The Psycho Ex Wife

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From the Timeline 2004 - Part 1 entry:

June 2nd – We have a support conference. PEW and her counsel were asking for child-support money based upon 50/50 joint custody. As PEW’s then work schedule showed and supported my notes in my calendar, I had the boys 60% of the time during the month of May. Her schedule was not slated to change and for the summer, I would have had the children for 60% of the time in June, July, and August as well. Upon discovering that given that I had the boys 60% of the overnights and she would have to pay child support, she chose to litigate the matter. Our hearing was scheduled for July 14th. PEW initiates litigation.

The interesting thing about her job at the time is that she often complained about her work schedule (nights). When things came up that might warrant swapping off with another employee or asking the boss for an alteration in the schedule, the common reply from PEW was that it would “take an act of God” to get the schedule changed for her. Well, it turns out that an act of God or an act of money, because in the aftermath of the support conference, she knew she had to do something or she would have to pay child support.

The huge mistake I made was allowing the change in the schedule at that time because I wanted things to end as smoothly as possible, especially for the children. In case I wasn’t clear - I wasn’t even asking for child support. In fact, all I said at the support conference was that I wasn’t going to pay 50/50 child support. I would have paid something less just to keep the schedule the way it was. Read that again - at the onset of this mess, I was willing to pay her child support to keep the bulk of the custodial time with the children. Rather than take less money than her attorney was asking for, she risked litigating it, which we knew would result in her having to pay child support. I didn’t anticipate that she would change her schedule so dramatically.

Here is how I learned of the change:

PEW,

I just wanted to confirm past dates (from my end) for June, and lock down the rest of the month. So far I’ve had them for the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th. For sure, given your schedule and my travel, the rest of the month looks like: 11th, 12th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th. I was hoping that I could have them the day I return from [business trip], which would add the 17th. Thoughts?

Additionally, I made arrangements for them to stay overnight at [my brother's] this Sunday night (13th). I figured it would be a whole lot easier for you to pick them up from 5-minutes away. Let me know what you think.

~LM

LM,

My new schedule is OFF every tuesday, weds, thursday, working every monday night, friday night, saturday day 7-3, and 9-11 sunday…….As far as Saturdays go, I don’t know why you put yourself down for having them every saturday night. I’ll want to keep them overnight at least every other Sat. Those are my thoughts.

~PEW

The last sentences are interesting. The reason would be, until the change - that’s how her schedule made things. I hadn’t received word of any schedule change until just that moment.

PEW,

No problem. Any nights during the week we can swap off then?

~LM

LM,

No we can’t. The nights I’m off, I want them overnight. If you want to see them you can come over or I can drop them off for a little while.

~PEW

I’ve always considered myself a pretty bright guy. Why I can’t see this for what it is at the time, I’ll never understand. I suppose I was too focused on the belief that we could end this relatively painlessly and there would be no question that we could make a 50/50 arrangement. After all, there was little reason why it shouldn’t be, right?

This would be one of several situations that would develop my sense of questioning the motivations behind every single things she does, even today. My inability then costs me parenting time with the kids, lots of lost money to legal fees, lots of time, a job, a home, pretty much everything.

Now? Everything that has anything to do with PEW must be carefully scrutinized, lest I fall into the same traps and make the same very bad mistakes as I did in the early stages.

PEW,I will reiterate what was the truthful understanding at our conference a month ago regarding custody of the boys. I agreed that the custody arrangement would be 50/50 and that I would do anything else that was necessary to accommodate the children according to your work schedule. I just want to be absolutely sure that what you’re telling me is that you are refusing to ensure that I have the children in accordance with our custody understanding.

~LM

There would be no reply. Due to the fact that we were already getting into the summer, we had no childcare lined up and given all of the moving, shuffling, divorce filing, and lawyer-paying, there just wasn’t much money left to handle making arrangements for the kids in that regard.

So, here came giant mistake #1 (or, if you’re counting marrying PEW, #2… okay, maybe #3 if ahhhh forget it…) Because of her crazy work schedule, the custody of the boys would shift, at least for the summer, to a 50/50 and, at times, tip towards primary for her. This would be the biggest mistake of the custody litigation for me.

If I stand my ground and make other arrangements, I’d have been in a much better spot for at least 50/50.