The Friday of our Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, we served my ex with our court application outlining all the areas that he continues to owe me money. They are all items that he agreed to pay in our Mediation Agreement back in November 2014. He also promised, as per the Mediation Agreement, to provide his tax information on May 1 of every year but he has not done that for the past 2 years. Any other items are in accordance with the Family Law Act.
We just heard back from his lawyer. They have asked that we change the date, which we agreed, and they will be providing us with their response shortly. November 22 will hopefully bring a long over-due resolution to our ongoing legal issues.
I was shocked when my ex turned up at my house on Friday with cheques for 70% of my youngest daughter’s dance payments to begin September 2015 including a direct withdrawal authorization form for her studio.
As per our mediation agreement, he is to pay this amount but he was also to pay 50% of these payments for the period of November 6, 2014 to June 26, 2015 (date of mediation to when the house sale closes) and it never happened. The arrears will be deducted from any amount he is due from the sale of the house.
I suggested several times that he attend my daughter’s dance registration on June 12 so he can participate in the process of determining what dance classes he is prepared to help finance. He was already relaying to my lawyer through his lawyer that he couldn’t afford to pay for any dance so when he asked me the cost of what she wanted to take I figured it was only so he could say, “No.”
To help save money, my daughter dropped Hip Hop classes for last season and agreed to not participate in the summer dance camp. To help ensure she could continue to dance next season, she chose to drop Musical Theatre and again to not participate in the summer dance camp. I explained this to my ex, calculated what I thought the monthly fee would be for next year, the costume deposit amount and the registration fee.
When I returned from registration I texted him to thank him for paying his share of the expenses and to confirm she was registered. I also let him know that I had miscalculated the amount. At her level, she is required to take a Ballet Tech class for 1 1/4 hours/week. That translates to $23 additional monthly dollars ($230 in total for the whole year). I also missed one costume deposit. She takes Pointe ballet. At her level for next season she is required to perform Pointe in the recital. The costume deposit, that doesn’t have to be paid until October 1, 2015, is $60. I apologized twice for my mistake and let him know the amount he owed is $201. I let him know that I already covered this with the studio by adding it to my monthly withdrawal and in my costume deposit cheque.
I anticipated an angry, “you messed up, you pay the difference”, response but instead I received, “That’s okay. We’ll work it out.”
I actually texted back to him, “Who are you and what did you do with my ex?”
“’cause it’s all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man
Say Goodbye to the world you thought you lived in.”
Any Other World-Mika
I don’t get it. I didn’t have the affair. My ex is still with the other woman. Shouldn’t he be happy? He has moved on and has ended pretty much every email to me over the last 2 plus years telling me to move on. Then why won’t he let me move on? Why will he not do the right thing? Why will he not give me a fair separation agreement we can both live with? He is doing anything to avoid having to pay me spousal and child support and divide our assets fairly. Why does he refuse, ignore, deny, delay, and avoid his obligations to provide documentation to his lawyer so his lawyer can get it to my lawyer. His lawyer is a personal friend. Shouldn’t there be some pride to want to show your friend you are good person; a responsible person? His lawyer is frustrated, too. Shouldn’t my ex just feel slightly bad for his actions (adultery, cheating, lying, deception, tearing family apart) that he want at the very least a fair settlement for me and his children? Shouldn’t his conscience really make him want to err on the side of generous? Not even close.
My lawyer has sent correspondence to me over the last 2 months confirming that she has “AGAIN” asked my ex’s lawyer to provide his 2014 full tax return; confirmation he has life insurance and if he won’t get it his position in writing for the lowball amount ($450,000 less than he had before we separated)that he says he will get (was supposed to be in place in November 2014 as per the mediation agreement) so we can return to the mediator for a ruling; confirmation that he is going to pay me the expenses he agreed to cover at our November 6, 2014 mediation that he still hasn’t contributed a dime towards–his daughter’s dance, just 50%, 50% of the pet expenses for pets he is the listed owner of but who he abandoned saying he isn’t allowed pets where he lives; 50% of expenses needed to get our house ready to list; 50% of our joint expenses like our home insurance and home maintenance; reimbursement of money he took out of our joint account to pay his personal bills when I was the only one putting money into that account (it was agreed at mediation we would close the account but he would never make arrangements to do that with me or respond to any of my follow ups until I finally stopped putting money in, stopped financing his personal bill payments and now it is overdrawn by $1500 because joint bills have continued to come out of it on automatic withdrawal as well as banking fee expenses and the overdraft from him taking money out.
I am not asking for back spousal and child support for the past 2 years when he made the most he has earned in his life and I had both children living with me. All I am asking for is a fair split of our pre-separation debt 50/50. This was money used to buy shares in his company that he is keeping and a rental property that he is keeping that he insists has a $0 value. Plus money that I used to pay our personal pre-separation bills, our daughter’s private school tuition, all documented, because I was the person who took care of bill payments. He makes $148,000/year. Last year he only made $139,000. I receive $13,000/year on Canada Pension Plan disability benefits because I am not able medically to work.
My lawyer spelled it out clearly to my ex’s lawyer. My ex has done everything that he can do to “exhaust me financially”.
My lawyer has asked for confirmation of the value of the rental property–the mortgage details and the account information where the rental income is received. She has asked for confirmation of the value of his company shares and other dividends he receives on shares that he never even disclosed that he had until I brought that information forward in mediation. My lawyer has asked for a print out from his bank of his bank account information because oddly enough there are mysterious transactions that would lead one to assume he has at least one other bank account he has failed to disclose. This information was asked for in the year prior to our mediation and continues to be asked for and ignored.
Mediation was supposed to save us money. I am no closer to a separation agreement and a divorce than I was on the day we separated. My legal bills would have paid for my daughter’s first year of tuition at university and her residency. I am sure my ex’s are adding up as well even with the friend lawyer.
When is enough enough? When will he stop feeding his ego with a need to “win” and understand that there is no winning. I remember him sharing with me that growing up he and his mom would fight and they both would dig in and not talk to the other for weeks. The one who spoke to the other first lost. His mom confirmed that to me. Where was the adult example here? Really, what did either of them win doing that? He was the same way with me during our marriage. Always the silent treatment to punish. Always the withholding to punish. I am sure the cheating was another form of punishing me. What does he think he is winning?
I have asked him if we would meet to see if we could try yet again to reach an agreement together avoiding further legal expenses and what will end up going to court after all. He said, “Yes.” But all I have heard is when he can’t meet with me. I’ve asked him to tell me instead when he can meet with me and I will be there–11:00 p.m. or 6:00 a.m. any day of the week. All I heard from him was this: “Can you pick up our daughter from dance next Friday? I have a golf tournament in Nanaimo and I won’t be back until 9:00 p.m.” I said, “Yes.”
As far as getting together to solve our separation, I have yet to hear from him.
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.
Have you seen the dress everyone is talking about? It is black and blue yet a photo of it taken in a different light shows it to many people to be gold and white. What is really interesting is that you can get a group of people around the same photo and some see it as gold and white while others see it as black and blue.
The Explanation: “Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at. Without you having to worry about it, your brain figures out what color light is bouncing off the thing your eyes are looking at, and essentially subtracts that color from the “real” color of the object. “Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance,” says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. “But I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” (Neitz sees white-and-gold.)
Could it be the same way with our view points?
For 23 years, my ex and I seem to have seen the same view of the world reflected back to us. We have seen it through spiritual eyes and we have seen it through worldly eyes. Together, I felt, we tried to do good and contribute to the universe in a positive light. We tried to represent and stand for right. We gave sacrificially of our time and our money. We partnered together to do what was best for meeting the needs of our children, our families, our friends, our community and even strangers. It wasn’t always what we wanted to do but we put our own selfish desires aside so much of the time acting on faith and trusting in God that as long as we did what was right we believed that we too, would win in the long run, and the world would be better for it.
When did my ex start seeing the world through his own selfish eyes instead of God’s eyes? When did his visual system that was supposed to throw away false information fed to him by Satan stop extracting information about the actual reflectance of God? When did he stop being able to distinguish gold and white from black and blue?
Why does it surprise me then when his vision is so cloudy that for more than 2 years he makes decisions to only take care of his own wants and desires. Why does it surprise me that he doesn’t pay child support, spousal support or pay any percentage of his children’s activities and medical/dental expenses? Why does it surprise me that even when in mediation he agreed to pay a specific percentage of the pet expenses, he doesn’t? Why does it surprise me that he allowed his life insurance to lapse even though he agreed in mediation not to let that happen. He chooses instead to leave me and his children with a huge exposure so that if he were to die today my kids have no financial support for their future, no education money, and I am left with the burden of all of his debt? Why does it surprise me that even though in mediation he agreed to close out our joint bank account immediately he never has and I am the only one who has put money in that account to cover our joint expenses? On top of that, why does he think it is okay to access that account using my money to pay for his own personal bills? Now that I am not putting any money in there why does he think it is okay to not put back what he stole from me, pay off the overdraft so we can close the account and not incur any more wasted service charges? Why should I be surprised that he will not allow any of the funds from a property we sold together to be disbursed equally between us so I can pay my bills, the ones he isn’t contributing to and should be? And especially why am I surprised, when an oversight was made in mediation leaving me responsible for all of our pre-separation debt, why does he not acknowledge that isn’t fair and agree to pay his 50%? This would resolve our current dispute, allow us to move forward, stop the waste of legal expenses, allow for a more equitable settlement and it would be the right thing to do.
I do not recognize the person my ex has become at all. I only see black when I look him. There is definitely no gold. I concur with Neitz. This is one of the biggest individual differences I, too, have ever seen!
scornedwifeblog 