frugalista
8-3-11, 9:49am
Hi all: you may recall my difficult family situation. Three stepsons, one angry ex-wife, and a custody battle.
The denouement: pretty awesome from our perspective. First, we have a resolution on the custody issue. DH retains joint custody and equivalent parenting time. She gets MTW and every other FSaSu. He gets Th and every other FSaSu. To bring the parenting time to equal, DH gets a number of "floating days" which he can schedule with 30 days notice. Pretty awesome, as we have family far away and this will facilitate long vacations with the boys. We're very happy.
Also, the judge who brokered this deal ordered the use of Our Family Wizard. Answer to many prayers. It is an online tool which eliminates a lot of the monkey business that comes with high conflict personalities. It serves as a running affidavit of the communication between parents. This will be excellent in keeping everyone playing nice.
It's kind of funny, the ex, who spent a ton of money, really didn't get a thing out of all of this. The GAL I think sold her a bill of goods on how "easy" this would be to change the schedule and the schedule got changed but not in the way she imagined. She's only just now realizing that she's now on the hook for summer child care for 4 out of 5 weekdays, that DH can, if he wants, have huge blocks of time with the kids, and that she will have to play nice.
As for my relationship with the boys, after an initial period of confusion, things got much better between us, because I was no longer the parent with all the responsibility and no authority. DH had to step up and parent more. I had to do less and got to focus on my own kids, and what I do for them I do out of love, not obligation, and they feel that.
The denouement: pretty awesome from our perspective. First, we have a resolution on the custody issue. DH retains joint custody and equivalent parenting time. She gets MTW and every other FSaSu. He gets Th and every other FSaSu. To bring the parenting time to equal, DH gets a number of "floating days" which he can schedule with 30 days notice. Pretty awesome, as we have family far away and this will facilitate long vacations with the boys. We're very happy.
Also, the judge who brokered this deal ordered the use of Our Family Wizard. Answer to many prayers. It is an online tool which eliminates a lot of the monkey business that comes with high conflict personalities. It serves as a running affidavit of the communication between parents. This will be excellent in keeping everyone playing nice.
It's kind of funny, the ex, who spent a ton of money, really didn't get a thing out of all of this. The GAL I think sold her a bill of goods on how "easy" this would be to change the schedule and the schedule got changed but not in the way she imagined. She's only just now realizing that she's now on the hook for summer child care for 4 out of 5 weekdays, that DH can, if he wants, have huge blocks of time with the kids, and that she will have to play nice.
As for my relationship with the boys, after an initial period of confusion, things got much better between us, because I was no longer the parent with all the responsibility and no authority. DH had to step up and parent more. I had to do less and got to focus on my own kids, and what I do for them I do out of love, not obligation, and they feel that.