Divorce & Children?

[movingon2]

Well I'm new here and just looking for some advice on how to handle my son wanting us to get back together. I'll try and keep the story short. A year ago my STBX and I bought a cafe with some partners in a small town. We were married 11 years. Before this STBX was doing daycare and had been home with my daughter since she was born and she is 3 now. My son is 7 and I'll admit he had a closer relationship with his mom than me. We had to sell our house and move 20 miles to the town the café was in. I didn’t want to sell it and when we got in a fight about it once she told me she was going to move anyway and I could keep the house and live by myself. So anyway the cafe got stressful on everyone and especially me. I kept my full time job and was doing all the books and working just as many hours as everyone else. When I started to try and talk to my STBX she wasn't interested in the problems we were going to run into and neither were our partners. The more I talked about it the more she didn't care. This all happened very fast and within a few months of owning the place she was loosing weight and meeting new people and then I guess I was pushing her away and she started to go to the bar a couple nights a week and made it perfectly clear that I wasn't invited. Then I caught her texting this guy. When I confronted her on it she would just say we are @#$%ing friends and she doesn't care what I think. A couple of months went by and it just got worse and I ended up telling her I wasn't working at the cafe anymore because someone had to be home with the kids because she had to go out and party. She didn't care that the kids were with a babysitter all the time. So I better add in the part that she smokes pot and once we started the cafe it got to be a lot. I was concerned about it but any time I tried to talk about that either she just threw a fit. I'm no angle I like to drink a little. I'm not an alcoholic but I was drinking too much. So when I stopped working the cafe I also stopped drinking for lent. Over the next few weeks we had a few fights just drifted apart completely. So one night I noticed her ring in the jewelry box. I went and woke her up to talk. It was a calm talk no yelling just talking. She told me that she didn't care about me anymore and doesn't want to be married any more. She said that the cafe was more important to her and she was going to do whatever whenever she wanted. She wanted me to move out but she couldn't tell me how she was going to take care of the kids. She says I’m controlling and I’ve been that way forever she says but that was the first time I had ever heard her say that. It was a long conversation and when we got done I knew it was over. She wouldn't go to counseling. She said she wasn't going to have some stranger tell her how to live her life and it wasn't going to do any good anyway she said. I had already been seeing a counselor myself for about 2 months at this point. The next day I decided to see an attorney and got an idea of what my rights were. We were renting our house and I worked back in our home town about 20 miles away also where all our family lived. So a couple of days later she had planned on going to this concert with our partners in the cafe and so it was time to make my move. I was so pissed about what she said the other night I wasn’t going to stay living there in this small town of 700 people and have my wife run around like she was. So When she left she had told me she wasn’t coming home that night because she would be drinking and the other and didn’t want to drive home. Witch was good. I then had already got help lined up and took the kids to my moms. I then moved out while she was gone. I mean we literally moved everything out of the house in about 3 hours. We had to make one more trip in the morning to get the last stuff out of the garage. She found out about noon that day. Let me tell you that pissed her off. So I am really rambling on but it’s a big story. She was served papers 2 days later. Since then the kids and I lived with my parents for about a month and a half waiting for our new place to get done being remodeled. We’re in it now and things are going good. I have had the kids for 4 ½ months and she has only had them over night 10 nights since we moved out. My son has been acting up a bit so I’ve been taking him to a councilor and I think its helping. STBX came to the last one after the councilor told my son to ask her to come. I’ve had lost of talks about what’s going on with him and he knows we aren’t getting back together but he is in that stage of wanting us to get back together. In the last couple of weeks he has been upset because he can’t spend more time with his mom. Her excuse is she has to work all the time and can’t take them. He is so smart and hates the café and asks me why we ever bought that place and wants us to get back together. I’ve told him many times that we aren’t getting back together but he just says yes you are. So my STBX refuses to talk to him about this. The councilor told both of us that it’s important that he hears it from both of us and we need to tell him often that we are not getting back together but we both love him and will always be his mom and dad. She told me the counselor doesn’t know him like we do and all he needs is our love. She said she’s not going to waist her 34 hours a week with them by upsetting them talking about this. Keep in mind her short time with them is her own fault. I have never kept the kids from her and all I do is tell her she needs to make more time for them. The divorce papers aren’t final yet. At first she told me she knew the kids were better off with me and she wasn’t going to fight for custody. So I had the papers drawn up that way and then she changed her mind. She had just tricked me by telling me that to get some money out of me so she could pay her rent. So on the last papers she is wanting custody but isn’t moving forward on anything. I just told my attorney to set the court date because I just want it to be done.

 

So I’m not much of a writer but I think you get the picture. There is a lot more but this is the basic picture. Oh yeah I forgot about one thing, she wanted me to be a “swinger”. You know when you swap partners. Not my cup of tea.

 

Anyway what do I do with my son? Do I just keep telling him what I am and not worry about what his mom tells him? I feel it’s important that he works through this stage. It’s over between us for sure she was having an emotional affair and I heard a lot of things after I moved that just made me sick. I wouldn’t get back together with her to save my life. Since we left I don’t’ drink much, I’ve been out with some friends a couple of times when my STBX had the kids over night. I took up an exercise program I do in the house and over the last year I have lost 68lbs. I lost a lot because of the stress of divorce but the rest I lost healthy.

 

So any advice or inputs feel free to let me know.

[cavedweller]

movingon2,

 

She likes to party...Well, let her party..

 

The problems with your son will be worked out..

 

Push full steam ahead and get the divorce..

[Confused_in_canada]

Wow, what a hell of a story. Good on yah for grabbing the reigns and getting the hell out of dodge! That's just terrible. I can't believe your STBX is doing that.

 

Good for you, now your kids can grow up in a safe environment and know that at least one of their parents will always be there for them!!!!

[movingon2]

Yeah it's kind of crazy. I do worry about the kids but everyone including the councilor tells me they will get through this as long as one of us is taking the right steps.

 

My STBX is going crazy and openly trying to turn everyone against me. Up until about 3 days ago she had cut herself off from her own family because they were still talking to me. She even sent everyone in her family a text telling them to F off and to not contact her again. She just sent a letter the other day apologizing but then still going off about me and they shouldn't be hanging out with me. Her family has told me they sure hope she doesn't end up with the kids and her mom told me she is going to do whatever she can to help me make sure she doesn't get custody.

 

I am still waiting to find out when the court date is. Technically she is fighting for them but not doing anything about it. She once told her attorney that she wasn’t going to fight for custody. Her attorney told mine he told me and then she lied to me to get $500 out of me. When I had the papers drawn up just how we talked about she came back and said she was changing her mind on everything. My attorney thinks is just pressure from her friends to fight for them.

 

I should probably start a new page to talk about all that.