan.

I haven't been ok in two years.

Pish posh! You're entitled to hurt, and you're more than entitled to shove it in her face. Way to go. That was a great exit line.

{{{pom}}}

Had a date Sunday night with Sally.

We had a nice dinner and went out for coffee afterwards. She's still hard to read. I'm getting to know her but realize that she doesn't know herself in many ways. It seems like a lot of her identity was tied into her marriage and she's now in the process of self discovery. I asked her what she liked or was like before her marriage and she was a bit at a loss and said she's still trying to figure that out.

See, if you ask me that question I can tell you that I loved to go swing dancing, have always been a history nut, love video games, and have lots of stuff I like to do and enjoyed doing that was tabled or put on hold while I was married and had the kids.

So we chatted about working out, going dancing, boating, and other stuff. Pretty light, but the subject of exes is very hard to avoid. I have meditation this week so we chatted a little bit about that and we talked about a trigger she had recently with the Fourth of July holiday and the fact that she use to spend it with her ex's family.

She did tell me of a dream she had recently where she saw a house and two figures, one in white and one in black. She interpretted this to mean that she was going to own a home once she was married. She told me of a guy friend of hers that told her he had a dream that they got married. She told him that she was going to go out with me for dinner and that he said to her, "Oh my! You're having an affair already!"

I didn't know how to interpret that. She was joking about it and said he's just a friend, but I wasn't sure if that was a hint or not.

I texted her later and said, "It was nice having dinner with you tonight. I hope I didn't interfere with your 'marriage'".

She wrote back, "Same here. No we r ok! We have an open relationship. He is very understanding!"

I know she's joking, but I didn't know how to respond back. I wanted to run with it and keep joking with her about bein OM and using it as a means to flirt with her, but decided not to.

Just to clarify to everyone in case there are newcomers to my thread, she's not married, is recently divorced. Isn't dating or in a relationship. Is recovering from infidelity in her marriage as I am in mine.

We were simply kidding around at dinner.

So that's my very brief summary about my quiet weekend. Nothing exciting or new to report.

We had mediation today and I have to say that while the kid's attorney and the mediator didn't think it went that great, I believe it went ok. No, it wasn't great, but the ex and I reached some common ground on some small things.

Why is this a big deal? Later on in the night we encountered a situation where DD6 was upset. She didn't want to leave without her brothers tomorrow night. I believe the ex's normal reaction would have been to stick to her guns and not compromise, but she did. I saw this as being very positive!

She said that DD6 could stay the night with her brothers since she was going to be taking the rest of my scheduled Wednesdays for the month for her summer vacation.

I think this is good progress. Give and take and good progress. I want to email her and thank her for being flexible, but I know she'll be reading this thread. Just in case, I'll send a thanks to her via email.

Little compromises like this will hopefully lead to bigger compromises later. I certainly hope so, anyways.

That IS positive! I'm so glad she's finally realizing that the kids' welfare is the most important aspect here. Good for your kids!

Yes, I see hope, but they get cut a bit when interacting with the ex. She emailed me that she feels that our current schedule isn't good for the kids and that they need to be in one place during the week and not split between homes.

She says it's too much back and forth otherwise.

I see it differently and said so. I asked her how she'd feel if she could only see her dad every other weekend because that is what she wants our kids to go through. I haven't gotten a response.

She says she feels that this is what is best for the kids and won't back it up with reasons. I point to books, studies, experts, and articles which advocate equal time and involvement between parents and have yet to find one which supports her position that kids are better off seeing one parent over another and having the other parent be reduced to an every other weekend "funtime" parent.

She has actually stated that this is what she feels is best for the kids in order to give them stability.

So we agree to disagree and off to court we go.

I've made offer after offer to settle and not have us go down this path, but she insists her way is the right way.

So my daughter's tears last night didn't send her the right message, which is that the kids need a stable and consistent schedule, not that they need to have one parent cut out of their week.