Looking Forward

Making a better life for me and my kids

Archive for the tag “frustration”

11 Jun 2014
4 Comments

almost summertime!

Its been a long time since I’ve posted here…lets see what there is to catch up on.

1. things with asshat remain the same. He’s not spoken to or contacted D since February when D tried to call and arrange to visit. I have been getting regular child support payments (yay!). However, he is now 60 days past due with the HELOC. With his trip to europe in a couple of weeks, we’re not sure what will happen with support payments. 

2. A: The schedule that A has been sticking to is 10 days with me, 4 days with asshat. Baseball will start for him today. He’s looking forward to it, which makes me happy. A will be wrapping up his Jr year in a few days and will officially be a senior. Unbelievable.

We’re still college hunting. We (husband and I) had a talk with A on Sunday about it. The previous Wednesday A texted me out of the blue and said he wanted to do Early Decision at the University of Miami. I have no idea where that came from. After our talk on Sunday, it became clear. Asshat has an opinion. The school A had chosen as his first choice, Coastal Carolina in South Carolina, was now a “terrible idea”. Thats what his father told him. A terrible idea. Asshat has never been to SC, he’s never attended coastal carolina, and its more than likely he’s never even MET anyone who went there. Asshat’s idea for A is that he should apply to Texas A&M, Harvard and California Polytech. Asshat believes that it is very important that A be attempting to attend a “nationally ranked school”. He told A that a nationally ranked school has more actual professors and not as many regular teachers. It is very clear to me that asshat is putting as much effort into research about A’s secondary education as he did his own. A isn’t even close to being considered for acceptance to any of those schools. He is a B and sometimes C, sometimes A student. He’ll only have 3 years of high school science. He does not have a job. He does not volunteer. He is not a qualified candidate for these schools. I hate to say it, but he’s just not. Asshat told him that if he graduates from Harvard that he’ll make 50k a year to start. I guess asshat knows this because he also graduated from harvard and now makes 50k a year? or knows someone who has? No, and No. A’s other school choice was West Virginia University. Asshat told him that this was also a terrible idea. There was also mention that asshat told A that he gets an extra 5k for claiming him on his taxes, and thats good because he only make 25k a year compared to my 90k a year. That guy is on crack. He makes more money than I do, which is why HE pays ME support! Sometimes I wish I could live in such delusion. 

I told A that we would help him with application costs for up to 5 schools, but we would like them to be schools that he actually could be accepted at, even if its a long shot, and that they be schools he actually would want to attend. He doesn’t want to live in New England. He wants the weather to be warm. He wants the school to have a decent football team. He wants to be within a few hours of the coast. And he’d like to major in business. I’ve asked A to look at Virginia Tech. He said he’d look into it. 

3. D: His birthday is on Thursday. He’ll be 14. I have no idea how that happened. We had an appointment with is primary doctor last week. He’s 120 lbs and 5 foot 7 inches tall. Again, I don’t know how that happened. For his birthday we’re going to take him to the Boston Comic Con in August. He wants to go as a ringwraith. If anyone has any ideas about how to make a ringwraith costume, please let me know! 

There is a computer camp for a week in July that D is excited about. He’s never done anything like this before. Its nice to see him get excited about going out into the world and trying new stuff. He’ll be starting high school in the fall. He now has glasses in addition to braces, and he could not be happier about it. He’s continuing to dive on Saturday mornings. He’s recently asked that we not go and watch. He believes he does better when we’re not there. Husband said this was the same thing he felt like when he was 13 and played baseball. 

4. Meanwhile, I still hate my job. So. Much. We’ve tossed around the idea of just packing up and moving to VA or NC or FL. D is on board with that idea, but he’ll likely be singing a different song after his first year of high school, since we couldn’t go until after A was graduated. I guess we’ll see how things look in a year or so. The job market is not good here (slightly worse than other places) so even though I look for other opportunities, there really isn’t much available….which tends to just add to the ongoing frustration. 

Husband and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary in 10 days. I can’t believe its only been 3 years. It feels like a lot longer…but in a good way!

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26 Sep 2013
11 Comments

Frustration

I am beyond frustrated.

I feel like I’ve typed that sentence 100 times here in the last 10 months. But here I am, typing it again. 

It’s interesting to think about what “frustrating” really means these days. Traffic used to be frustrating. Lines at Wal-Mart used to be frustrating. The kids throwing fits and whining to get their way used to be frustrating. Funny how perspective changes. Now a court date that was rescheduled, X calling D and telling him he has to go to court and talk to a judge and a conference with the judge regarding the kids as witnesses not being scheduled until the middle of October is frustrating. 

It’s as though the more anxious I am for this to end, the quicker the Universe is to shut me down. 

I was looking at child support worksheets today. If I make more than X, and if we both provide “substantially equal care” for A, than the person who makes more money is considered the “non-primary caregiver” for the purposes of the form. That would mean If I make more than X,  I will likely have to pay him support for A. I am trying to be hopeful that I am misunderstanding this form. I am trying to apply common sense here and trust that the system isn’t going to take my child away from me, and then make me pay X for the favor. You’d think with D, it would end up being a wash, that I’ll remain the primary caregiver, and that X would then owe me, but the calculations indicate a discrepancy of $66.00 a week. Meaning, I’d owe X $66.00 a week more than he’d owe me – so I still end up paying him. How can that be? I’ve got to be reading these forms wrong. 

Whether I’m wrong or not, I guess it’s not the worst thing to be prepared for something like this. I’ll file it away under “Worst case scenario.” 

I emailed my parents to let them know that court had been postponed. I said I was a mess of stress and anxiety. I just want this to be over.  This is the response I got from my dad: 

Stacey, I truly understand about being a mess of stress and anxiety. It looks as if time will be your only antidote. But in the mean time you should take solace in yourself. You are a remarkable person. You have come so far and accomplished so much, all through a ridiculously difficult period of time. Very few people would of ever come this far. I’m unbelievably proud of you and your accomplishments and I’m a hard man to impress. So find solace in yourself, your abilities and your accomplishments. The only advice I can offer you is, that whenever you are tempted to look how much farther you have to go, stop and turn around and marvel at far you have come.
Love, Dad
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06 Jun 2013
6 Comments

Highlights

Court today. Here are the highlights.

1. X served my lawyer with papers to modify A’s residency, asking for child support for A from me, and changing my rights of contact, and also a form to enforce the order where he gets D Sun-Wed. 

2. Neither form has yet been filed with the court. 

3. Our lawyer asked for a 2 day trial.

4. I agreed to letting A be with his dad from Sun noon – Thurs 9am. X then announced that if I agreed to that permanently, then that would take care of his need for the modification he plans to serve. My lawyer said it would be an interim order only. 

5. We are out of money with our lawyer. She believes 2500 would be how much she would need to get this done. This might be the deciding factor for us. We don’t have 2500. We don’t have any way to get 2500. Plus, there is no guarantee that will even be enough. 

6. Our trial likely won’t be scheduled until January, 2014. This is more than one year from my initial filing of the modification. 

7. X feels like he won today.

8. I noticed that X put on all the weight he’d lost. He’s easily 325 pounds. His suit didn’t fit him very well. He couldn’t seem to keep it buttoned. He wore white socks with his black suit. I kept thinking how he didn’t look “withered” as much as he looked swollen and angry. Like he might explode. 

9. He told my lawyer a few days ago, when he sent her those forms and asked her to look them over and make sure he didn’t miss anything, that he’s studying for the bar again. He’s on the applicant list to take it in July. 

10. A will be home tonight. Sullen, cranky, hiding in his room, asking for rides places, money, food he won’t be home to eat. Can’t wait. 

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
18 Dec 2012
3 Comments

Undoing all my hard work.

I know there are a few of you in this same position. We found out yesterday that the ex has now missed TWO payments on the Home Equity loan, and the mortgage lady told me that this has basically undone all the good I’d worked the last year on establishing with my score.

This is beyond frustrating.

I wanted to be able to buy my kids a house to live in. A house that is OURS. Now we are apartment hunting. If I’m going to be paying rent, I’d rather pay it to a stranger than to an asshole ex husband.

I haven’t told the kids yet about this. D has been adamant that he does NOT want to live in an apartment. He’ll also have to change schools. I am so worried about this. We will also, likely, have to find new homes for our two dogs. Though, we will hopefully find something that will allow us to keep at least one of them.

I am sad that I am unable to provide the kind of living situation my kids deserve. I know its not my fault. I know that I do everything I can to make life ok for them. I know that their father is the reason for all of this (though he would argue that if i’d not divorced him, we’d likely be living in a mansion right now!) but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating and sad.

Christmas is next week. Hopefully, I can let this go enough to be able to focus on having a lovely holiday with my boys – there will be time afterwards to worry about transitions and how it will all shake out.

 

Posted in abuse, co-parenting, crazy making, kids, parenting and tagged , , , , ,
26 Nov 2012
8 Comments

Feeling overwhelmed.

I’m very frustrated. I’m feeling very overwhelmed. I wish I was better at managing it.

We drove 4 hours, stayed in a hotel with a pool, the boys swam and had a lovely time. The next day we drove an hour to my parents house for thanksgiving. It was great to see them. My mom really misses living closer to the boys…and it showed. She spoiled them rotten for the 24 hours we were there.

We got home on Friday, returned the rental car, picked up the dogs, etc…things were quiet and ok. It was really nice.

Saturday night one of the dogs bit D in the face. D was in his space. We have talked to him about this a MILLION times. I don’t know if its  his ADHD, but for some reason he just can’t seem to understand that dog isn’t like our other dog. You can’t get in his face. You can’t play rough with him. He’s still a puppy, he has a lot to still learn. Anyway, D is fine, no stitches required, thankfully. But, after having this dog for 8 months and having NO change in how D interacts with him, and seeing the dog actually getting WORSE when he deals with the kids, and not better…we need to give him a new home. I called an old friend to see if he’d be interested, he said he’d think about it. We’ll see.

I gathered all my court papers today to take to file, only to find out that A. the money I’d set aside for filing these papers has magically been eaten up by Christmas shopping and traveling. And B. The sheriff in SD sent me back the COPY of my motion to modify, not the notarized original. The notarized original was given to the ex.
I emailed them to find out what on earth I can do now, and of course, as you’d guess, I have to redo it. I have to redo it, get it notarized again, and send it again, to South Dakota. I have to hope that they can find him before his classes end and he ends up who knows where.  Seriously. This is just so frustrating.

And finally, I still haven’t gotten a report from the place I took D to be evaluated. The place that did all sorts of testing and told me that he has ADHD. The place that takes 3 months to write a damn report. Without that report, I can’t ask for a meeting with the school to figure out how to best help D. The work I’m doing with him at home to get all his work done, is just not sustainable. Its exhausting. I need the school’s help. But I can’t get it without that report. His first appointment was in August. His second appointment was at the beginning of  September. Its almost December. I called them again today to find out how much longer and was told “someone will get back to you.”

I am so frustrated. I feel like crying. Seriously. When does this get easier?

 

 

Posted in adhd, court forms, parenting, school, Uncategorized, worry and tagged ,

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