Foundher...I just witnessed a terrible divorce between friends recently...my girlfriend was getting beaten down horribly in the beginning of the process...and her attorney, although he has a great reputation, seemed a little too laid back during the actual meetings with her husband and his attorney...a little too much in agreement with the other side ...so she went out and found an equally reputable female attorney and boy did things start to happen in her favor after that...my girlfriend's remark after the first mediation with her new female attorney was.."I finally feel like someone has my back in all of this"...if you aren't feeling like your attorney is standing up for you...get a new one who will...and get one fast...you have way too much to lose in this process...You and your kids are in my prayers...

Sending you a very big hug. Hang in there and don't give up. You sound extremely strong to me.

Unfortunately, we are in the final stages of this thing, and I do not think anyone else will take this case - and I asked around. Two out of the three attorneys I recently interviewed told me that they had filed formal complaints against this particular judge to whom the case was assigned,and that she has a reputation for being harsh, unsympathetic to stay-at-home-moms, and plain old unfair. Each of these lawyers flat out refused to take any more cases that would be tried in her court.

As I am now on my third attorney (the 1st one was dismissive of my children's concerns so I canned him, the 2nd one was pregnant and as she got further into the pregnancy did not have an aggressive bone in her body and she decided to take a leave of absence). The one I am with now supposedly had a reputation for being a strong women's advocate and a bit of a bulldog, but at the end of the day, she too gets beaten down and seems way too eager to settle. I keep telling her that I am not fighting here for ownership of a jet plane and a summer home in Vail: I am fighting for my very survival. To put food on the table and keep a roof over my head. It seems that whenever I get angry and tell her that I am dissatisfied with what is happening on her end she buckles down and gets temporarily more aggressive - the key word here being temporarily. But what a huge toll this is taking on me, this needing to watch my own back all the time about things I do not even fully understand the scope of, and simultaneously having to keep at her to maintain some level of appropriate adversarial aggression. This, of course, all the while I am fighting back the tears and the hurt feelings that come from new barbs constantly being thrown at me by the ex and his deceits being uncovered as we go along. Let me tell you, it will take some time to spring back from just finding out that my husband has been involved with someone for the better part of 20 years. And for me to have to orchestrate my own legal attacks while I am going through this is almost more than I can bear.

But I will do it, because I have no choice. It is a matter of survival for me and my children, and I have no intention of rolling over and dying, no matter what anybody says.

Your prayers and good wishes are more precious to me than I could ever express. Please keep them coming, and thank you for your support at this most critical time in my life.

Foundhervoice-atlast

Foundhervoice, I can see the stress in your posts. Here's a technique that has helped me in the past and maybe it will help you. If at all possible, imagine your fear as fuel for what you have to do.
Fear can be a good thing. It produces adrenalin which prepares us for a fight. You are fighting for your children as mothers have fought for their children since the beginning of time. There is no being on earth as fierce as a mother.

God has placed you in this position for a reason and He will not abandon you. We will be praying for you and your children.

smile

Your user name on this site says it all. You found your voice at last and about to be ex doesn't like it at all. Don't fool yourself, he's scared too but is using the legal system to scare you. Don't blink an eye and keep pushing your atty. It will all be over before you know it. God's speed to you.

Foundhervoice-at last, I can read between the lines the helplessness you are feeling and agree with you as to the unfairness of the situation. Your husbands infidelity on top of the rest. It does at times seem like the sky is falling, like there are no answers, but there is a saying 'that God never gives us more than we can handle.' Once you know the outcome of your situation, then you can begin a new chapter in your life and be free at last from all the hurt and deceipt you were forced to endure by an unfaithful mate. It does get better as time goes by and you'll be able to rebuild your life. All I can do is pray for you and I shall continue to do just that...

[ February 26, 2006, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: chatty lady ]

foundhervoiceatlast, I'm chiming in again with prayers of strength and endurance. Keep that fighting spirit. It's almost over.

I keep remembering that line from the movies JAWS2: "just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...", well, that's kind of what I feel like is happening to me in my real-life version of the movie. It would be nice to have a day or two to recover from the emotional assaults that seem to be coming at me on a daily basis, but it seems like whenever there is a momentary lull - and I mean momentary - just a matter of a few hours, I get pelted again by some new zinger without any recovery time in between zaps. It's really wearing me down.

Case in point: the soon-to-be-ex is in Europe working (he is finally working, and has complained to the children that their evil mother and her attorney have forced him to take a job after 4 1/2 years of loafing - poor him) and he called my boys yesterday to tell them that he purchased courtside seats for them at a local basketball game for this evening. Yes - he is not even in the country and is extending his long arm from overseas to manipulate the home situation. Mind you, he didn't email me or call me to run this by me first and make sure it would be okay - what if they had tests the next day, or homework due? After all I am only the children's mother and guardian and legally responsible for them, and the children are not even on his parenting time. Instead he is once again playing Disneyland dad and bribing them. He arranged for his brother Their uncle)to go with my kids to the game, without so much as running it by me first. He had their cousin call them to make transportation arrangements, and sidestepped me entirely. He has put the children once again in the awful position of being the messengers or go-betweens between their parents, something that I was always advised never to do to them. Yet, here they are, in exactly that position. What a coward he is, delegating to his sons so he won't have to confront me.

Well after I swallowed hard and blinked back my tears, I told my boys that if they want to go to the game with their uncle it would be all right with me. But that they should go if and only if they really want to see the game, and not because - as my eldest put it - dad obviously spent a few hundred dollars on these tickets and he would feel guilty letting them go to waste. Am I resentful? You bet I am. And on several levels. First of all, because he sidestepped me and went over my head, showing total disregard for both the law, the children's emotional well-being, and my authority as their guardian and their mother. Secondly, I cannot afford to take my children out for ice cream, and here is their dad - who is fighting spousal and child support, offering me 3 years of support after 20 years of marriage, is refusing to reimburse me for the joint household and parenting expenses incurred since he left me, but he is willing to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets to see a basketball game, without even being there to take them himself. Talk about a sphere of influence.

Then, to add insult to injury, later on that evening after I thought I had handled the sleazy situation admirably without bad-mouthing their dad, I find out that the soon-to-be-ex has also sweet-talked his way into convincing our son to scrap the plans we had made through our attorneys to each take our son to visit a few of the colleges he was interested in applying to in the fall, and that he has now rearranged things so that he will be taking our son to all of them himself. It appears that I have been dumped without even being consulted.I am especially hurt that my son went right along with it. He knows that his father has lied, cheated, carried on with another woman, and yet he still loves and wants to be with the man. Mind-boggling.

All of these goings on have now caused a rift between my boys, as the youngest is appalled by this ongoing manipulation, sees my tears and feels compelled to protect me from his father and his now insensitive older brother as well. He is my self-appointed protector, and while deep down inside my heart I am grateful for his loyalty, I really do not think that this is a good thing for him. No matter how hard I try to convince him that I am okay and capable of taking care of myself and handling the situation, he is not swayed. Since my oldest has once again been bamboozled by his dad and has understandably succumbed to his need for daddy's attention after a lifetime of being ignored, my youngest now feels responsible for being supportive of me.

I am tired of all of this cloak and dagger stuff, and am at the point where I am just about ready to hand over either or both of the kids to their father, if this is what they think they want at this point in their lives. If I have not succeeded in instilling in them the moral and ethical values we have lived by during their seventeen years of life on this planet, then I'm not sure how much more I can do at this late stage of the game. Maybe, like so many other mothers who have gone through this and shared their stories with me, maybe the kids just need to go live with him, and figure things out for themselves. In almost all of the stories I've heard, once the bloom was off the rose and the true non-disneylanddad lifesyle resumed in their fathers' households the kids eagerly ran back to their moms, having realized that they had been bribed emotionally and materially and wanted to go back to the security of living with a parent who actually placed limitations on their behavior and established rules for the house. Unfortunately that often happened after spending a couple of years in the other household: not days or even weeks. In the meantime, their poor moms walk around feeling like they has been eviscerated, and they assume the look of a deer caught in the headlights. You know, that hollow shocked look with dark circles around the eyes, like something out of night of the living dead.

I just don't know how much more of this I can take. Like Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof: If I bend too far I will break. I already hear the branches creaking, my friends...I don't know the best way to deal with this anymore, and I'm afraid.


Foundhervoice-atlast

Foundhervoice, how I wish I could come and give you a big hug! I have no experience with your trials, but can feel the desperation to hang on in your writing. You are in my prayers.

I have had a different cross to bear and can tell you that when I am really low, I try to remember the miracles I have experienced. It helps me keep the bad stuff in perspective. Sometimes just a tiny glimmer of joy dispells the clouds just long enough for me to get a grip once again.

Foundhervoice-atlast:
I was just browsing the forums and caught this. Though, thankfully, I have no experience in this area, just being a fellow human, and all things being related, I can offer up my perspective. I would imagine that it is much easier for your ex to be a loving dad from afar. He doesn't want the kids, he wants their allegiance and alliance and it doesn't bother him to get the bonus which is spiting you. He is obviously trying to disprove all that you're complaining about, i.e. the support (see he says to the kids, I'm willing to spend the money). Kids being who they are, will generally split on these issues, one always being the one who can not be counted on to see things as they truly are, one bound to what he perceives as the weaker sex, in total disagreement with the other. Well, as I see it, it won't last long. Your ex will be exposed for who he really is, and you will be vindicated. However, you'll probably be bitter for a while. I'm sorry that you're being put through this. Our trials usually are more than we deserve. Keep your chin up. They say there's a light at the end of the tunnel.