DH's gift to OW

[madgered]

Tell me what you think. My DH gave OW a £250 bracelet for Christmas. I saw a text he sent saying; "Hi gorgeous. Happy Christmas x". He says it was just a flirtation and nothing sexual happened. He says they met a couple of times for lunch and spoke on the phone quite a lot. What would you think if you were me?

In my financial settlement I was awarded 3 years of spousal maintenance as that was deemed by us both as a fair period of time for me to get back on my feet

I started at the bottom 18 months ago and time will tell but hopefully by the time child maintenance stops I will be fully self sufficient. There are still plenty of cases of spousal maintenance in a long marriage and as the youngest DC is only 5yo I am sure it will apply here. A friend of mine divorced 3 years ago had spousal maintenance for life unless she remarries.

Hows your day been today madgered ?

Hi madge. Re 50:50, I have the boys Monday and Tuesday nights, they go to their dads Wed and Thurs and we do alternate weekends Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. We swap if we need to, usually work-related, and fit round each other holiday-wise. I moved out of the marital home, he gave me 50% of the equity. No spousal maintenance or child maintenance needed to be paid on either side.

It's worked fine for us for ten years, they are now 17, 17 and 14.

Some bad mouthing of divorced dads on here...

comingintomyown Thank you. I spent the morning with the bank manager trying to make sense of our joint accounts and what I could withdraw on a daily basis. DH has restricted access to money. There is an auto top up that happens every night that keeps the account £1.00 in credit. Its very scary dealing with an overdrawn bank account. She was great and agreed not to freeze the bank account. Gave me lots of advice on how to keep afloat.

Meanwhile my solicitor is seeking a maintenance order. His solicitors are saying it's too much blah blah blah and so it goes.

And then I went to see my counsellor and sobbed for an hour.

After that, school runs, swimming lessons, dinner and a bottle of bubbly because my oldest DD got a first in her uni oral. After that I have to see the Arse when he returns from his working 'late, seeing homewrecker' night in London.

numberlock yes. A lot of them are innocent too. But they know they are and shouldn't be offended.

Nice to see the anti SAHM out grinding their axes as usual.

Yes, I'm sure the OP will need to
reenter the job market at some point, but let's not chastise her for not putting an application form for the local supermarket already...

The anti SAHM brigade, I meant to say.

To be fair i didn't bad mouth divorced dads per se, just the one's i know.

And i am talking of our dads, mine and dp's, and a lot of our friends dads. Not any of the younger generation, where they might have a different idea of parenting etc.

I know of 3 men who have full custody of their children, but they are not friends or family.

madgeredyou sound like a very strong person to me & deserve better.just wanted to tell you a positive story about a dear friend of mine who went through the same & is now well & truly out the other side.
Her controlling H discouraged/prevented her from working(I'm not suggesting yours did but this was her situation),she was a SAHM for many years bringing up the DCs.

He met OW (20 yrs younger),his behaviour during the split was cruel & vile.She went through some tough times...BUT...eventually she got some part-time voluntary work.This was an absolute saviour as she met other women going through similar & added further meaning to her day other than fighting with XH.

The voluntary work led to paid work...she is now independent & the happiest I've ever known her.
I mean genuinely happy,prior to this she went through much self-doubt & anxieties but the work really helped her to re-build her self-esteem.
She had no formal training or much work experience that she could use in the "modern" workplace...so the volunteering was a God-send.

Just wanted to add to your collection of positive stories so you know that if other people can do it...so will you.Whichever path you choose I wish you so much luck & eventually happiness.
xx

Why do you pick the example of a job at the local supermarket, squalor? And is anyone who has worked as a parent automatically against those who haven't?

And sassy I was referring to whoever said about dads giving up on the 50:50 split once the reality kicked in.

Anyway we seem to have gone off track slightly, I think that the biggest thing that would help you in the immediate future madge would be living separately from your husband and I hope that both sets of solicitors are working to achieve that ASAP.

congratulations on your daughter achievement at uni,she must be over moon

thank you . I'm proud of her for staying so focussed during all this hell.

My links bracelet arrived in the post. v expensive for something that doesn't feel good quality. Pretty tho.

had a pow wow with the girls at lunch today. so I'm feeling strong. need to face H now that he's home from his travels. hiss Spit.

tomorrow I'm dedicating my day to getting Sussed with legal stuff.

oh and I've booked myself on a pastry course. it's only a one day course. but it's a start.

small steps right direction,little by little
play to your strenghths
expect bumps ahead and dont let it keep you down

Madge if his is an exit affair, then he is going to have to pay for it.

The 50:50 is a way of not paying you, resist this, or at least make sure there is some sort of cluase which increases your payments if they end up being at home more with you. You know:

1. it will really get in the way of his big romeo action with OW
2. the reality will pall pretty quick, and they will end up with you.

Is he adamant he wants a divorce and he wants it right now?

I often hear it said that men want 50/50 to avoid paying child maintenance, however for someone using CSA rates the difference between child maintenance for 50:50 and child maintenance for 3 or 4 nights a week is actually very small. It makes no logical or financial sense that any man would use 50/50 to save on child maintenance. Any man who is able to do simple sums with money will work out in about 5 minutes that actually the cheapest option for them is minimal access.

He realizes that he is going to miss his DC dearly. which is totally understandable. that's why he's gunning for the 50:50 split.

madgered In my experience that is why men want shared residency. I have 50/50 with my ex and it's the norm in my friends circle. I know 5 dads in total with it.

I would do everything possible to encourage 50:50 shared care (agreed between yourselves, not via the courts).

So it won't impact on the child maintenance I get from him you recon.

What about if he can't do his share because of work commitments? Do you have do do a dance around that? I'm not sure I could be that flexible ( I've done enough skipping around) . I want to know where I am and I also don't want him to start hiring babysitters etc to help him with school runs and tea etc.

You won't be able to influence whether he uses babysitters in his time, but you can be as firm as you like about access. It may take a bit of determination to stick by "it's not my problem/you'll have to sort something else out" if he tries to prat about with times/days.

It will impact the amount of child maintenance, of course. As it should because your costs will be reduced. What I was saying is that it doesn't make enough of a difference vs. effort of having children to support the theory that fathers go for 50/50 to save money.