flip-flop-fly

son went over to the house to supervise daughter and her school chums who were having an end of the school year party/sleepover.

son confronted/talked to his mother about the sudden reversal of her position. she said that she just didn't want to deal with it before holidays, that she really didn't know what she wanted to do one way or another, and that i had been rude to her on the phone and that's why she said to talk to her lawyer.

son was sitting next to me when i made the call to his mother the night before.

the rudest moment in the conversation came after told her "Don't send an 11 year olds to do your dirty work or your messaging" - she said "I didn't, she called on her own. I said I didn't want to talk to you. You can talk to my lawyer, because i don't want to talk to you."

my response was "well, i don't want to talk to you either"

way rude

i guess

when confronted she twists and turns and lies. when confronted with the recounting of a recording of her own voice saying "sell the house", her response? lie. twist. point a finger at me as being bad, or having inappropriate behaviour.

i have decided that i am buying new phones - phones capable of recording any calls i might receive from her. that was completely effective in countering her lies. i want to do it again.

i used our recording stick at work to record the voice mail, so i would have a better record of her call to me. i emailed a copy of it to son. he may desire to play it for daughter as his mother subjects them to constant negative propaganda about me for the next 3 weeks.

i hate this.

----

i sent all the documentation to my lawyer to just go straight down a legal path

i've had it with trying to deal with her

she wants me to talk to her lawyer, no problem

i still intend this to end up in mediation, not lawyerville - but the process has to be formalised

the idea that we could work it out between ourselves and then move it to mediation hasn't worked out. it has also ended up costing us more than lawyers would - the unpredicted effect of an insane housing market has ended up costing far more than the lawyers would have to begin with.

$30,000-$60,000 average increase since last year in housing prices in the range i am looking

amortised over 20-25 years... $30,000 works out to almost an additional $30,000 in cost of borrowing over a 25 year period - so that's a $60,000 cost for waiting a year. that's also $30,000 in capital gains lost - so even if you dismiss the addition 30K in interest as fluff, a 30K increase in cost, and a 30K loss in potential capital gain is nothing to sneeze at.

----

"If you are really serious about divorcing Mrs. C~quit talking about it.
*Quit talking to HER other than to discuss the children.
*Just stop it and file the paperwork with the court.
*What's to talk about?
*Pay the lawyers the $ and let THEM talk about it. Just think of how it will save your sanity.

I really don't mean to upset you.... but please remember that I've been there....with my divorce and with my husband when he went through his. Also keep in mind that I worked in Domestic Relations dealing with paternity/child support/divorce for twelve years. I was in court 6 times a month with these same types of issues.

I've seen it all. I've heard it all. You and Mrs. C will NEV-ER be able to work this out without lawyers. Mrs. C won't allow it. She says she will. But she'll just drag it out and then you'll end up having to hire an attorney anyway and you would have wasted all that time and energy arguing with her about it.

Why prolong the inevitable?

You've been going through this pattern with Mrs. C since I started reading your blog.

Pissy"

September 05, 2006 7:26 PM

[bold mine - Cadbury]