Update

My lawyer is not back but we do have a new date. Now we are going in on June 12th.

He must be very ill tho - they want to stop any child support. I guess the arguement could go he is getting nothing and I can theoretically work and make more than him. His only options now are MacDonald's and Kohls. But those are mine too.

Doesnt matter since I didnt count on anything from him.

Good logic here might be that if he isnt sane enough to get a job then he isnt sane enough to bother me about custody and visitation.

Sigh...

I am SO sick of this. And sick of him. I've been putting up with him and his mental illnesses - both perceived (depression) and real (manic) - for long enough. And his narcissism.


Time to go to the mattresses!

Unhappy Inclusion (for him)

The train keeps on moving

My lawyer is going to put in the divorce agreement that he needs to let us know whenever he is working. This means he must tell us where and when he starts and when he quits or is fired. He is going to resent this tremendously and it creates some potential interesting situations for us.

If he doesnt get and hold a job, he shows he is unstable and any custody issue and subsequent visitation issues will be based on how this shows his adherance to his protocol.

If he gets a job and doesnt tell us, he can be brought to court for support issues. He is not going to want to be brought to court for anything again.

By knowing about his job situation, we know where he is and can guage, by how long he holds it and what the job is, how sick he currently is.

Postponements and Proposals

My lawyer had an out-of-state family emergency so our court date today has been rescheduled. I will find out when later this week.

This was good though. I think our current settlement proposal is not as good as it could be. At least, its not as good for the sake of the kids.

Right now we are at this:

We split the house -> 60% to me (99000) and 40% to him (66000). This is done to compensate me for lost income due to being a homemaker. We split the three (he has two) 401Ks in half. I get 66,000 transferred to me to make up for the difference in the 401Ks. He puts his 40% of the house into trust for child support. This actually represents 30 months of child support,
BUT
(and its a BIG but!)

I cannot draw from a pile of bricks and mortar to support my kids.

Therefore, the 66000 from the house, because I have to remove support money for them from my 401K until I finish school and get a job (coincidentally I would normally be given 30 months of maintenance to do this) I am actually getting only 49,800 for support. Plus I'm not sure if the kids pay taxes on their share of the house when I sell it and I am paying taxes on child support. In addition, this increases my income, tho its really child support, which makes it tougher to get financial aid for school for me and my oldest.

I want to suggest to her that instead of putting his half of the house into trust for the kids, we put the 66000 he is going to transfer to me into trust for child support. This is, again, 30 mos of child support.

The logic is:

1. I would normally get 30 months to finish school and get a job. While maintenance is not child support, the fact that 30 mos is given makes it reasonable to expect 30 mos of child support from him to start.

2. Neither he nor I can work at a level to support the kids at this point in time, therefore, one or both of us will necessarily be dipping into our 401Ks to do so. Why should it only be me?

3. He acknowledges he must is obligated to pay child support.

"Well, he IS their father."

Tuesday we worked on the settlement. Key to it is child custody and visitation. What I do not understand is why the Order of Protection does not keep us from having to go through any of this. Maybe because she hopes to forestall a major custody battle?

But she did use that old chestnut - "Well, he is their father." People just dont get it even after I explain. I think they are not listening. They keep picturing some "Father Knows Best" view of our family life and they dont understand that we never had a family life. Its like I'm trying to disrupt a relationship between them and their dad yet that relationship has never existed. Or they cannot fathom how narcissist he was.

I should come up with a formula:
# of visits he can have = (# of minutes listening to stories, biking, walking, swimming in our pool, swimming with them on vacation, talking to them about school, laughing at their kid jokes, taking them to the library, playing with them in the yard, taking them to the park, playing a game at home, spending special time on vacation) / (# of years we've had kids)

It is extremely irritating.

I researched and found out yesterday that mental illness is reason for termination of parental rights in our state. I have not found a single person - including our very experienced therapist - who thinks he is going to pull out of this. My plan is to wait for when he ends up under a viaduct or whatever will happen to him and then go back to my lawyer to have that done.

News Flash!

Yesterday my lawyer and I talked strategy. One of the many scenarios we came up with seemed to settle in today.

First, the news flash on his mental health...
He is still in the psyche ward of the hospital - he is getting discharged today at 4 pm. His lawyer saw him and he is taking his meds and doing better. His diagnosis is extreme bi-polar with a bunch of other stuff. My lawyer didnt write it down. On a paranoia scale, he scored 25 out of 100 - a big number apparently.


He is planning to live in a Residence Inn near the hospital where he will, once again, go through daily group therapy.

Second, he has signed a release for his lawyer to sort out his life. He has not paid any medical insurance for the last two months - we are hoping we are still covered. He owes the hospital from his previous stay over $70,000. This new attorney is going to represent him for the divorce and will be attending the status meeting this Friday.


He did buy a Mercedes - apparently on the strength of his signature!
He was in an accident with it, turned it in and the company has dropped any efforts to collect from him.

His attorney does think he is in condition to do the divorce so my attorney is jumping on it so we can catch him before he goes off the deep end again. He asked us to send him a settlement proposal and he says the FSO understands he has an obligation to support his kids.

Again, he wants to see the girls. Again its all about him and what they can bring to him. He never brought anything to them and its hard to see it any other way.


I contacted their therapist as per my lawyer's instruction
and asked her to send a letter to my attorney explaining why contact is not a good thing for the girls and to give a detailed list of things he must do in order to have any contact with the girls. My lawyer made certain his attorney understood that visitation is non-negotiable right now. And both of us agree he is not going to be able to meet any criteria in the future that will make it okay to meet with the girls.

I'm excited! Maybe we can get this thing done before the new semester kicks in. My attorney and I do not believe he will stay on his meds for long so its now a race against time.

Tomorrow

I hope to hear some kind of strategy for the divorce. I have a 1:30 teleconference with my lawyer.

Today I rec'd the papers extending the restraining orders. The cc's had me, his real estate lawyer (who is supposedly exiting) and another lawyer from a nearby suburb. I am not sure which lawyer visited him while in the hospital. I saw I have a May 29th court date at 9 a.m. If he was in the hospital voluntarily and he was put in, say, on Tuesday last week, then he can be out by today (Monday).

I switched over all of the utilities. This leaves only the mortgage. Its paid up to date so will check later and make a direct payment. Also, I need to take out more money from my 401K acct - I have to view it as paying myself.

I want to know what her strategy is. We cant keep waiting around trying to get him in between psyche ward stays.

1. Is there a process by which we can keep the divorce moving on?
2. Did he reply to the suit yet and if not, how long do we have to wait?
3. Can we send this to the judge and have him decide all of it?

I dont want maintenance. I will reserve the issue of child support for later. I want the house but its a given according to my lawyer. He simply cannot do custody given his mental state.


What is there to discuss here?

May 10th Court Appearance Cancelled

Got a phone call today as I was leaving my study group.


FSO is locked up tight at a local hospital's mental ward.

According to his lawyer, so highly manic he is off the charts. When he visited him in the ward, he found he had $900 suitcase newly purchased with him. Guess he must have been locked up yesterday. So we had to postpone tomorrow's appearance - exact date to be named tomorrow. I know everything that has happened so far has worked out for the best - except of course the fact that the divorce had to happen at all - so after a brief time of being aggravated I reconciled myself to it and wonder how it will all unfold.


My Lawyer

I will call my lawyer's office to make an appt so I know the process from this point on. I'm quite anxious to have it done so I can start making improvements to the house.

Confusion reigns supreme!

I heard from the States Attorney that he had only two arrests, had posted bond and was out. That he also had asked to leave the state from April 23 through April 26th. I assumed this meant he posted bond as our erstwhile officer told me and had been out.

But au contraire!


Apparently, this from his lawyer:
He visited him in jail where he said he'd been for the past ten days. The judge asked him repeatedly to go to the community hospital for a mental evaluation and treatment. He refused repeatedly. And his lawyer dropped out and a new lawyer has arrived. One who specializes in criminal law and divorce. He is a local boy. I dont know what my lawyer knows about him but will find out.


This from the County Jail:
He was in jail from the 18th until May 1st or 2nd when someone came and posted bond for him. He was in the High Watch area which is for severely mentally ill and those likely to try to kill themselves. The people I talked to actually knew who I was talking about so he made quite an impression.

Summary:
He was arrested and could not post bond. He is so obviously mentally ill that he was in special custody and was repeatedly asked to permit treatment. And he asked to be released to leave the state from April 23 to April 26.

*I was going to say no one in their right mind would ask to be released to leave the state if they were in jail so he obviously was out of jail when he made the request but ....

Upstairs, Downstairs

Dear Amica:

Today, while I was on the second floor of the courthouse, FSO was on the third floor having a hearing on some criminal matter. His lawyer - at a total loss it appears and whose only strategy since he has to report back to a bipolar/manic control freak is to disagree with each request (btw, the judge went with our requests so that is good) - didnt know exactly why. He thought it had to do with a violation of the Order of Protection. He said he's been in jail for 10 days. But I had him arrested 14 days ago. And one of our cops told me he was out that morning after posting 300 buck bond.

So someone is confused somewhere. I'm dying to know whats going on. I put in a call to the states attorney who was doing his case and asked her to call me back and let me know. I have a legitimate reason to know so I hope I wont have to work very hard to get the info.

And believe it or not, his lawyer said he wants to fight my having sole custody (it has to do with who makes decisions, not with who has them physically) and he wants the order of protection taken back. My lawyer said neither is feasible and its going to be an expensive fight over whats already a given.

Sigh ..

Eudoxia