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Looks like we're parting ways.

35K views 183 replies 32 participants last post by  ResignedWife 
#1 ·
Husband and I have struggled through a 20-year marriage, and a couple weeks ago decided to bring it to an end. We have two kids, a couple pets, a home, and some modest debt (mostly mine).

Fortunately, we are still friends - we hardly ever fight - and both (sadly) agree it is time to move on. The plan is to go to a mediator to create the legal separation documents. The night we decided to part, we went to dinner for 2+ hours and went through some of the basic logistics.

1) We'll sell the house and split the proceeds equally (I'll use part of my proceeds to pay off my debt and the rest on a downpayment on a new, smaller home).
2) He only wants a few furnishings from the house and the possessions he came into the marriage with (stuff like records, books, some of his parents' furniture).
3) He said I was the "better parent" and that he wanted me to have majority custody (most likely 255/110 day split) and that he'd gladly pay whatever our state deems appropriate for child support.
4) He takes the cat, I take the dog.

The only big decision is WHEN. That's the part we're in limbo about. Because we get along, and there is absolutely NO animosity at all, there's no rush (truly, since we decided to separate we've been more affectionate and friendly with each other - because the stress of "what if" is finally gone).

I'm thinking the mediator can help us set up a long-term timeline for officially separating. Has anyone done this?

Something like:

February - April 2017: go through all house belongings together and get rid of unwanted things, pack up wanted things and store off site in separate storage units for each of us.
May - June 2017: make all house repairs we think would come up as an issue during sale process
July 2017: put the house on the market, assuming we'd be under contract within the end of the month. I'm not worried about selling the house - we're in a good part of town, in a sought-after neighborhood, in a great school district. This past year homes in our 'hood have been selling in under a week for an average of 98% of asking price. Even during the worst of the economic downturn, homes were still selling quickly because we are in a great area that is booming with growth.
September 2017: close on home sale and officially begin separation period.

The other question I'll have the mediator help with is WHEN do we tell the kids in this schedule? When school ends and before we put it on the market? That feels like the best time to me. I doubt they'd ask questions while we are decluttering or fixing up the house - they'll just think we're in "project mode" which happens from time to time.

Did anyone do a long-term timeline? And if so, when did you tell the kids?
 
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#38 ·
Just yesterday I was talking to a coworker about it (she has known about our troubles for 10 years) and began crying. It may sound clinical and cold here online, but in real life, it's not.

Trust me, we're not robots.
 
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#40 ·
My sister's family is coming into town today to stay the night on their way to Florida. It turns out, my parents are also stopping through (I had thought they were flying directly to Florida to meet my sister's family).

This morning I told my husband that I thought that tonight would be the perfect time to tell my side of the family, and my husband immediately and adamantly opposed telling them. I reminded him that the only other times I could tell them would be my sister's birthday weekend (since I'm going up there for that), or Easter - which is way too long to wait.

I told him the only other alternative is to tell my sister (at least) NEXT weekend when they stay with us on their way home from Florida. Then maybe I go go up early for my sister's birthday and stay with my parents for a night, and tell them.

I don't know this as fact, it's only my assumption, but I think he's really afraid to be there when we/I tell my parents. My parents are very old-fashioned, and very religious, and I think he feels that they will judge HIM for the separation, as opposed to taking us at our word that it was a mutual decision.
 
#42 ·
I agree, tropicalbeachiwish. I'll give him the morning to think about it and then email him and ask him why he is opposed to telling them (although I already know what he'll say).

Once he tells me he's worried about telling them and how they'll react, I'll tell him that we can tell my sister next week, since our kids will know at that point (and really, we SHOULD tell the kids first), and then ask my sister's permission to drive up and tell my parents the day before her birthday celebration next month.
 
#44 ·
Because it's effectively a loveless marriage. At least, loveless in the sense that it's not a MARRIED kind of love. My husband has admitted on a few occasions that he wants PASSION and EXCITEMENT. In the words of a friend of mine, very few married-for-a-long-time couples are gettin' busy on the kitchen counter or sneaking off in the middle of a party to go at it in the bathroom. So I don't know what kind of romance novels he's reading (j/k), but when I look around at my friends and family who are married they are not living PASSIONATE, EXCITED lives. They work 40 hours a week, have a couple kids, a mortgage, a gym membership, and at least one family vacation a year. A typical married, settled, suburban life.

That's not enough for him, and while it is enough for me, I have enough sense to know that I'm not going to force him to stay in the "friends only" marriage just because it's convenient for me. If I do that, he'll continue to be depressed, feel that he's missing out somehow, begin to blame his situation on me and, most likely, cheat on me. And while I'm not responsible for his personal happiness, I feel that I can at least contribute a little bit by setting him free to go find passion and excitement with someone else.
 
#45 ·
I've been with my wife for 30 years, 27 married. We have 4 kids with the youngest turning 15 in a few days. I love my wife and still find her sexy and very desirable. Our love life is not as passionate as I'd like but sex about 3 times a week is far from dead. And your right, we aren't having sex on the kitchen counter either, unless she wants too :) but that doesn't mean you don't try to add some passion.

You mentioned weight gain and an "almost" affair. Are you saying that your husband became over weight and you no longer are able to have sex with him?

I think your husband doesn't want to tell your parents because then it becomes more official. He's having doubts about busting up the family. Being in a sexless marriage is soul crushing but he still obviously loves you, which is what your friends see, hence their shock.
 
#46 ·
It was the opposite way around - I gained weight after the birth of our two kids, and he subsequently lost all physical attraction for me when the weight didn't come off. He has been very open about the fact that he feels horrible about not being attracted to me anymore, but that's just how it is. I've attempted to lose weight over the years, with varying degrees of success (and failure) - but the fact is, I'll never been the 130 pound woman he met 20+ years ago. I'm not huge, by any means, but I'm bigger than he'd like.

But the fact is, that's not what is ending our marriage - as I told him, I think that even if I lost all the weight today, we'd still not have the kind of marriage we both wanted. There's too much water under the bridge at this point.

We are planning to tell the kids this Thursday night - if he balks at telling them, then he and I will need to sit down and have a talk about whether he really wants to do this or not. I don't mind waiting another year, if that's what he wants. But we need to decide if he's getting cold feet.
 
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#47 ·
FWIW I do believe you can recreate passion in a long term marriage. It takes deep commitment though because of life's distractions and the tendency of one to become complacent as you have mentioned.

It's a shame your H has external judgements and thoughts clouding his judgements. Thinking you have to be a certain weight flies in the face of who you are today. That's what I mean. Of course you've tried to lose weight. But there are many ways of wrapping up what you have and making it appealing.

Anyway good luck.


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#50 ·
Husband and I have decided to go out to dinner on Wednesday night to go over the fact that we plan on telling the kids on Thursday night - I've told him he needs to be 100% sure this is what he wants before we tell the kids, because then it's "real" and word will begin to get out (even moreso once I tell my sister on Saturday as she's coming back through town).

I told him I wanted to make sure that this is what he wants right now, or whether he wants to wait another year and not rush the selling of the house and moving. By waiting until April 2018 to put the house on the market, this would also mean less chaos for our kids since they'll both be in high school at that point, versus having our younger one go to a brand new school for one year (Aug '17 - May '18) because of the lack of housing in my price range in our current middle school zoning.

So we'll see what Husband decides on Wednesday.
 
#54 ·
Looking from the outside....long time married (30+
years) I am sensing that there seems to be some doubt or hesitation...I may be picking it up from your husband end not really sure...if it's easier on the kids to wait and you guys are OK with it I might wait it out for the year...you never know what life has in store.. Just my 2 cents...
 
#55 ·
I feel it might be better to wait to tell the children. You're pretty pragmatic about the situation, but I expect the children to be much more emotional. It will be like when you told your friend, only worse. I would expect them to be confused and deal with a lot of emotions. I would expect them to also pick sides. I think it will be harder to try to all live together after you tell them.

Before you tell the kids, would you consider talking with a family counselor to get professional advice? They would likely have dealt with this situation many times and would be able to give very relevant advice on when you should tell your kids.
 
#58 ·
Last night I talked with a friend of mine from church who divorced a few years ago and had to tell her kids. I told her about my impending separation, and ran through the "script" that I had come up with for telling the kids. She said that it was pretty much exactly what she and her XH told their kids (they also divorced amicably). She said her kids took it pretty well at the time and it's really only been now (three years later) that one of her kids is struggling with having to bounce between two households. When she saw her daughter struggling, she immediately took her to therapy in order to work through her emotions, and my friend that said has helped tremendously.

I do not think my kids will pick sides if there are no clear sides to pick. As I said, we don't fight, so it's not like the kids have been witness to battles in the household in which there are clear right actions and wrong actions. And our goal is to stress that NO ONE is to blame and that we decided TOGETHER that this is what we needed to do. My friend said that she and her husband did exactly that, and their kids did not pick sides.

As for continuing to live together, if we do end up telling them on Thursday, then things will move very quickly - with the goal of the house being on the market within the next 6-8 weeks, and closed within 30-45 days after that so that by the time school is over, we'll be in separate households.
 
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#56 ·
You only have a little more time to show your kids how to pick a mate and have a good marriage before they're gone - and your influence wanes.

I think it's better to do this now so they can process this and ask questions and confront the problems you've encountered. "You mean it's not acceptable to just be an ok partner and get along? You mean there can be more to a marriage? You mean there can be love and respect and attraction and sex? You mean I should look for more than a pleasant roommate?"

They will model your behavior and choose a passionless partner and have a passionless marriage if that's what you show them. If you show then that that isn't enough - and are willing to leave with no safety net because IT TRULY isn't enough, you'll at least have them searching for more for themselves.


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#60 ·
Husband and I had an interesting dinner last night. We both agreed to slow down and not feel rushed to end things. We will still end the marriage (that's a definite), but rather than give ourselves a fast deadline, we'll ease into it. We've agreed to give ourselves 10-12 months to get everything done (home repairs, legal separation documentation, get finances in better shape (that's means me), get better job situations (a new job for him and a large (promised) raise for me)) and make sure we're both in healthy places for when we officially separate. The new plan is to tell the kids in January 2018, put the house in the market in March 2018, and be in new places by June 2018.

When we first began the discussion last night I told him I saw three scenarios - 1) continue to move forward now (and tell the kids tonight), 2) wait a year and do things methodically and cleanly over the next year), or 3) wait until the kids are out of high school (five years). He immediately balked at waiting five years, but did say that since we get along well despite growing apart romantically/emotionally, he can definitely handle waiting another year.

And so just like that the decision was made to wait a year. During that time we can:

1) Get the house in order - rather than rush to get the repairs done all in one go, we can do them slowly over the course of 2017, as well as slowly go through the entire house and get rid of stuff neither of us wants/needs. We have VERY old indoor-only cat that is ruining the carpet and we don't want to replace it now if she's going to potentially ruin the new stuff, so we can save on that expense for another 8-10 months since neither of us think the cat will last that long.

2) Not worry about schools - by waiting to list the house in March 2018, it guarantees that our youngest can remain in his assigned middle school. After that, both kids will be in high school and the housing market widens significantly for me.

3) His job and my raise - he is actively seeking new employment and he did say that he was worried that a new job, a new house and being newly separated may be a bit too much change for him (he dislikes change in general). By focusing right now only on finding a new job, he will hopefully be well settled into that when the time comes to formally begin our separation. Additionally, my boss has said she wants me to get a 15-20% raise this year, and is working on that - once I have that (likely this summer), my finances will vastly improve (a win for me) AND the amount Husband would need to give me for child support also decreases (a win for him).

4) Mediation - we will still go to the mediator to begin drawing up the legal paperwork, starting in March. But instead of feeling like we have to get it all done very quickly (6-8 weeks), we can take our time and do it right and make sure no one is making short-term rash decisions that may affect our long-term futures.

The other benefit to waiting is that it may mean I can keep the house - we'd be one year further into our 15-year mortgage, and if I refinanced into a 7/1 ARM (which we've done before so I'm familiar with them) AND increased the mortgage amount in order to buy him out, I may be able to afford the payments if my promised raise comes through. This way the kids and I wouldn't have to move at all. That was another idea I mentioned to my husband last night, which he thought sounded great since he knows how much the kids would probably prefer to remain in the only house they remember ever living in.

We both felt good about this decision to wait a bit longer, but also both agreed that if either of us changed our mind and decided we should go ahead and separate sooner, we'd tell the other spouse and begin to move more quickly to complete the process.
 
#61 ·
Resigned Wife,

May I ask, how do you feel about this decision? It appears that your H has decided he is not attracted to you anymore and therefore you should part ways, though you both enjoy each others company, do things together, there is no animosity, etc. How do you feel about all of this?
Even you name says that you give in without a fight, is this what you wanted too, or did you just simply give in to your H?
You know sometimes people don't know what they want. There are many marriages in a worse state than yours, yet love can be revived.

I get the feeling that you two will go ahead with this and realise that you both made a mistake and that in fact 'far away fields are not really green.' just wondering.
 
#62 ·
I am fine with the decision, despite my username (which was just something I came up with when my first few choices were already taken).

We have both been unhappy for a while - but for different reasons. When the idea of divorce came up a few years ago, the ONLY reason I said no at the time was finances - I just knew I COULDN'T make it on my own salary, even with child support. Had I been in a better place financially, we'd already be divorced a couple years at this point.

The fact is, that while he is not happy with me, I'm not happy with him either. I can't speak for all of HIS reasons (aside from knowing he doesn't like the weight gain after I had kids that I was never able to lose), but for me, I have issues with:

1) his lack of engagement with the kids (I know this won't necessarily change once we divorce, but at least the kids won't be exposed to it every day, like they are now).

2) his impatience - he's not violent in *any* way, but he is not a patient man and can get annoyed over the smallest thing very easily, which results in a snide attitude along with rude comments. And rather than letting it go, he'll harp on it for days. Not a fun thing to be around day in and day out.

3) his lack of Christian faith - I grew up in a Christian household, and am a Christian myself. He was not religious when we got married, but did claim to have a conversion experience a few years after we got married. But it is clear now he was only going through the motions at the time. And while I'm not super-religious, I do go to church and am active in a ladies Bible study, and wish that my husband would lead the household as a man of faith. But he recently told me that while he believes in God, he doesn't care much about the rest. He doesn't begrudge me my spiritual life (or my decision to take the kids to church), but he won't actively participate himself.

That's just three I can think of right now, but I know there are more. He's a good man in many ways, and I know he'll make someone else very happy someday. But after all this time, it just isn't ME. He doesn't make me happy. And while I do not believe other people have a *responsibility* to make me happy, I do think other people can naturally create happiness just by being around. My kids, for example, bring me GREAT happiness and joy. I love being around them and being involved in their lives and helping them become happy, kind, well-adjusted, responsible and caring people. My husband does not.

So yes, I am a ResignedWife, but I still must stress that it was a MUTUAL decision.
 
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#63 ·
Just wanted to write down some thoughts I'm having this week.

Part of me has started to think that I DON'T want to wait until next year to separate. I think this summer might be best after all. There are a few things I've thought of over the past few days that make me think this -

1) the real estate market is warming up again (more listings coming on the market) and the houses coming on the market in my price range are wonderful. I fear if we wait a year those types of homes may appreciate in value just enough that I can no longer afford them. Alternatively, if we wait to sell the house - the market could very well TANK in the next 12 months (although it has never dropped in our market - only flattened) and we won't be able to get top dollar for our home like we could now.

2) my husband went out for a drink by himself last Friday night. I'm not a big drinker, but my husband does enjoy his microbrew beer (he likes trying weird, unique brews and we have a beer fridge in the garage where he keeps stuff he has bought to try). He dropped a receipt on the floor over the weekend when he was heading out to the gym, and it was for Friday night at 8 p.m. He had one beer at a brewery in town and then came home. I asked him about it when he got home from the gym (completely non-judging) and he said that yes, after he had gone to the gym he went to get a beer. I said, "Did you meet someone there?" "No," he said, "I just felt like grabbing a beer before coming home." I had two reactions in my head. I thought, "That's what alcoholics do - they drink alone." And then I thought, "But he's not 'mine' anymore, so if he wants to go out for a beer (despite having 40-50 beers in the garage fridge to choose from), then he should be able to go out for a beer." My outside reaction was, "Okay, you dropped your receipt on your way out - can I throw it away?" (he uses his receipts for budgeting)

3) But that got me thinking about his life post-separation. What is he going to do? He has no friends (he has made very little attempt in the years we've lived here to make them), and no social life to speak of. Is he going to sit at home and just drink beer every night? Currently he keeps himself to 2-3 beers over the course of an entire evening - so he doesn't overindulge, really. He has one with dinner, and maybe one (sometimes two) once he's home from the gym. But if we're separated, and he only has the kids every other weekend, is he going to stay at home and say, "Hey, the wife and kids aren't here anymore - I can drink more" which could lead to overindulging? This is a real worry of mine for him since he tends to overdrink when he is depressed (which he may continue to be even after we separate).

4) And that leads me to my last thought. I think him moving back to our hometown (from which we moved away 11 years ago) would be the best choice for him. He'd be back in the town he loves (and misses), with much better job options. He'd be back near his family (who all live there) and some of his friends who still live there. His options for having a social life and NOT staying home every night would vastly improve. The only negative is that our hometown is four states away, so he would not see the kids nearly as much - just summers and school vacations, really.

So as "easy" at it seems to be for our plans, I'm starting to have doubts as to whether we should wait or just go ahead and get it over with, but rather than push to list the house in April, just plan for June, knowing we can do a quick closing if need be in order to get settled into new places by summer's end before school starts.

This weekend I began going through one of my bookcases figuring out what books I can donate and get rid of so that it's that much less for me to pack down the road. And this weekend I'll be doing the rest of the bookcases in the house as well as going through the clothes in my closet to get rid of some of those things that I don't wear anymore.

We meet with the mediator next week. I may bring up during that first meeting the idea of going ahead with the separation now rather than waiting, and see what the mediator has to say (she may recommend against waiting for fear of future breakdown in communication and trust).

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to write down some of the things I've been thinking since the weekend.
 
#64 ·
I know you know this, but none of those things are your concern anymore.

I promise you he will figure something out.

Also, speaking as an alcoholic, if your husband wanted to consume excessive amounts of alcohol, neither you talking to him nor your proximity to him would affect his choices to consume more.

I think his evening out was him realizing that he needs to step out of his comfort zone and start to make friends with people.
 
#65 ·
I believe that if you've solidified the decision to split then just get it over with. I don't understand the dragging it out over the next year. It sounded like it was just a delay to tell family members which is going to have to happen whether it's now or whether it's in 8 months. It has to be done, so just do it.

Selling the house now is a great time. You're right; you don't know what the housing market is going to be in 1 year.

It sounds like you suspect your husband of having a drinking problem? It could very well be, but there isn't anything that you can do about it. My husband is an alcoholic and I can tell you that alcoholics are known for hiding their drinking and/or downplaying it. At this point, I don't think this should be your focus. Your focus needs to be on moving forward with the split. And as Farside said, he could just be starting to branch out socially.

Continue to prep the house for selling, meet with your mediator, and talk to family/friends about the divorce. You could talk to a realtor and they would be able to give you tips on how to prep your house for the market.
 
#66 ·
I don't think he has a drinking problem, but I do know that when he gets severely depressed he drinks more than a normal person. After the almost-affair was discovered a few years ago, he began drinking 3-4 beers a night, but when I confronted him with my concerns, he completely agreed and went down to only having 1-2 beers per week for a very long time. Then he went back to having one with dinner every night, which I don't mind at all. Then a few months ago I noticed an uptick, which I mentioned to him again, and he agreed that he was drinking more and that it was because of how stressed he is with work.

Is he an alcoholic? Definitely not. I've known alcoholics and he's not even close. But he has a proclivity to overindulge on occasion (at parties) or when he's feeling down.

I agree that it's possible he only went out to get the drink to see if he could be social - he mentioned to me a month or so ago that the beer app he uses can tell him if people that use the app are out at nearby bars/breweries having a drink. It's very possible one popped up on Friday at the place nearby and he decided to stop in after his workout.

As for the delay in separating, it was mainly so that he could find a new job without having TOO much change at one time. But my fear is that the job market is so limited that it will take him FOREVER to find a new job - and I don't want to live in limbo that long the more I think about it!
 
#67 ·
My ex-husband and I continued living together, but separated, for almost a year after I told him I was divorcing him. There were very good reasons for handling things that way but it was a miserable time. He spent most of that period at his girlfriend's but that didn't make it easier because he still came home. He finally moved out a few months before I filed and I felt like a huge burden had been lifted. Life was good from that point on.
 
#68 ·
Since my post this morning I've gone over it again and again in my mind, and I've decided I want to go ahead and move forward now rather than wait. But I'll wait until we're with the mediator to let that subject be brought up.

As far as his job, I think that if we sell this spring and divide the proceeds, he'll get a nice chunk of change from the sale. There's no reason he has to put all of it down as a downpayment on a new place. If he holds back $20K, and then gets laid off (which he is worried about right now), he'll have the $20K in cash reserves, his severance pay (which would be a minimum of 5 months' pay) and his unemployment coverage. He'll be fine until he finds a new job.

As for housing, *my* fear was not finding a house in the right middle school zone, but just today 3 houses in my price range popped up in that school zone - which tells me by the spring I should have no problem finding something in my price range in the right zone.

So I think we'd be better off doing it now, since two huge barriers (his job fears, my housing fears) would most likely turn out okay.
 
#69 ·
This is the week things will start to happen.

Our meeting with the mediator is on Thursday evening. It'll mostly be about the parenting plan, but I plan on bringing up the idea of moving forward now versus next year during that initial session.

Over the past week I've deliberately stopped sending my husband potential job listings, to see if he would take action (considering how much he hates his job) and begin searching himself. He has not. I'm not going to be the one to put in all the work to help him find a new job - he has to do it. But he continues to go into work every day, come home and complain, and take no steps to get out. He had a recruiter call him a couple weeks ago about a possible job, and other than one email to say, "I'm interested," he's done NOTHING to followup with the recruiter to make sure the interview gets scheduled. I'm sure that opportunity is long gone at this point. This just tells me that it is all the more reason to move forward now, so that he'll feel the pressure that *he* has to invest time and energy into getting himself out of his work situation. Not just me.

We close on the HELOC this week, with work to begin two weeks from now. My hope is to tell the kids what is happening sometime between Thursday's first session and the first visit by contractors to begin fixing up the house. I'm convinced more than ever that we'll be able to sell the house quickly once it's on the market - we found out that a house down the block from us sold a couple months ago for about $20K more than we were going to ask - and yet from the pictures, our house is in better shape (even without the intended repairs we're doing), with more going for it. The only negative is they were 200 sq feet larger than our home. But we have an extra room (9) compared to them (8). So we know our intended asking price is viable for the market.

I've been looking at short sale homes in our area - one very cute home popped up on the market last week in a neighborhood I've always liked. And a FSBO that I found over a month ago is still on the market - it is an ugly house (bad 1970s modern) and only has one bath. For those two reasons I think it has not sold, despite the good sale price. I'm not concerned about only having one bath because the house is priced low enough that I could easily afford to have a 3/4-bath put in. And then there's another home in foreclosure in the same area that is also a bit ugly on the outside (this neighbor really loved the bad 1970s modern architecture back in the day) but the inside is beautifully redone - and it's in my price range. The main negative to that house is the backyard is not fenced (which I would need since I have a dog). I am not worried about buying a foreclosure because I can rent a short-term apartment as long as need be while waiting to close. My parents bought a foreclosure a few years ago so I'm familiar with the process as well as all the pitfalls and delays involved (it took them almost A YEAR to close on their house because there were so many complications).

So that's my update. I'll obviously have more on Friday after our first session with the mediator.
 
#70 · (Edited)
Tonight we meet with the mediator. I've spent a couple days typing up a *very* lengthy outline of a parenting plan using bits and pieces that I found online and modifying it to fit our needs. My husband is reviewing it to provide his comments or change suggestions, and the plan is to take that agreed-upon plan to the mediator tonight to see if we missed anything, and go over anything for which we may not completely understand the long-term ramifications (notably: what happens if my husband decides to move out of state, what happens if we want to take the children on international travel).

We both continue to be on the same page that we want to do as much as we can BEFORE we meet with the mediator in order to keep costs down. The mediator had said that the parenting plan can take a minimum 2-3 sessions with the mediator - more if the parents cannot agree on everything. Our hope is that we can reach a finalized agreement in one.
 
#72 ·
First session with the mediator went really well. I can tell she has been doing this a long time (over 30 years). She said she is positive we can be done in just 3-4 sessions because we are so agreeable and friendly with each other, and because we already know answers to the majority of the issues she'll be asking about.

Last night we discussed most of the parenting plan outline I had come up with, and she suggested some modifications in language that we both liked and agreed to. She will be creating a formalized version of what we ended up with for our review and change requests, and at the next meeting we'll sign off on it. Then we'll begin work on the financial stuff, for which we told her that we had mostly figured out that stuff as well.

We also decided during last night's meeting to continue with the plan to wait until January 2018 to move forward with the separation, but gave each other the "out" that if things started to get bad then the other spouse could speak up and request we move towards separation sooner. My feeling based on last night's conversation is that once he's able to find a new job, he'll be ready to go ahead and separate - and that's fine with me.

Our next meeting with the mediator is in just under 2 weeks. We'll spent the duration gathering all our financial details to present to her, and outline our intentions.
 
#74 ·
This week have been gathering all of our net worth and liability information in preparation for our meeting with the mediator next Monday. The good news is that my husband and I already agree that what's his is his, what's mine is mine (both assets and debts) and what is joint will be divided in half.

We have been very open about finances during our whole marriage - so there is no fear of either of us hiding something from the other. But gathering all the documentation is SUCH a hassle - especially since she wants paper copies of the latest statements.

Yesterday we emailed back and forth about whether one of us can keep the house and after some quick math agreed we'd both be better off selling it and getting smaller places. He can probably afford to buy me out and keep the house, truth be told, but it's a big house for a person to live in full-time. If we were doing a true 50/50 shared custody it would make more sense for him to keep it. But it's not 50/50 - it'll be more like 35/65 when all is said and done. Plus, he hates doing yardwork and HATES our HOA (I do too), so he wants to move to a townhouse in a non-HOA neighborhood.

This morning we received the draft of the Parenting Plan from the mediator - it looks good and only need a few minor edits, which I added and forward on to my husband for his review and comment. But it pretty much looks like we're done with the parenting plan. That was the major hurdle for us to cross, so I'm happy about that being done, and so easily as well.
 
#79 ·
Certainly not an easy decision - we've struggled for years and did our best to make it work. But it just wasn't going to, and I finally had to be the one to agree to let him go when he so clearly WANTED to go but was doing what he felt was the right thing by staying (but making us both unhappy as a result). He just needed my permission, which after 20 years, I finally gave him when I was ready to accept it.
 
#80 ·
Last night's meeting with the mediator to discuss financial issues went well. She brought up a couple things we hadn't thought of, so he and I will do some research to get her the answers in the next week or two.

When the subject of my debt came up, she kept mentioning to my husband that it could be considered family debt if any part of the incurred debt was for family vacations or other family expenses. I insisted that maybe only a third of the charges were family expenses, and that I wasn't going to have him be responsible for it since he also charges family expenses but he just happens to pay off his balances every month.

We calculated out a "worst case" scenario on the home sale, and using those numbers, I outlined how I'd be able to pay off my debt, have a 20% down-payment on a new house AND still be able to put a substantial amount of money into an emergency savings account. I also said that I hadn't used my credit cards several months and am paying much more than the minimum payments on them in an effort to get them paid off. In a year, when we plan on begin officially separating, the debt will be reduced by at least a third, if not more, so I'm not too worried it. The mediator accepted that assertion, and she stopped hinting that he should pay for half of it.

And with that, other than the one big issue we need to investigate, the financial stuff is done. We also finalized the parenting plan and calculated the child support based on our salaries today. We added a clause that at the end of each year after we separate/divorce we need to show each other our year-end paystubs to verify whether or not child support should be adjusted due to salary increases/decreases over 5%.

All in all it went REALLY well and with no arguments or disagreements at all. Last night he mentioned the appraisal of our piano, to which the mediator asked if there was anything he wanted in the house that was comparable. He shrugged and said, "Not really," at which point she said, "Your car is worth more. You have more in retirement assets. You won't be responsible at all for her debt. Is that a fair exchange for the piano?" He said, "When you put it like that....sure." *lol* I did mention my engagement and wedding rings, and he without hesitation said that I should keep them.

For our next meeting in April, she's going to write up a draft of the financial plan, and said that she'd only need another hour with us to review the plan together, make any edits, and print a final version of both the financial and parenting plans for an attorney to review on our behalf. At that point we'll be done and will only need to come back to her if we have significant life changes before we move forward on separation next year.

We do not need to file the paperwork when we separate, but can attach the plans to our request for divorce when we submit those forms to the court at the end of our one-year separation. Total cost for mediation, document creation and attorney review will end up being about $1500.
 
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