OK, new beginnings, new thread, it WAS right to serve divorce papers!

[Wisedupwoman]

I asked the question - Am I right to serve the divorce papers on my chameleon-like but definitely cheating, lying, cruel and manipulative STBXH. You all said "YES". So I have. The story continues.........

Hey Chips, how was s'ralan tonight? beardy or what?

I found a thursday sock in the bottom of the laundry basket last night. I bet there have been ructions with the new/old mrs purple trousers.

Perhaps she's accusing him of keeping a foot in the other camp!

Or he's spending most Thursdays rooting around for the missing sock.

S'ralan - was on form. It was a good one :)

Alldownhillnow

Wisey, you should wait until Friday and then send it to him at Ms-Fuck-What-Have-I-Done's with a note 'Glad you enjoyed yesterday so much - just like old times eh, finally found the sock in the sheets!!'

Inspired Chipping

Today is thursday. Perhaps mrs purple trousers is handy with a marker pen and can change a tuesday sock - oh but wait, what about the poor lone tuesday sock next week?

oh what to do, what to do, what to do.............

I bet you can't believe your luck that it's no longer your problem

Does he only have 7 pairs of socks? Maybe for Father's Day DD should buy him a pack of 'Any day ending in a Y' socks

I bet the poor girls torn about Father's Day - Arsenic v You're a bastard but you're still my Dad who I love/loved :(

What are you up to today Wisey? Is it nice there? It's beautiful here, but sadly I'm stuck indoors for the day.

Hi Chipping.

How timely and accurate your post. I must say socks aren't exactly the most fitting present I have in mind for father's day! Having said that, it might be quite funny............any alternative suggestions would be gratefully received for their amusement value though!!

It's a lovely day here too. I'm on a mandatory training day and tonight taking DD to a football thing.
I had the papers through to sever the joint tenancy on the house yesterday. Another step.

I've decided it's best not to give any more thought to fuckwit's proposals before mediation. It's a waste of time and all it does is make me worry about what the right thing to do is. As someone up thread has said, (sorry, you'll know who you are and it's early morning!) the whole sock/CD/control thing is symptomatic of his issues, not mine. Neither of us will get all we want and we'll both have to accept that.

Sorry you're spending the day indoors too. Is it The Room?

I will work on further Father's Day suggestions - I do like this

or this though - at a quick glance.

Papers to sever the joint tenancy :( :) funny old thing isn't it - such a mixed bag of feelings x

I think what you need to do is write down the BARE minimum you could live with out of the settlement & what you would (realistically) like/what works best for you. But you don't have to agree to anything at the time do you - so, as you say, go in with an open mind.

No, not The Room :) I have cleaned that room (again & again) and put everything in there - I'm putting her in the spare room. So I have to put up some curtains and do a few other bits... I have a list of stuff I need to get done before she gets here and there's no time for sitting in the sun enjoying coffee - sadly! But I did do that for a bit yesterday with a friend and her two kids - lovely :)

Hello, training day ended a bit early (hurrah) so home with a nice cup of tea.

The severance is the thing I don't have mixed feelings about. If I die tomorrow he doesn't get my share of the house and he can't challenge my will so fuck him and his 'I don't love you the way you deserve to be loved'.
What a fucking understatement from someone who will use a hundred words no-one ever heard of to say 'hello'.

Found my anger btw, does it show?

Yes, I definitely want what he doesn't want to give - 50% of the pension. All else I'll take as much as I can of, because I'm worth it girls!

No date for mediation whilst sock-man plays silly buggers about his whereabouts - his problem though, and it don't make him look good for all his jumping up and down about my 'refusal' to talk.

Good news about the poo situation though Minesa.

Off to sit in the garden on top of what used to be his pond, now my lovely gravelled area with table and chairs, pot plants and all.

Back later.

xx

LOL at ^ Chipping! Love the self improvement book, that would be very, very cheeky wouldn't it!!!!!

A torch?

...so he can find his way out of his own backside.

Have spoken to our mortgage broker who did our last deal.

It's looking good for me - if I wanted to take the mortgage on myself I could, or I'd have no problem getting another mortgage in my own right. it would seem that if either of us is going to hit difficulties (get the violins out) it's sock-torch-man. Just digesting that news. Mortgage man is my new best friend at the moment (I'm so promiscuous with these telesales people, I oughta be ashamed of myself).

OK, sock-torch-man has had to resort to buying clothes from the local factory seconds/clothes-no-one-else-would-be-seen-dead-in-outlet apparently. That explains the purple trews then.

I have come to love the phrase 'shiny new life'. I guess that's where the torch will come in handy, Alldownhill!

Thats really encouraging about your mortgage prospects (and even better that he's got two chances) and the fact you really do have proper independence within your grasp. The more you find out about these kind of practical things, the more you will gain confidence with some of the emotional challenges.

So sock-torch-man is destined to a lifetime of last season's rejects. Boo hoo!

WOW - great news about the mtge :) Is it 'affordable' if you do that (as in as affordable as any bloody mtge is!?).

Love the idea of the torch!! Inspired.

Has he been sobbing about how little money he has now?? Better bloody not have been! Is he contributing at the moment?

Yes - it does make a mockery of you not being prepared to discuss things/go to mediation when he's lying about where he lives so you can't move fwd with mediation. PWT Twat

He's right though - he can't love you the way you deserve to be loved - he's too fucking busy loving himself and some poor woman who is yet to work out she's been sold a purple lemon.

Do you think there's any chance that it could be the current OW phoning work/writing the letter at STBHX's behest?? (so he can claim stress/you're doing it/whatever warped thing he's come up with)??

Hey!

Yup, spot on, there's been some low-level grizzling going on - he had to go to the outlet because he didn't have any clean clothes

Don't know about the mortgage yet, DD is adamant she wants this to be our home for as long as possible, I'd quite like to as well because it would be out of my league to buy another like it now. But I would still want financial support of some kind from grizzle-guts.

The more I think about it now the more pathetic a creature I see him as. I reckon it won't be long before he tells DD/DS/me that if I hadn't kicked him out (which I did) and then cut-off the cash (which I didn't) he wouldn't have gone to live with his special 'friend' mrs bungalow. So, so, SO predictable.

And who fucking knows what the two of them have cooked up between them to try and salvage something? I may never know if the letter to me or phone call to his work is someone who hates him enough to do that, but if it is they must have a ginormous grudge. Thank god I'm out of it.

Hah, he has to buy new clothes because nobody's washing for him! Gotta laugh really. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago of a droopy-looking fellow, surrounded by piles of dirty plates, cups, saucepans etc etc, saying to his friend "Since my wife left me I've been thinking of having an extension put on the kitchen".

I think I like "sock man" even better than "purple trouser man". If you don't know the inside story it sounds like something vaguely gross (and under the circumstances, fairly appropriate). Or maybe it's just my mind playing in the gutter again.

So I probably shouldn't even mention the hankies, then.

I'm going to whinge now.

Here it is friday night. I'm broke. I'm broke because hanky-man can only control my life financially now (or at least for the time being) so he does(alright then I did mention hanky's, if only to give you an insight into the many facets of this wonderful and interesting human being) .

I have to wait until we come face to face to get more maintenance for DD so there's a bit more to spend - it's not ok actually to offer 'generous' settlements in one hand and then withhold them in the other, is it? I mean if you're prepared to pay, then why wait?

Because it's part of the control, that's why, control of me and DD. If I won't beg him to come back, perhaps he's waiting/hoping for DD to give in and beg.

but she won't. She won't even consider going on holiday with him, would rather go without a holiday altogether than have one with him on their own.

I hope, in his quiet moments, he thinks about what he's done here. Completely wrecked the lives of 4 other people. What a twunt.

Have you sorted out tax credits Wisey? If not, please do so - and they are backdated from when he left.

Is purple sock hanky-panky-wanky man currently paying for DD at the rate quoted by the CSA? If not, then contact them and go this route now - they too should back date it.

At the end of the day, I understand exactly how your daughter feels, and I think she's wonderful. My kids are the same - they would rather live in a caravan and eat beans on toast, than live in a mansion with lycra-man.

My SHL now thinks, due to my tax credits, that I may not be liable for legal aid (arrrgh!) but she said not to worry - she will see if she can get him to meet my costs. Is there anyway you could avoid mediation, go the traditional solictor route - and get him to pay your costs? Especially as he is being wary about his whereabouts (though with his dress sense this is understandable - poor neighbours!)
X

Does MissFancyPants not have a washing machine?

With the house, try to think about what you want and what's best. I know it's hard when you know what DD wants, but you are the one paying and you are the one that needs to be able to 'move on'. If you can stay in the house and not depend on his money to pay the mtge, then there's no rush to decide is there :)

Of course he needs to contribute - but if it was me, I'd want to live within 'my' means and have the money from him to pay for the 'nice but not essential' things - just so I wouldn't have to worry about what he's doing job wise and if he'll pay.

Shall we run a book on him telling DS/DD/you that maybe you need a notebook to write these things in so that you can show him/DD that you are one step ahead of him :)

We need to know about the hankies

You can whinge as much as you like - it's your thread

Saffy asked if he's paying the amount he'd have to pay via the CSA - I presume he is as it's a paultry 15%, but DD costs more than that to run :) as well as the house etc which he's just walked out of... he should be contributing to bills etc until mediation at least. What does your SOL say??

You need a re-think - he has NOT wrecked the lives of 4 people - you all still have great lives and they can be better going forward. He has only 'wrecked' them, if you allow him to

Need nurofen, have a pounding headache.

Hey Saffysmum, thanks. This will be long.

yes I get tax credits now, not much due to my earnings but I did that as soon as he went.
The CSA quote alot more than he is paying (not far short of double) but they also told me that their pursuing him for maintenance could cost me more in the long run - they would look at how much he pays for the mortgage and they usually rule that each spouse pays 50%! So I'd end up losing out. So it doesn't look like I can do that.
I feel stuck.

It's like your SHL said - what you gain in the one hand, you lose in the other even though you're bringing up DC's alone.
She is obviously thinking along the same lines as my sol though. He has petitioned the court for hanky-wanky-panky man (ARF, despite my sadness) to pay the divorce costs, and he's written to him saying we want him to pay the mediation too. Fact is, once I've paid the living expenses and mediation costs, there won't be anything left over at all.

It's such a mess financially, even more than the emotional side and it makes that side wose. Worse, he seems to be avoiding paying the enormous leccy bill and I've had to set up a new account with the leccy company to start all over again. This means they won't let me pay anything until they've been able to locate and negotiate with him the payment of the debt, which now includes another months usage in his name because of the date of the letter I wrote them about it. This will inflame him more and I guess he'll just drag his feet about mediation now in a complete turnaround of heart.

In a way I can understand he must be really worried himself about money - how on earth he's going to manage another household when he's already in huge debt, has a DD and her home to support, plus everything else must be affecting him in the same way as me. He's a wanker, yes, but there's no way that a new life with OW can assuage this reality, it's there.
What actually happened in your mediation meeting Saffy?

Well my SHL said that as I earn a fifth of what he earns and the mortgage is in joint names, he would be liable for 4 5ths of the mortgage and me for 1 5th if the mortgage was defaulted. It's different for me I guess because Ex is a high earner and has 3 kids to maintain (eldest finishes A levels this month). So he will pay enough maintenance to enable me to take over the bills. But SHL, as I said, made it clear that he would be liable for the majority of the mortgage, because it was in joint names, and the mortgage co wouldn't give it over to me on my salary. And even if I said I would pay it - then didn't bother - he would have to pay four fifths of arrears - regardless of whether he lived here or not. She was very clear about this.

What happened in mediation - well I got there and met a nice mediator lady, who my SHL often refers clients to: SHL had faxed her all my details - mediator lady asked if I understood the process, I said yes, and that I liked her dress - guessed correctly that it was Monsoon (a hippy chick after my own heart). Then she said would I prepared to sit down with lycra man and discuss our finances, I said, absolutely not - she understood (cos SHL had told her my grounds for UB). She said she would file my details in case I changed my mind, we shook hands and I left. However, she did make it clear when elaborating on the process that anything me and lycra agreed financially would be run past SHL for her guidance/approval, and SHL would then make it legally binding.

X

Chips get me some neurofen too please.

I'm right though, I'd put money on it (oh, er, no I can't can I? OK then, not English money, some leftover centimes from last French trip) . He will claim that he's with OW because of me, I pushed him into it because he couldn't get his bachelor pad.

All the value of the settlement lies in the pension. That's something I do know. that's why he doesn't want to give it. He has no emotional attachment to the home but he does to the pension - it will afford him almost as high a standard of living as when he is working. If it comes to it I can see me having to choose between having the house or half the pension. To be honest I don't have much faith in the court awarding me both, and it may be that I'm being unreasonable in my expectations . They will do what is fair in their view to enable us both to live within our means.

He stopped paying bills within 6 weeks of leaving, he just did it. that's why I took over because I didn't want a bad credit rating (they are all in my name even though he was paying them) and I didn't want baillifs turning up.

So you want to know about the hanky's. Well, you did ask.

The hanky's are like the socks. They are part of his identity. He needs them. They are his comfort. Always there in his pocket, making it bulge in a very un-erotic way for those in the know. They are grimy. Need I say more?

I could talk about his (3) straggly chest hairs but I don't want to get chucked off MN! (ARF's at self).

I just want to add a rider here, that he punched well, well above his weight when he got with me and he always admitted it!!!!!!!!!!