Here we go…

by duchess on May 11, 2012

I really don’t want to write about this but I know I left a bit of a cliff hanger there, and you’re all probably wondering how it went at the lawyer’s.

It went… Well, if a little brief.  In fact I was still asking questions in the threshold as the poor guy was shooing me out the door.  (I was getting every last dime out of my time there, believe you me.)

I’ve always known I’ve had the law on my side, and while it was good to confirm it, the experience was every bit and ten times more unpleasant than I’d anticipated.  I woke agitated and unrested and tried in vain all morning to shake away my nerves.  I finally pulled up to the office, somehow extracted myself from my car and entered the modest little reception area where I was greeted by a large, smiling woman ready with my invoice. (No wasting time when it comes to payment, yessir!) I felt myself sweating so forced in some deep breaths and noticed, with equal parts interest, surprise, and mortification, that my hands were shaking as I handed her my card.

Good grief Charlie Brown.  Get ahold of yourself.

It should come as no surprise then that after waiting for several painfully silent moments before being ushered into Guy’s office, where we politely shook hands and introduced ourselves, that I opened my mouth to speak and (if I may give myself some credit,  managed a couple coherent sentences) eventually stopped forming real words while pathetic sobs blubbered out.

Guy didn’t miss a beat and had a box of kleenex under my nose faster than you could say ‘go’; this was not his first time.  Ha.

Fortunately I assembled myself and got to business rather quickly after that minor (but massively embarrassing) hiccup, and essentially he confirmed everything I’d already suspected.

Let me say, mes amies, it took more than just the personal issues between BD and I to bring me to this place.  That was actually just the icing on the cake; the real driving force, I’m sorry to say, was money.

I haven’t wanted to get into too much detail about it because I sincerely don’t want to paint him in a bad light… bu I just can’t protect him anymore.  My efforts at preserving him both image-wise and financially have come at the cost of my own financial ruin.  I have NO money.  No money and no available credit.  For the first time, I had to ask for an extension on paying rent.  I have begged, pleaded, gotten mad gotten sad gotten every way you can imagine to try to get him to sort finances with me; he blatantly ignores me.  We’re not just talking about division of our assets – all of which he has – big items like our vehicle, etc – we’re talking child support.  Commuting costs.  Girl’s clothes and activities.  None, NONE of which he has ever paid.

Oh, there was one thing I was wrong about – what his monthly child support payments should be.  It’s double what I thought.

The point in this consultation for me was to gather all this information and present it to BD with an actual reliable legal representative to back it up.  To show him how illadvised he’s been, to show him how good I’ve been to him, to help him see what I’ve been driving at.  Not to retain legal cousel.

But.  We had a HUGE fight today, which was actually so bad I phoned up my employer’s provider of family services to schedule myself an immediate appointment with a counselor.  I simply can’t take it anymore, I can’t deal, and it’s affected my relationships with other people which means it’s only a matter of time before it affects my ability to parent and I can’t have that happening.  I’m not a big fan of counseling, it’s never done anything for me but what options do I have?  I have to try whatever I can to bloody well get through this.

Anyway, after this horrible fight I’ve done some work.  Some work I really didn’t want to do.  I’ve scheduled another appointment with the lawyer and have gathered all the documents I can…

Were it to get ugly, (and please, please God don’t let it, please pray for this if you’re any kind of believer) I would unquestionably be granted custody but the bottom line above all is that I could, financially, ruin him. Ruin. 

It’s a not a feeling or a power I enjoy, let me tell you.  And I know his mother would pony up any money he needed as she’s got loads of it, but… my God, does it have to be this way?  Does it, really?

My plan, of course, is to strong arm him with money.  Much like in my previous nice email, just now with the full extent of the law behind me.  Guy asked why I wasn’t going for Spousal Support (I could never!  How do people live with themselves for that kind of thing?) but I may use it as leverage.  I would never try to ruin or hurt him, but I really, honestly believe the best life I can offer my daughter is the one I’m giving her here, now, and I will fight for that.  For her.  She is what this is all about, and I just pray that BD is able to keep that in mind through this.

So, here we go, I guess.  I hate that I’m here.  Sitting up alone in bed listening to Norah Jones’ latests (dark, surprisingly… she must have had her heart broken) accompanied by the ominous shroud of what lies ahead.  I know it will be shades of ugly.  I just hope it’s at least quick, if not painless.


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All Business

by duchess on May 7, 2012

I wrote, and published, this post last week, but trashed it out of sudden worry that BD might have seen it.  Then I remembered that a) he doesn’t give a shit and b) I don’t either anymore.

I’m just after the below mentioned appointment, and now have much thinking and work to do.  I’ll write again once I sort my thoughts.

 

It’s so often that our best qualities are also our worst.

For me, it is my eternal optimism and belief in the general goodness of humanity.  I always think that if I could never do something so awful/callous/cold, if I could bring myself to come around/accept the truth/admit my wrong, surely everyone else would do/be the same…?

Obviously, this is a grave misfortune on my part.  Because the whole world is comprised of assholes, of course.

Arriving at the understanding, the cold slap-in-the-face realization that I cannot slap some sense in BD, was, rather ugly.  Some – if not all – of you, those of you who do and do not know him in real life may have ‘known this all along’, (save the I-told-you-so’s, please) but for me, this was actual news.  I really believed that I could reach his heart; I really believed part of him would always love me the way I would him, etc etc blah blah yes I know I sound like such a naive idiot.

So I get this email shortly after my last post from my poor unfortunate mother, who’s suggesting I lawyer up and RFN.  I say ‘unfortunate’ because, unlike so many of the people in my life, I am unable to… I don’t want to say ‘hide from’ but perhaps ‘lay low’ from, if that works despite being so grammatically incorrect.  So when she says what everyone else is thinking, she’s also the one to endure the aftermath.

I blew a gasket, of course.  Lawyering up is the LAST thing I want, the last things BD wants, (or so he’s said) and no one, ever, wins, nothing good ever comes of it; there’s only two parties with varying degrees of dissatisfaction and NO money and a whole heap of debt in the end.  And – shouldn’t she, of ALL people, know this, I shout?  (she and my father wrote the book on this hell, see.)

My irritation compounded when Mr Right, at my side for this delightful phone call, had the audacity to agree with her.  I tore him a new asshole too, of course, and it was really rather an ugly day.  (which I compounded by having to take Girl to the mall -  (YUGH) – and bought us ice cream, which I inhaled while watching skinny teenage hussies prance about and gorgeous young mums frolic along buying their wee ones overpriced adorable things while I spilled out of my used-to-be-fat-pants-now-only-pants and wondered how I could entertain my own wee one all week with no money.)

In the end, I suppose timing was good.  I have NO money and have incurred some debt, a direct result of BD’s staunch refusal to settle any financial matters despite my regular attempts.  I had to ask my landlord for a four-day leway on rent.  So humbling.  I owe my mother five bills.  (yes, the same woman I bitch-slapped into next week.  She is testimony to the whole ‘unconditional motherly love bit.)  BD knows of my mounting financial concerns, as I keep reminding him that, um, hey, guy, you have all our and girl’s furniture, our vehicle, and haven’t contributed five cents in child support EVER, (among other loose ends like her RESP) but he completely ignores me.  Doesn’t care at all.  So, that complete and total lack of concern, combined with our latest email exchange… what a hit.  What a fool I’ve been.  To think he’d eventually care, feel bad, do the right thing, what have you.  How terribly humbling.

So I sat on all that for a couple days and felt all bad & mad & sad for a while, and then decided it’s time to sort this all out, and right f***ing now.  (had a little panic, truth be told… what if he jumps first?)

I did some homework, some research.  I sought legal counsel, spoke to a couple lawyers.  I feel, as I’ve always felt, which is my defense for not really worrying about this before, that I have a pretty good case custody wise.  Still… this needs to get settled, and since we’re not going to be friends, right now at least (can I still hold on to hope for the future?  Is that a bad idea?) I need to get what’s owed to me.  Like my half of the Jeep, which is a solid five G’s alone.  Etc.

I selected a lawyer.  My appointment’s this Tuesday.  Wish me luck.

 


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Friends Off. Onward.

by duchess on April 28, 2012

I’ve been absent from my blog as I have from real life lately, and to all of you, I apologize.  I pull up email and pick up my phone repeatedly with the intent of writing and calling my dear friends…

What a sentence to lead into excuses.  Gahd I’m really slipping.  But the truth is… I’ve been really struggling, lately, and holy hell even as I write that I’m rolling my eyes at myself, so what must you be thinking.  Like get ON with it already, right?  I know.  :(

BD has been annoyingly, hurtfully, relentless in daily texts asking if I’ve found someone to go to the courthouse with me yet.  (to sign the papers saying I’ve been served.)  I’ve really had divorce on my mind, coming to grips with everything it means, particularly Girl.

He’s interestingly been at me these past few days about custody.  It’s been upsetting.  Yesterday, he woke me at 7am to engage in a morning long scrap about what’s best for Girl.  Afterwards, after calming down over a cuppa, I wrote him a long, heartfelt email, that I might say took a lot out of me.  I wrote him from (I really hate to sound so pathetically cheesy but…) the heart.  I wrote all the things I truly believe are best for Girl, him, and me;  I told him of the life I can, am, giving her here.  I wrote about the life he could have here… not only does he hate Calgary, his social scene, his job, etc etc, but I know how much he’d love life out here.  (365 days of golf alone!)  I told him all the things I wanted for him, all the things he deserves, I wrote of how great it would be to share Girl together and co-parent, how we could work on getting an element of ‘us’ back and develop a great friendship again… I asked him to change his outlook on BC, that instead of refusing to consider it out of pride, to look at is as overcoming everyone’s opinion, proving them all wrong, showing them we could be great and move onward, upward, together, out of all that shit baggage.  Finally, in a move I thought would be the seller on my sincerity… I told him to take money off the table.  Entirely.  Keep the Jeep, I said.  Forget child support, all the back payments.  This is a lot of money we’re talking about friends.

I was restless, anxious for his reply, and fortunately able to distract myself by working fervently to finish a project online for my mother in time for Mother’s Day; I screwed it up, though, and made the mistake of moving over to email to check for his reply in that already unhappy state. It was there; it was bad.  Naturally, he took the entire thing the wrong way and wrote back all mad and pissy and most upsettingly, accusatorially.

It was my undoing.  I crumbled.  Fell apart.   The sleeplessness and upset and worry of the week then came pouring out and, in that odd mix of fury-sadness I so often find myself in with regards to him, I first raged, fumed, stomped about, but soon sobbed, sobbed. Heaving, sobs.  I was mad at the whole world.

What made this exchange with him different, so completely devastating, was that it dawned the light of realization.  I have failed.  I simply canNOT make him see.  No matter how determined I am, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I give up and no matter how much I keep breaking myself to be the bigger person… I can’t force his hand.  (or his heart, as it were.) We can’t be friends.

This breaks my heart more than I care to admit; it’s humbling, humiliating, and apparently unrelatable.  Ladies and gentlemen, join me in the unpleasant place of realization numero deux; I’ve used up my allotted quota for feeling sad & moping about BD.  It’s quite the realization to stumble upon, and what can I say to you, my friends, but I’m sorry, and – It’s done.

I’d had plans with Mr Right today, who was there and thus privy to this whole happening, and who, so very different from BD, does not take lightly to a hysterical woman slamming about.

If I were to say there was one, single thing I miss about BD, it’s this; if ever I was furious about something and snarked my way through the fridge or cupboards or laundry or whatever I was doing, he’d just step aside, ‘mmhmm’ about it and let me finish my snark sesh, not getting upset or taking it personally, ready to resume normalcy in the few minutes it would take me to get it out of my system.  It was the one time his emotionless, carelessness, came in handy.

Mr Right, and, I assume most men, does not appreciate my tone or squabbles, and mistakes them for personal attacks.  So I really ruined my own day here, by first allowing age-old BD baggage to upset me and then picking a fight with the one person whose comfort I needed.

I couldn’t get over it.  I shoved Mr Right out of my way as I slammed clothes into my flight bag, hating myself for behaving like a child but unable to get ahold of myself.  I couldn’t stop the sobs from bubbling out of my throat, despite my fury and embarrassment.  Mr Right and I gathered our things in silence, save for my sobs, getting ready to head out the door.  I was so mortified.  I was like one of those pathetic women from the movies who cannot stop crying; everything I did was plagued by sobs.  Chop up veggies for my salad, sob sob sob, riffle through laundry to find pantyhose, sob sob sob, flip head over to scrunch product into hair, sob sob sob and oh joy choke on some mucus because my head’s upside down, delightful.  I prayed, all the while, that Mr Right would catch me by the arm, hug me to his chest, murmur soothing nothings in my ear and stroke my hair… he did not.  I’d pushed too far.

I carried my makeup in my purse; obviously it couldn’t yet be applied to my disastrous face.  I worked on settling myself while in the car, reflecting on what had happened here, why the tears wouldn’t stop.  We all have times when we need, and have, a good hard cry, but this was different; it wasn’t cleansing like that, therapeutic.  It was involuntary, inexplicable, uncontrolled.  A result, I guess, of a week of inner turmoil, and the realization that, despite what Mr Right was trying to tell me… It was NOT going to be okay.  No matter what happens here, I am going to have to share my child, with someone who hates me, to boot… and that is just not okay, and it never will be.  It wasn’t a case of feeling sorry for myself, now – it was a case of feeling afraid for myself.  Through all of this awfulness I’ve always maintained the belief that BD and I will, eventually, come to a good place together, and today that belief was shaken.  (or completely destroyed, rather.)  I simply can’t make him see.  I can’t make this happen.  And – I can’t live like that.  I canNOT share my child like that.  I saw my life fast forwarding before my eyes in this fashion and it is not something I can bear.  I’ve never been so afraid, so truly terrified of the future, as I was at that moment.

We drew nearer to the airport and I forced my tears back and mentally pep talked myself.  I applied makeup as my breathing slowed, and I pushed myself back to the place of how to make this all better.  I devised approaches to dealing with BD, with myself, how to move on accepting this, etc etc, and while the tears stopped, my eyes remained welled.  I opened my eyeliner – liquid – and drew a thin line over my right lash line.  The most interesting thing happened then.  The liquids of makeup and tears morphed together.  I watched in the mirror, simultaneously horrified and fascinated, as black liquid pooled from the outside corner of my eye, covering all the white there, around my iris to the other side, covering the white there too… the entire white of my eye was black, the green iris wide in the centre.  It was like an oil spill.  It looked surreal, happening in slow motion; it was something you might see in a music video.   I felt then the parallel, that my whole life felt surreal, that it was something I might read about or see in a movie.  But this is real life, and it’s something I can control; I need to take the wheel.

I finally jumped, grabbing a kleenex and blotting it out, and by some crazy miracle I felt no pain, it didn’t burn or sting my eye at all.  I took a deep breathe, and closed the door on the morning.  We pulled up to the airport,  went through the motions of check in and security and customs, all of which nearly killed me (the utter bloody pain in the ass of travelling as a regular person, I don’t know how you normal people do it).

We are now on the plane, yours truly nestled in a window seat.  I’m staring out the window at the vast blue below, reflecting over the morning and the wretched angst of BD and the ensuing custody battle, telling myself all the annoying shit people say when times are tough (It’ll all work itself out… He’ll come around… Will it?  Will he?) and while I’m having moderate success accepting things… I’m unable to shake the embarrassment, the humiliation of the morning. Why does Mr Right always have to see me at my worst?  And we’re talking WORST, mes amies, whole new levels of shame.  He’s beside me, doing the crossword (our thing together that I’m not participating in because I’m so ashamed and horrified at myself I can hardly look at him) all calm and collected and looking so impossibly handsome.  He’s such the bigger person of us.  He’s so wonderful, and for the millionth time I felt pangs of guilt at how it must make him feel when I get so upset about BD.  I hate myself for it; and I hope this is actually the end of it.  Mr Right is all and everything I need, it’s so past time I let go of wishing for friendship with BD.  I keep averting my eyes; I can feel his warmth, physical and emotional, and I know he’s fine and thus we’ll be fine… can I be fine?  Part of me knows that only I have the power to make it so, but part of me also knows that only when BD releases his hatred and we can amicably raise our child together, will I feel fully whole.  But I have to rebuild myself and my heart, so all I can do, is… Pray.  No contact was, is, a good idea, and to be honest, giving it all to the power of prayer feels a little freeing.  Taking control by… letting go.

So where are we going?  Funny you should ask.  A bestie of mine is in Maui.  Come, come, she’s said… I can’t, I’ve said, I worked last night and again on Sat night… but I don’t have Girl.  So technically… I can.  She has met Mr Right and thinks he’s all sorts of wonderful… Mr Right himself has developed a new penchant for learning to surf (Jack Johnson video inspired, I think) ….so…. we’re popping out.  To Maui; for 24 hours.  Such a glamorous life I lead, right?  ‘Oh, I’m just popping out to Hawaii for a day, tra la la la la’.  Right.  Sigh.

I’m glad to be going.  Hawaii is such a place of calm, home, comfort for me… I may not be able to ever come to grips with having to share my child, with BD hating me… but this is sure as hell the best place to start trying.


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Advance Apology

April 27, 2012

Coming off the tail end of the Worst Day Ever.  Boarding a six hour flight that has a light enough load to afford me a row to myself, where I will pen up a post about it for you lucky readers.  And by lucky readers I mean poor suckers. But!  You’ll notice I said ‘coming [...]

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Dear Keyboard Designer: Sleep Tight. Jackass.

April 24, 2012

Why the hell is there an ‘undo’ button right beside the ‘shift’ key?  So that when you go to hit ‘shift’ to capitalize the start of a new sentence after writing up a whole bloody post and your fatass finger accidentally hits this stupid fucking ‘undo’ button you lose ninety percent of what you’d written?!  [...]

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Well, that was fast.

April 8, 2012

Real life always has a tendency to come screaming back in.  The very moment our plane touched down in Toronto, St Lucia was but a dream; both our cell phones were lit nonstop with beeps & vibrations accumulated during the week, and it was back to life as we knew it, complete with all the [...]

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St Lucia

April 2, 2012

“How was it how was it how was it?!” It was, simply put – amazing.  Absolutely, amazing. I’ve always believed an experience is what you make of it (people can always find something to bitch about) and for me, the difficulty in a holiday is the ‘holiday’ part; I just have such a hard time [...]

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Leavin’ on a jet plane

March 15, 2012

Not a very original post title for someone in my profession. And yet there I’ve written it anyway. You must be hoping for some clever little between-the-lines reasoning here… So I’ll give it to you. It’s simple.  (Finally!  Something in my life is actually simple!  Which for me is saying a lot because even if [...]

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The first wrong

March 14, 2012

note: this was actually one giant post that I’ve divided into three.  stand by.    I left my life in Calgary with a very clear cut mission; I was carving out a life on my own.  Forging my own path.  Marching to the beat of my own drum, or some other equally vomit inducing cliche, [...]

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Paradigm Shift

March 9, 2012

You know that feeling of distaste you get when you realize that someone you’d thought was kind and noble and grounded is actually a pompous ass with an inflated view of themselves? It’s so disheartening.  Disappointing. It’s even worse when you realize that person is you. Pause, for dramatic effect.   One of the clearest [...]

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