Divorce Support Forums: What goes around comes around....

The email in the original post that I referenced was written by his attorney's legal assistant, had an incorrect name of the school in the subject line, was cc'ed to the school director and had absolutely nothing to do with a genuine desire to care for our daughter, but to list a host of false accusations and all out libel against the party I had named to pick up our daughter. "I forbid this to happen." A simple phonecall to say "let's talk about this" would have covered the same territory without the school's involvement.

Had that been an isolated incident and not one of a grocery list of stunts he's pulled, and I would be much more inclined to maintain an optimistic outlook on being able to work with him. But there are too many lies, too many false accusations, too many agreements that he's redefined at the last minute to suit his purposes, and overall just too much B.S. to run the risk of sticking my hand in the lion's mouth to only have it mangled.

Soooo, the STBX has not been informed of any details regarding the baby's arrival other than what I've shared with our daughter in order to set HER expectations appropriately. It is NOT his child, therefore not his business. If he can't do the math on gestation, and he's that ingorant to NOT notice my SIZE, that's NOT my problem.

Mom is not driving, but flying on a non-rev buddy pass from the airline my step-brother works for. She is semi-retired from a corporate gig, and has a few internet businesses that she works at to supplement her fixed income. When she can coordinate a layover and/or conference/convention in our metro area, she has tacked on a few extra days to those trips in years leading up to last year.

Last year is when the STBX and I separated, and the one opportunity she had to make those advanced plans was too far in advance to predict court dates, outcomes and/or whether or not the three day rotation would still be in effect so that she could even see the child while she was here.

The twelve hours our daughter has seen my mom in the past year is in reference to the holiday schedule I tried to set up 2.5 months prior to Thanksgiving which was ignored by the STBX and his attorney. STBX's non-response was such that the three-day rotation stood for the entire holiday season, and if we were to see my family AT ALL, we had no choice but to take a 15 hour drive to get there, spend 36 hours at my sister's (2.5 hours from my hometown), and drive 15 hours to get back. My mom was able to spend all of about twelve hours with our daughter during that timeframe.

I'm being induced two weeks early out of medical necessity. I agonized about whether or not to schedule the induction on my parenting time or his, the logistical hurdles we'd have to overcome if we did choose to do it on my parenting time, etc.

During all that worry about what to do, the child made it VERY clear she wanted to be there during the actual BIRTH. I'm still mulling over the pros/cons of having her in the delivery room and leaning heavily against it. But her unsolicited announcement that she wanted to be there was a tremendous factor in going the extra mile on making the plans we've made. Her sheer joy about becoming a big sister has been baffling.

Last year was a living hell. I could go down a grocery list of stunt after stunt after stunt he's pulled with a variety of entities to intimidate, bully and control me. He won't speak directly to me. He won't call me to have a discussion. He has spent tens of thousands of dollars to bog things down, and/or try and press bogus contempt charges upon me. He has done anything and everything he can think of to wear me down.

In spite of all of it, I got clean, I stood up for myself and I decided the only one who was going to put a STOP to the nonsense was ME. Once I did, things have taken a very different turn, not just in the legal realm, but more importantly, in my confidence as a parent.

While my decisions may not have been the best by the general consensus view, I am able to live with them and look myself in the mirror that I've done everything I can in spite of my half-cocked pre-separation decisions. My priorities in life are focused on my daughter in her unique situation, not on the STBX's bully pulpit of persuasion.

My attorney is my lifeline and has a reputation in the courtroom of being "Mother Theresa in Drag." He's able to create enough speculation with substantive, but not necessarily HARD, evidence so well that his reputation carries him the rest of the way. And that has been much to my advantage. I don't lift a finger, make a call, send an email on what I perceive could become even the remotest issue without calling him first to discuss the potential legal outcomes and whether or not it's something he can defend in the courtroom.

And HE is the one who has more or less been beating it into my head for the past several months "while it might not be on the top of my list of recommendations, your STBX has no legal basis to do what he's doing. Do what you need to do for your family, quit taking on guilt that isn't yours to take on, and I can argue it reasonably in court." This is coming from a man who when I stepped into his office the first time, I think he was a bit intimidated by the details of the case, but in the past year, he has seen firsthand what I deal with and has taken to it like a dog on a bone, in spite of our moral compasses sometimes pointing in very different directions. I had to educate him on a few very intimate things early on that he had never encountered in his eighteen years of practice! LOL

The bottom line is that spite is at the bottom of my list of priorities. Oh, I have my moments where I have secret fantasies of seeing my STBX become some big burly man's biotch in federal prison for the crimes he's committed in the name of "the best interest of the child," I have opted to share as little information as possible, shown my willingness to cooperate in a few small gestures, and just wait patiently for the noose he's tied to tighten up once and for all.