posted 06-15-2007 08:04 PM         

To start, some background. I have been separated from my Ex for almost 2 years now. We have 2 boys 9 and 3. I have already moved on with my life and I am quite happy with my new person. We live together and things seem to run as things as a couple should run (I think anyway). We’re talking marriage and things seem to be good to go.

My Ex. She also has a new person and she's expecting another baby in 6 weeks (ish). Great I couldn't be happier. We just had our child support lowered to match the new guideline amount for the year. What could be my problem you ask?

I believe, and so does my new person, that my Ex. is not over US. My lawyer has explained to me that in the times that he has met with her, that she seems to have a huge chip on her shoulder. He tells me that he doesn’t know what I did to piss her off. I don't know either to be honest with you. I do know, however, that she was awful to me and that I couldn't take being treated like a second rate citizen, who had to cater to her every need, and give her every penny of my salary. Believe me I tried to make it work. I was with her for 10 years (not consecutively).

My new person and I have spent an outrageous amount of money of legal costs and had our Final order signed in Jan of this year. For the last 12 weeks now we have been trying to get child support lowered to the new guideline amount. Now she wants to argue access. I get to see our kids twice a year; 3 weeks in the summer and 1 week at Christmas. I'm good with that. Again everyone agreed to this in Jan. Now that child support has gone down, it's a problem. Maybe it’s not the money access has been a problem every time I've tried to exercise access. I don't know what to do anymore. I have no more money to fight with her about access after this 12 weeks or hell. She wants to implement supervised visitation and instead of the 3 weeks as agreed upon in the Final order she wants 2 weeks (Mon-Fri) non-consecutive. I have never done anything in the past that would warrant supervised visits. I'm just trying to get on with life yet she continues to take me court every 4 months or so. I don't know what else to do. It's to the point where I'm going to have to start representing myself in court. Not sure how that's going to work out. She has no legal costs because she qualifies for legal aid. So it's like a game for her to take me to court all the time.

So now I can get to the point of all this. My new person does stress about our finances, who doesn’t, but mostly she’s tired of my Ex. spilling into our lives all the time. It’s like there a cloud that looms overhead and boy when the Ex. isn’t happy I’m the one that pays for it. We get calls and letters from our lawyer and my new person gets upset. I don’t know what else to tell her. I mean I could tell that it’s all going to work out or it’s going to get better but I don’t want to outright lie to her…. Truth is, I don’t know if it’s going to get better, or when it’s going to get better. The only thing that I can think of doing is not exercising access this year. That way I don’t have to fight with my Ex and therefore keep the peace over on this side of the fence. Again I’m at a total loss I no clue what to do. Anyone have any advice on how to keep the peace on this side of the fence?

Thanks RayGun

posted 06-18-2007 11:11 AM            

3 weeks in the summer and 1 week at Christmas is *extremely* limited. You're ok with that? It sounds like there are a lot of other issues that you're not getting into.

I understand money's tight. I understand a new person tired of your ex's junk. You have to make the new person a priority, but without giving up on your kids. Make sure you're not feeding the ex's drama.

Good luck.