In Season 2 of the televisions series, The Good Wife, episode 8, entitled Bad Girls, there is an interesting line from character, Eli Gold. He is working as Peter Florrick’s campaign manager when he is approached by rival campaigner, Wendy Scott Carr. She wants him to be her campaign manager.
His response: “You know the person I mistrust the most? The one I steal from someone else.”
I received a text today from our realtor indicating that the people who put the conditional offer on our house have officially sold their home. The next step to removing the conditions is a home inspection on Tuesday. I am optimistic the sale is going to go through and that the home that we chose over a 5 day trip in 2008 to relocate our family from Ontario to BC will be gone from my life.
I had lunch with both my girls today. I had just spent the morning with my younger daughter at the last day of her dance in the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival. We picked my older daughter up from school and went to our usual Cora’s for the all day breakfast. My girls were discussing the pending summer vacation their dad was taking them on going back home to Ontario to stay with his parents. They were both not thrilled with the fact that Janice may be joining them on the trip.
I on the other hand feel fine about it. It is a reminder to me that I will not have to waste any more of my vacation time in a cramped cottage with my ex’s family. I smile now thinking of her travelling 5 hours by plane, then 1 1/2 hours by car, sleeping on a bed that fills the entire room, showering in the tiny, green bathtub or having to go downstairs and wait for the shower that everyone else lines up to use and then having the pleasure of the company of my ex’s family for at least 1 week. Let her swelter in the 30 degree cabin that gets no breeze and let her enjoy the same boring stories that will be new for her but that I will never have to endure again. My girls joked that Janice can look through all the scrapbooks that I made of our time there. There is not one ounce of me that wishes I was going instead.
I am now free to vacation anywhere else with anyone else. There was a time with my ex that I wondered if I was going to live out my say 80 years not by living 80 years but by living the same year 80 times. When we moved here I made sure I planned amazing, adventurous, fun vacations that were completely new and that involved experiences the entire family would enjoy. My ex never appreciated that. He never was interested in planning vacations or going anywhere. He hadn’t travelled at all until he met me. The monotonous routine, using vacation time to do the same thing with the same people is happily gone for me.
I have had so many people contact me saying how excited they are that I am selling the house and now that it is that much closer to gone people cannot contain how happy they are for me. Not one person expressed anything resembling sadness or regret. Not even my kids. My younger daughter thinks that one of our cats will be sad but that is it. I have offers of generous living arrangements until my divorce settlement is finalized and I am able to find something more permanent. I actually don’t like the idea of “permanent”. I am getting lots of offers of people wanting to spend time with me when my kids are back in Ontario and them asking me what do I want to do and where do I want to go. My options are expanding.
This is exactly what I have wanted. My life and opportunities are so open and my ex is that much closer to gone.
The listing for our home went out on Wednesday, April 15. On April 18 we accepted a conditional offer just $4000 less than our listing price. Conditions are to be removed by April 30. House closes June 26 if all goes through.
My ex was ready to jump on the first offer. I held out, explained my reasoning and he argued with me. I suggested that if he was adamant to go with the last counter offer he could pay me the difference. His response to our realtor was, “I am not paying her to sell the house.”
My gut paid off and we were offered $5000 more. The realtor congratulated me, especially in my steadfastness, and said that the reason we were getting such a high offer so quickly is because of all the hard work that I put in to readying the home. She commented that it looked “amazing.”
My ex has still refused to help in any of the work or contribute to any of the expenses in readying the home. He emailed me saying, “I left you. Do some maintenance.” He is talking about doing work, not on our home, but on my appearance. I was just complimented the other day by a couple of different people telling me how great they think I look. I’m not sure why he cares or why he feels the need to constantly spread hate towards me. Not sure how he even knows what I look like. He kept trying to get close to me and talk to me at our daughter’s dance competition last weekend but I wasn’t interested and separated myself from his presence. I was happy that he decided to attend one of her competitions for her sake. It was his weekend to have her. She wanted to stay after she had performed and watch some of the competition. He said, “No.” She was so hurt so I stayed with her. It is always about him and what he wants. Even this weekend for her birthday he took her out for lunch but brought his girlfriend. She didn’t want that. I had a party for her on Friday with her friends, not my friends and on Sunday I took her for a birthday dinner with her friends, not mine. But I digress.
I texted my ex after receiving the signed, agreed upon offer, to be prepared. When I go with my gut I am rewarded. I told him that my gut is speaking loud and clear and that he will be experiencing the effects of me listening to it and standing firm. I have given my lawyer instructions to go back to the mediator/arbitrator and/or to apply for a court date. My ex’s word, verbal or signed, legal representation or not, means nothing. I am going after him for everything he owes me plus interest. His time has run out.
Although my ex agreed in mediation to pay 50% of anything required to get the house ready to sell, he refused to do any work himself and has refused to pay any part of the services that I hired to help get the house market ready.
In mediation, I was instructed to list the house so I starting working with a realtor immediately following our mediation in November 2014. My ex asked me her identity in December and I gave him her information. Then in March he sent a letter through his lawyer indicating that he would only release money from funds we had in trust so I could pay our joint bills and bills my ex is legally responsible to pay, if I did the following:
So my ex thinks that I should agree to give up control of selling our home to some agent who, if I agreed to these terms, could recommend some ridiculous low ball selling price and we might not only lose our equity but have to pay back to the bank a mortgage greater than the selling price. In essence he wants this agent to babysit me and he is using this as another tool to try and control me. He also wants me to agree to be responsible for paying all of the joint bills (I asked for the money to pay our property taxes that are now 1 year overdue, his share of the home insurance and to cover bills that my ex agreed in mediation to pay but hasn’t) so if I agreed to this any money I received from these funds to pay joint bills and my ex’s bills would come out of my share of asset division.
A delaying tactic; a control tactic; and he continues to be in breach of the mediation agreement yet wants me to confirm it is a valid agreement `we` are following when I am the only one following it. Wasting money and time to go back and forth between lawyers, incurring interest not paying our bills, losing credit not paying our bills, and it is all pointless and to no benefit. except for him looking to get out of more of his responsibilities.
He did meet with the realtor I have been working with for the past 4 months. The delay in listing was because we had contract work done and they broke blinds. We were waiting for them to be replaced by the contractor and some other work that the realtor suggested be completed before we listed. Interestingly enough, the contractor is one of my ex`s best buddies. He refused to follow up with him to get this work completed even though they had seen each other often during this period.
During the realtor meeting, he yawned, kept looking at his watch, and finally interrupted her saying she needed to cut to the chase, give her recommended number as the listing price so we could sign the papers and be on our way. She was very professional an handled him well. I was cringing at my ex’s rudeness and was reminded of many times I apologized for his behaviour in the past. I actually did start to apologize for his attitude to the realtor but then stopped myself no longer feeling responsible for his actions. No more protecting him from who he really is and no making excuses for his poor behaviour.
The photos have been taken, floor plan completed, the sign is expected to go on the lawn on Tuesday and the listing should be official on Wednesday. I’ll submit the bills for the services I hired and hope that my ex does the right thing for once during this process and be grateful for all the work I did myself and pay for his share of the work that others have done because he refused to do it.
Selling our home is the biggest piece in allowing me to move on and be out from under control of my ex. `Here`s hoping it sells quickly for at least our asking price.
scornedwifeblog 