An Infamous Day

The day arrived. We met in the attorney's room at noon to finalize the deal we'd made at the mediator's. No, I wasn't going to take another full day off of work to do this. I was taking a half day. Our courtroom appointment was for 1:30. The attorneys could meet me at noon. Or 11:30. Or 12:30. Enough of this taking off work to go to court and whatnot. We had got Bill to drop the diminished capacity plea and accept the agreement he had signed. I was fed up and not in any mood to give any more to the cause. My attorney had us initial the bottom of each of the twenty-five pages and wherever something had been crossed out or changed. There was no quibbling or arguing. As we signed our full names on the final page, Bill leaned back in his chair and said, "I don't think I'm going to be able to pick up the dog within fourteen days of getting the $81,000." Typical Bill. His signature means nothing. His word means nothing. He can back out of his promises at whim. Even before the ink dries. The quintessential Bill. At that point my attorney---and I won't quote him here----almost leaped across the table at Bill basically telling him that if he didn't pick up the dog within the allotted time, he would be dragged back into court and sued for whatever, including legal costs. Bill then said, "Well, I wouldn't want to make you unhappy, then. I'll pick up the dog within fourteen days." Quintessential Bill. The judge congratulated us on having settled our divorce outside of court. He signed the agreement. It took so little time that I barely remember it. My attorney made Bill swear under oath that he was on no medications that would preclude him understanding in full what he had signed. I had to claim the same. It was March 29. This has always been a significant date for me. My father's mother died on March 29 when he was ten years old. Fifty years to the day after that, my mother died. Somewhere in between, Bill was born. And now it was going to be the day my divorce became final. I have begun to dread the date. I neglected to wish him a happy birthday.

A Little Leg Breaking Pays Off

We were still left with the unfinished business of the estranged husband who wanted to back out of the legally binding agreement. You could have colored me 'very unhappy'. In fact, you could have intensified the colors to 'finally pissed off'. Which I realized was a good thing. What had emerged as assertiveness with the whole process back in December had now morphed into completely-fed-up. What was that famous line from Network when everyone threw open their windows and screamed into the New York night sky? That's how I felt. I wasn't going to take it any more. Not. Any. More. So I didn't. I told my attorney I would NOT be doing any further negotiating with Bill. I said I wasn't afraid to go to trial. I was actually kind of looking forward to it. I said I would ask for sanctions against Bill, for the court to either make a decision for Bill or have a conservator assigned to him,and I also was going to enter into evidence the letter Bill wrote saying that if I didn't 'cooperate' with him in doing the divorce his way he'd be 'quite capable of running up legal fees'. I would then ask the court order 3/4 of my legal fees be taken out of his share of the settlement. My attorney typed this all up in a letter he sent out that Friday afternoon. On Monday morning I got the call saying Bill was going to sign the mediated settlement. Dang! As much as I don't like drama, I was sort of looking forward to going to trial.

Unexpected Joy

Okay, I've heard it said for many years that being a grandparent is the best. I didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about. I'm not saying I wasn't looking forward to being a grandparent. In fact, I hadn't given it much thought at all. I thought grandparenting was one of those things I would experience in the far and nebulous future. I had had some good grandparents, people whose company I enjoyed, people who I knew loved me, people who always did special things with me. Going to my grandparents' home was a special treat, and getting to go stay there without my parents was a very special treat. My grandmother always took me to cool places like Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and a special park in her town called Dennis the Menace Park. She painted my nails and dabbed perfume behind my ears. She let me dress up in her fox stole and her slingback heels. I had terrific memories of grandparents and knew I would provide those types of memories for my grandchildren as well. When the time came. That time, I was always sure, was in the distance, not something that was going to happen soon. Then KJ was born. I quickly learned four things: 1) I would love him as much as I had loved his mother. Why didn't anyone tell me that? It didn't occur to me that I could ever love in that way again. I thought it was reserved only for my own child. 2) This love was, in some ways, more intense than the love I had had for Laura. 3) It was because: my body wasn't destroyed from pushing him out, my nipples weren't sore and on fire, I wasn't dodging streams of urine in the middle of the night while trying to change him, and I wasn't sleep-deprived. 4) The intactness of my body and mind allowed me to express feelings of awe, tenderness, and closeness in a way that wasn't impacted by the above circumstances. I have been reminded of times when my postpartum anemia and fatigue interfered with me just being able to enjoy my baby. And that's when I saw it! I can love my grandchild because the rest of me isn't being hampered. I can take that child in my arms, rock him, coo at him, tell him how wonderful he is and how much I love him, and my body is whole, my brain is operating on a decent night's sleep, and my hemoglobin count is well into the teens. Hallelujah! I get this 'Grandparenting is Wonderful' thing because I know WHY!!! And then, of course, there is that comment I have heard so often: when you're finished with the baby, you can just hand him back to his parents. A-ha! For the first two weeks I was even able to get away with saying, "I think there's something in his diapers. Maybe he needs to be changed." Ahhhhhhhhh, buh-bye, little cutie. Mommy's going to change you now.....

He Arrives

This was a loooonnnnnggg day! The pitocin was started during the night. When I got to the hospital at 9:45 this morning, Laura was dilated to 5 centimeters. Kyle left to go home, shower and change his clothes. At 10:10 the anesthesiologist came in to set up the epidural. They kicked me out of the room for a half an hour. This was a great help. Laura lost all feeling of pain but could still had sensations for things like pressure and tightness. The midwife came in and broke her water at 12:45. The contractions started coming closer together. At 2:00 Kyle went to get something to eat. Then I went to get coffee. When I got back, the nurse was encouraging her to try pushing, but it was too soon. Jack arrived. We went into the room for a while. At 4:00 p.m. The nurse decided it was time to start pushing for real. Jack and I were kicked out for good. We hung out in the hall for a bit, Kyle's oldest brother showed up, and then some young nurse sent us to the waiting room. Sadly for Laura she inherited my family's tradition of long bouts of pushing. She pushed for over two hours. At 6:09 p.m. Kyle David Lipps, Jr., entered the world at a whopping 9 pounds, 4 ounces. He measures 21 inches and he looks just like his mother did when she was born.

A Boy!

March 14 was quite an eventful day. Bill's sister had arrived the night before and is going to be staying with us for an undetermined amount of time. I woke up before 5:00 a.m. Ugh! That's never the way I want to start a day.

It was also the annual Kindergarten Round Up at school. I had to look good, put my best foot forward, and give a little speech about early childhood development. The problem was that as I was getting my class ready for the day and getting myself ready for the roundup, my attorney called. He had just received a letter from Bill's attorney stating that on the day of the mediation Bill had been on chemo and Vicodin and therefore had not been cognitively aware of the content of the agreement we had made. For those reasons, he felt entitled to withdraw from the agreement. I was shocked! I didn't know what to say. My attorney felt we should go forward in trying to enforce the agreement.

I wasn't able to focus well at the roundup. I gave my talk but don't know exactly what I said. I know that parts of it went well but felt there was something strange in my closing sentences. As I was speaking, I looked out into the group of parents and there was Trevor, the young pastor from my church. What was his family doing there? It was a very weird experience.

My attorney called again right in the middle of the meeting. When I picked up his voice message it said that he had called the mediator's office only to find out that her husband had had a catastrophic heart attack the night before and was not expected to live. Let's face it, she's not going to be able to deal with this for a long time. This is the second time Bill has cried, 'Not fair! I want a do-over'. If that's the game he's going to play, then I will ask the court to have him declared mentally incompetent, have a conservator assigned to him, and I'll deal with the conservator. I kind of want to go to trial because I think I'll get ordered to pay him a lot less and I will ask that he pay two-thirds of my legal fees because I have a letter from him telling me that if I didn't 'cooperate' with him on doing a settlement his way, he'd run up my legal fees. And I've changed my mind about the life insurance policy. Why would I make a person against whom I have a restraining order the beneficiary on a big life insurance policy? The difference before was that I wasn't angry then. Now I'm all out of patience.

But the day wasn't over. Not nearly. I got a call from Laura at 11:30. She was at the doctor's and was calling to say they were going to induce her. How ironic it is that after days of having my phone on me constantly in the hopes of getting that 'It's Time' call, this one time I thought she was calling about what her dad had done.

However, it turned out not to be THE day. She spent the night in the hospital while they gave her something to thin the cervix and started her on Pitocin at 4:30 a.m.

Settled

We had a mandatory mediation date set. It was last Thursday. Bill and I had had a couple of counter-offers, and we were very far apart. In fact, Bill had not modified his first counter offer. Not at all. It was as if he hadn't heard what I was offering and didn't care about what everything was worth. Driving to the appointment, I saw myself as wasting my day in the mediation. Why bother? He wasn't budging on his demands. The mediator was a well-heeled older woman. She had the dignified and aristocratic look of one born into money and innately high IQ's. She wore a simple, dignified pant suit, a female version of a navy blue Brooks Brothers. She brought us all into a glass conference room and explained what she was hoping to do. She would set the rules. She would work with us for two hours. We were to make offers in good faith and, if we reached a settlement, whatever we agreed to would be irrevocable. She also explained she had practiced family law for 35 years before deciding mediation was a better way to end marriages. She then dismissed us all, except for my attorney, with whom she wanted to meet first. Bill, his attorney, and I were to wait in the large waiting room. Bill and his counsel conferred for a few minutes and then Bill moseyed right on over to where I was and started chatting. "How do you like that Kindle?" "It's an old iPad and I like it a lot. I got it through work." "How's Laura?" "She's miserable." "Did Kyle finish his course?" "No." "No?" "No." "Why not?" "He got sick." "He got sick?" "Yes, he got sick." "Does he have a job?" "Laura is the biggest pregnant woman I have ever seen. The baby is going to be huge." "Is she well?" "As well as can be. She's ready to not be pregnant anymore. This kid is going to be Baby Sasqwatch." "I sure hope we can make a settlement today." "I hope so too, Bill, but you've got to be willing to compromise, and so far you've haven't been willing. I spent a lot of money on a forensic accountant and you have ignored her work." "Well, I don't trust her calculations. My attorney and I are thinking of hiring our own person." "Go right ahead." "It would be a shame to have to go to trial. This has already cost you over $60,000 and going to trial could take it up to $100,000." "Well, if we have to go to trial, then we will. It's okay with me." My attorney and I had met and decided that our game plan was to let them know we were not afraid of going to trial. There was a part of me that would rather have given the money to a court and lawyers than to put it in Bill's hands. "How's your gambling going?" "Oh, I haven't gambled five times this year." "Why not?" "No money." "You chose gambling, Bill." "What?" "We're getting this divorce because you chose gambling over protecting me." "I didn't know that. If you had asked me to stop gambling, I would have." And with the sweetest look on his face, my ex-husband stood there and lied to me. It was at that point I realized I had been terribly wrong in my estimations of him. Throughout our marriage, I thought the particular look he had, this relaxed and sweet face, was the face of Bill when he would never lie to me. This time, wwwaaaaayyyy too late, I discovered that Bill doesn't have a sweet, honest side. Like his old girlfriend said, Bill is a liar. He stood there in the waiting area, casually leaning against the receptionist's counter, talking like a nice guy, and lying like crazy. If I had asked him to stop gambling, he would have??? Who is he kidding? Does he also have a bridge he wants to sell me? My attorney came out. Bill's attorney was asked in. Bill left me alone. My attorney and I went outside so he could talk to me about what the mediator had said. She told him our stuff was really good, that our offer had made sense, and that she hadn't even needed a mediation brief because the numbers in our settlement offer were so well-prepared. My attorney had given her another offer to present to Bill. When Bill's attorney came out, she took him and Bill down the hall to a meeting room to consider what they had discussed. After fifteen minutes or so, Bill and his attorney went into the conference room. They stayed for a long time. She seemed to be talking to Bill a lot. Then she came out with an offer. We had to go back and forth a little bit, but, in the end, we reached an agreement. And this is what it is: I have to pay him $3250 a month spousal support until he dies. That's going to be tough. I have to pay him $125,000 by October 1 of this year. That's going to be really tough. I have to put him on as the primary beneficiary on my life insurance policy. In return, I get the house and all of my retirement. I get to keep my restraining order. In addition, the spousal support is non-modifiable and, no matter where I go or how much money I ever make in the future, he can never come back and try to get more money from me. When he dies, Laura will be the beneficiary on my life insurance again and he will make me the executor of his estate. (Believe me, it will be a huge headache and I have no expectation that there will be any money when he goes.) Since we made that settlement, I have felt not only a tremendous sense of relief but like a different person. I feel completely different. I knew I would, I just didn't know in what way. My life is going to be my own now, and it gives me great peace. I feel solid and ready to move on. I know I can take care of myself, and it feels good.

Counter with That Sense of Entitlement

I received a counter offer for the offer I made Bill. It is strikingly reminiscent of the interactions that went on between Bill and his sister as they settled their parents' estate. Bill waited for her to lead off, then countered with a suckerpunch. He wanted to see how much she'd offer. He told me that much. But in the end, it didn't matter what she came up with, he knew what he was going to do. His response to my offer sounded much the same. He countered with a ridiculous demand. Why did I pay all that money to a forensic accountant to carefully go over the values of the house, the retirement and the tax sheltered annuity when he was just going to respond with a demand that reflected how much money he wants for himself? It doesn't really have to do with what things are really worth. Bill just basically said he wants a one-time lump sum of $165,000 and $4500 a month until he dies. He wants to be the beneficiary on my life insurance policy, he wants the restraining order lifted, and he wants to be able to go to the police station and pick up his guns. It's all outrageous to me. And then, in the end, he said that if I didn't acquiesce to his demands, he would get a QDRO and have the retirement system give him the cash value of what he is due. My attorney said he has some ideas for a response. I can't wait to hear what they are.