As was the case last year at this time, Bill is getting more insistent, more aggressive. We have had his search dog for three months now. That dog eats and poops a lot. And Bill says he can't take the dog back until .......first it was three months, now it's indefinite. Right now we also have Stevie. Stevie is a joy and we are all glad that he's back for a while.
Bill has been trying to get hold of Kyle to get Steve back. Kyle has not been answering his texts. Bill's latest text said that if he doesn't hear from someone soon, he will use attorneys to get Stevie back.
Laura just came home from a stunt camp with her cheer squad. Kyle told her that his crazy ex-girlfriend has been calling him and he must have said something about Bill. Maybe he mentioned the threatening text. She now has Bill on the phone and is ripping into him. Does he get it? What does he think when his child tells him he's taking food out of her mouth by forcing her to pay rent at our home and asking her mother to pay him $4000/month when she can barely make it paying him $2500? What's his comeback when she tells him it angers her that he wants her to be removed as the beneficiary on my life insurance policy and replaced by him? She says that being nice to him doesn't work. She says that letting him get close again will only end up in him trying to run her life again. She said we have been too understanding of his situation, that we've had the dog for three months already, and that we have spent too much money feeding and caring for him. He said he'd give us $45 for the food. She said to give us a check when he picks up Steve. He said we'd have to wait until the end of the month because he is all 'tapped out'. She said, "Really? You're out at a restaurant talking to me on the phone and you're tapped out? Then maybe you should sell your motorcycle." His response to the life insurance policy was that, since I am his source of income, if I were to die he would have no means of supporting himself. She suggested he get a job. He said that wasn't an option. He said he didn't intend to harm her in his court papers. He said she'd be taken care of. She said, "Rrriiiiggghht, like you've always taken care of me......"
I strain to understand their relationship, this strange coming together and falling apart of a father and daughter, his only child. As a child, and even as a teen, I didn't question that my father or stepfather were right or wrong. I assumed they were not only miles ahead of me in the life-experience department but that they had wisdom and maturity, and their decisions were always sound. I rarely argued with them. Somehow Laura didn't get the wool pulled over her eyes with her father. She could see from early on that he didn't make good decisions, that he was a 'do as I say, not as I do' father, and that fairness and acting in her best interests were not his gifts. Was she spared the dismay that comes with finding out your parents are human? I can remember feeling emotionally crushed when I realized my mother, my stepfather, and then my father were imperfect creatures. Was she not ever in that position? Did she always know he was full of bull? Was I the only one who didn't?
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Escalating Again?
The beauty of this June is that I don't have to deal with Bill. I am free. I can come and go as I please, and I like that. I have finished my progress reports and turned them into the principal. He ok'd them and now I have not only printed them out but one copy is already in the progress report envelopes and another is in the cum folders. Wow! I have cleaned out most of the cupboards in my enormous classroom as well. I feel like I'm ahead this year. But ya never know.....
Bill wants $4000 a month in spousal support now. He alleges that my dad should be paying $2000 to live in the house. He also claims that Laura and Kyle are paying me rent. (Really???) He wants $2000 for legal fees and he insists that I either put him back on my dental insurance or I pay him $3000 for dental work he needs to have done. But the best, the winner, the deal-breaker, is that he wants Laura removed as the beneficiary of my life insurance policy ($500,000) and himself put on. So, these things are crazy. I know enough about the legal system to feel reasonably sure he won't get most of these demands. The only one I think he might get granted is the $2000 to pay his lawyer. I am shocked again at the temerity of these demands. The writing sounds like Bill. His attorney didn't write it, I'm pretty sure. He wrote it up himself, had his attorney's partner sign it, then took it to the courthouse and got the June 28 hearing date. I'm sure he played the cancer card at every turn. I think it's why he got such an early hearing date. My attorney says you usually can't get a date within the next sixty days.
I sent my response to my attorney. Do I have to fill out another Income and Expenses report? I haven't heard back from him yet. I know that one time you can't change the beneficiary on a life insurance policy is when you're in the throes of a divorce, I checked my policy paperwork, and I had put Laura on as my beneficiary six years ago for sure, maybe longer. My dad has only his bedroom as private space in the house. He shares all the other spaces, including his bathroom, he buys his own food, and his caregiver expenses are very high. In fact, when his Keogh IRA runs out next month, he'll be running deeply in the red and we'll be drawing from his savings to the tune of several thousand dollars a month. Bill asked to be taken off my benefits; I only signed what he asked for. If he needs dental insurance, he should have specifically asked to stay on that. And the kids don't pay me rent. I wish they did.
I am emotionally damaged from this marriage. I have felt that I'll bounce back in time, but I have my doubts now. I still seem to be so shut down, so emotionally unavailable romantically, and there seems to be no end in sight. I need to get off the online dating site I joined because they focus on relationships. I must admit that I don't want a relationship now. It is something that goes against the way I was raised by my mom, and I still feel the dissonance. This sensation is annoying. On the one hand I was raised to crave and strive for relationships. On the other hand I feel I have made bad choices---maybe even engaged in behaviors that were counter-productive to relationships. I don't know-----and am now in a place where I have shut down emotionally and don't want a relationship. That's sad. I'm usually a passionate and highly engaging person in a relationship. Will I ever be ready to go for that again?
Bill wants $4000 a month in spousal support now. He alleges that my dad should be paying $2000 to live in the house. He also claims that Laura and Kyle are paying me rent. (Really???) He wants $2000 for legal fees and he insists that I either put him back on my dental insurance or I pay him $3000 for dental work he needs to have done. But the best, the winner, the deal-breaker, is that he wants Laura removed as the beneficiary of my life insurance policy ($500,000) and himself put on. So, these things are crazy. I know enough about the legal system to feel reasonably sure he won't get most of these demands. The only one I think he might get granted is the $2000 to pay his lawyer. I am shocked again at the temerity of these demands. The writing sounds like Bill. His attorney didn't write it, I'm pretty sure. He wrote it up himself, had his attorney's partner sign it, then took it to the courthouse and got the June 28 hearing date. I'm sure he played the cancer card at every turn. I think it's why he got such an early hearing date. My attorney says you usually can't get a date within the next sixty days.
I sent my response to my attorney. Do I have to fill out another Income and Expenses report? I haven't heard back from him yet. I know that one time you can't change the beneficiary on a life insurance policy is when you're in the throes of a divorce, I checked my policy paperwork, and I had put Laura on as my beneficiary six years ago for sure, maybe longer. My dad has only his bedroom as private space in the house. He shares all the other spaces, including his bathroom, he buys his own food, and his caregiver expenses are very high. In fact, when his Keogh IRA runs out next month, he'll be running deeply in the red and we'll be drawing from his savings to the tune of several thousand dollars a month. Bill asked to be taken off my benefits; I only signed what he asked for. If he needs dental insurance, he should have specifically asked to stay on that. And the kids don't pay me rent. I wish they did.
I am emotionally damaged from this marriage. I have felt that I'll bounce back in time, but I have my doubts now. I still seem to be so shut down, so emotionally unavailable romantically, and there seems to be no end in sight. I need to get off the online dating site I joined because they focus on relationships. I must admit that I don't want a relationship now. It is something that goes against the way I was raised by my mom, and I still feel the dissonance. This sensation is annoying. On the one hand I was raised to crave and strive for relationships. On the other hand I feel I have made bad choices---maybe even engaged in behaviors that were counter-productive to relationships. I don't know-----and am now in a place where I have shut down emotionally and don't want a relationship. That's sad. I'm usually a passionate and highly engaging person in a relationship. Will I ever be ready to go for that again?
Friday, June 3, 2011
June Again
Bill knows this is the busiest time of year for me. It's June, school is about to close, I have to write progress reports, attend year-end functions, close up the classroom, fill out tons of paperwork, get ready for summer school, etc. It's horrendously busy right now. As was the case last June, he is dragging me back into court on his trumped-up perceived needs. And this time he's probably doing a little bit of lying too. Last year at this time he did a LOT of lying. I don't think he's so crazy right now. He is asking for increased spousal support, attorney's fees, dental insurance and God knows what else. So I will be back in court on June 28 to deal with these issues. There is a new judge who I haven't met. My attorney says he's old-fashioned. But can he see Bill's baloney? Will he be able to cut through the cancer-patient bull to see the lazy, opportunistic, compulsive gambler? Will I look like a sympathetic person to him like I did to the other judge? Will Bill's contention that I took him off my dental care get the judge to force me to cover him again? I've already spoken with the health benefits coordinator at the district office and I can't get him back on my policy. I'd have to take out a separate private policy for him. It could be a hardship for me to pay for that AND the $2500 a month I currently pay in spousal support. This is me and the legal system: I don't 'get' it. It's foreign to me.
I know that Bill's moving (again!) and that he's starting to feel better. That means he has energy to gamble again and his bank account can't handle that particular extra-curricular activity. So, go for the goose that lays the golden eggs, deep pockets,--- or lots of credit cards, to be more accurate.
Court makes me physically ill. The thought of going back upsets me and I want to somehow avoid it. How can people feel comfortable there? How the heck do they pay for all the attorneys' fees and spousal support? Why is this happening to me?
I also wonder how I'm going to give Bill his money if he is somehow granted more. I wonder how I'm going to pay him during the summer. I haven't saved as much as I needed while at the same time not spending very much. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off this summer. Forget taking a trip to celebrate my birthday! Forget even having a birthday party. I've got to pay a mortgage and bills----and all those credit cards I've run up.
Somehow over the past month or two, I've diminished my contacts with people and a sense of isolation and powerlessness is starting to creep in. I feel tired and don't want to exercise. I don't even want to ride my bike. I've taken a couple of walks. I need to walk or get on the bike every day because I know that if I sink into a 'funk', it will be hard for me to push myself to do even the tiniest amount of exercising
There is a possibility that I can get some money from the insurance policies I have for cancer and heart attacks. Bill's hospital stays and surgeries could possibly net me between $12,000 and $15,000. That would be an enormous help. It will have to be a summer project for me. They company stopped offering those policies because they turned out to be so costly for them so they do a little 'bait and switch'. Even though they say they will give a flat $300/day for every day you're in the hospital and $600/day for every day you're in intensive care or ICU, when I called them about it they said I needed to get a cost-per-day itemization from Kaiser. Funny, but that isn't what the policy says. It's going to be tough summer, I can tell right now.
I know that Bill's moving (again!) and that he's starting to feel better. That means he has energy to gamble again and his bank account can't handle that particular extra-curricular activity. So, go for the goose that lays the golden eggs, deep pockets,--- or lots of credit cards, to be more accurate.
Court makes me physically ill. The thought of going back upsets me and I want to somehow avoid it. How can people feel comfortable there? How the heck do they pay for all the attorneys' fees and spousal support? Why is this happening to me?
I also wonder how I'm going to give Bill his money if he is somehow granted more. I wonder how I'm going to pay him during the summer. I haven't saved as much as I needed while at the same time not spending very much. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off this summer. Forget taking a trip to celebrate my birthday! Forget even having a birthday party. I've got to pay a mortgage and bills----and all those credit cards I've run up.
Somehow over the past month or two, I've diminished my contacts with people and a sense of isolation and powerlessness is starting to creep in. I feel tired and don't want to exercise. I don't even want to ride my bike. I've taken a couple of walks. I need to walk or get on the bike every day because I know that if I sink into a 'funk', it will be hard for me to push myself to do even the tiniest amount of exercising
There is a possibility that I can get some money from the insurance policies I have for cancer and heart attacks. Bill's hospital stays and surgeries could possibly net me between $12,000 and $15,000. That would be an enormous help. It will have to be a summer project for me. They company stopped offering those policies because they turned out to be so costly for them so they do a little 'bait and switch'. Even though they say they will give a flat $300/day for every day you're in the hospital and $600/day for every day you're in intensive care or ICU, when I called them about it they said I needed to get a cost-per-day itemization from Kaiser. Funny, but that isn't what the policy says. It's going to be tough summer, I can tell right now.
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