Another year older…

May the fourth be with you and happy 38th birthday to me. It’s been a manic few weeks and the blogging has taken a back seat. So what’s going on? Let’s start with the headaches.

55 weeks without a boss!! There are major changes at work, so am hoping something will be resolved. Have decided that having a work-life balance is more important than working all hours. Frankly, I’m bored of constantly fire fighting, arguing with senior managers about why things haven’t been completed or why I’ve had to extend deadlines. I’ve generally been quite forthright in my opinions and stubborn about timelines and how I do things. As long as I get paid each month, that’s all that matters. It likely I’ll be changing roles as well once I have a boss in place. I’ll be trying hard to get a pay rise out of this. All things considered at least 20%!

The biggest headache is the ex-wife. There’s still no agreement with regards to the Boy. We’ve been to mediation where I thought we were making progress. She agreed that the Boy needs to see his Dad more often and that it’s not fair to him that there are eight days between seeing me. I proposed that a 2-2-3 over two weeks arrangement would be best for the Boy. He’s gets to see both parents regularly and the time between seeing each parent is three days maximum. The ex-wife said that too much change would be confusing, but given the seven-day week, you need to have it on a rolling two-week basis. At the end of the two-hour mediation session, we were asked to consider the idea and come up with other proposals. A week later, we returned to the mediator to resume the negotiations. The ex-wife presented her proposals. They were completely different to what was discussed the previous week and what I already said I would agree to. It was totally a waste of time. I challenged her on why she dismissed my proposal. ‘It’s too confusing for me’ was the answer. FFS. I continued challenging her that that answer isn’t in the Boy’s best interests and you know that I would not agree to this. Her response was to pack her stuff. start crying and walk out. The English family law states that couples need to go through mediation before launching court action. So I got the certificate, paid over £500 mediation costs and instructed the solicitor to launch proceeding against her. I got the court date through the back end of lat week, 8th June. Thanks to quirks of the English law system, I now need to get a barrister to represent me in the court. The solicitor has given me a recommendation so I’ll go with them. It’s frustrating it’s come to this. The next thing will be the divorce. After the ex-wife got solicitors involved, I’ve decided to retract the offer of giving her the house. There’s around £30-40k of equity in the house and given that I only took my clothes, Clash posters, PS3, TV, office chair, drill, NAS Drive and the Nespresso coffee machine, there’s at least £10-20k worth of furniture and various other things I am entitled to half of. Realistically, £15-20k is what I am targetting. Given I’ve spent over £2500 on legal fees, this year so far and had to completely furnish a new apartment at a cost of around £5000, my credit cards are looking rather beaten!

There’s probably more things that are causing me headaches, but these are the main ones. What about the good things in life?

The Boy loves his Daddy and enjoys every minute he spends with me! He’s developing into a wonderful little character. He’s no trouble at all, keep him watered, fed and amused and everything is good! He like his sleep, when staying with us, the very lovely Miss B and I, he sleeps for at least 12 hours! The lazy beast did have 14 hours one night after a busy day! He loves going swimming, wondering around the part and being pushed in his pushchair around the city. The Boy has got his Dad’s taste for Ribena! He drinks loads of the stuff in his beaker with a straw!

I’ve got back into jogging again. The weather is still rubbish, but as I live in the north-west of England, it’s to be expected! I’ve started running 5kms every Monday and Thursday evening. Still not at last year’s pace, but getting there! On Saturday, Miss B was at work, the Boy was with the ex-wife, so I was home alone. I decided to go for a run after doing some household chores. I had a couple of routes planned in my head and decided that I would aim for distance rather than time, so I targeted 7-8kms. The run was going well at a steady pace of about 6.50mins per KM, enjoying the run, listening to music and letting my thoughts wonder. In the end, I ran 10.5km in 70 minutes. Pleased with that. As today is a public holiday in the UK and my birthday, I’ve given myself the evening off from running! I’ll be back out again on Thursday night to cover around 6-8kms.

Regular readers will know how Miss B and I got together. We are still all very loved up, living together and enjoying life! Our relationship is absolutely wonderful and I feel human again. We always make time for each other and it feels like I am part of an equal team. We do things to help each other out and we really do compliment each other. We’ve spent the day chilling out on the sofa, suffering from minor hangovers, chatting, laughing, relaxing doing our own thing. It’s been a great birthday! As I said, we are still very much loved up and enjoying each other company and looking after each other. Miss B has been a wonderful support through this stressful time. We’ve been living together from over fours months and we haven’t argued once! We might have the occasional grizzle, but nothing serious. It wonderful waking up next to her, seeing she is awake and getting her lovely, gorgeous smile!

Tune of the day: Utah Saints – Something Good f/ Kate Bush (Original Version 1992)

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One week on…

Well, it’s one week one from being caught out. It’s feels like it’s been a long week that’s for sure. From my post earlier in the week, I was expecting some kind of aftershock. Nothing major had materialised yet. The soon-to-be-ex-wife, TSTBEW as she’ll be known as from now on, has threatened to go legal on me. She’s going to take advice apparently. That means her doing something though, and I expect she will do it, but not soon.

So, this week. Tuesday was the first time we had an argument. Every time I started typing, she kept walking past to see what I was doing and for a change, I wasn’t doing something I shouldn’t have been! I asked her why she feels the need to keep doing this. The TSTBEW said she isn’t checking on me but just want to see what I’m doing. Eh? Have you heard yourself? So we had a bit of a bicker, nothing major.

On Thursday, we’d booked ‘couples counselling’. This is one thing the TSTBEW has asked for. I wasn’t keen, but for arguments sake and to show will I agreed to it. We booked a 90 minute session with a highly rated counsellor in an upmarket village near to where we live. Personally, I was not looking forward to it at all and had the dreaded feeling in the stomach! I was hoping the TSTBEW would drive herself there, but no, she wanted to come with me. We start on time with the therapist. Sat on a sofa sitting as far away as possible as we could. We started off with what we wanted to achieve from these sessions. TSTBEW said she wanted to try and reconcile. I said I wanted an amicable split. She just slumped in the seat. This wasn’t a surprise to her. During Tuesday argument, I told her and I thought I don’t see any way to resolve the issues, I’ve run out of energy, I’ve tried my best to help her get through it and unfortunately, my best isn’t good enough. This is the first time though where she has actually heard me say, I want to split. We went through the reasons why I wanted to split. I explained the lack of intimacy for over two and a half years, even down to simple hand holding, hugging and touching. When I was in hospital, the TSTBEW didn’t even hold my hand or put her arm around me. I said I’ve felt lonely and isolated for that time. She is not the girl I fell in love with and not the girl I married. I know people change, but we used to do random spontaneous things, now it takes at least an hour to get out of the house. When I’ve tried to talk about the traumatic birth and the post-natal depression she’s either ignored the question or changed the subject. The therapist then asked the TSTBEW for her version. She took her through that, the pregnancy, the birth and the challenges after. I won’t go into detail as I don’t think it’s right to share her side as she doesn’t know about this blog, but the summary is she feels like a failure as a mother and wife. It took about 50 minutes for her to go through everything. The therapist, who is a fully qualified psychotherapist, told the wife that she is suffering from severe depression and likely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. The TSTBEW only spoke to the GP on Monday and the therapist asked her why she didn’t go sooner. She didn’t answer. The therapist commented that it takes two people for a relationship to breakdown. If the TSTBEW hadn’t stopped the intimacy, then it is likely I wouldn’t have strayed, but if I’d communicated better then she might have realised and done something sooner. Interesting. My wallet a £135 lighter, we headed home. Not a word was said between us until I dropped her off then all I got was bye. I went to work and continued my day.

By nature, I make quick decisions. I think about all the options, like a live process flow in my head, then make a decision. I rarely change my mind once I make a decision. As I’ve said before, this is a huge decision. For a change, I’ve been listening to my emotions. Something I rarely do. Listening to my feelings. What is my heart saying? I’ve thought about all the logical reasoning, taking emotion out. I need to listen to my emotional side. I’m missing Miss B enormously. When I called her on the Saturday evening, my world suddenly brightened up, everything seemed better jut hearing her voice. Before Thursday I spoke to Miss B a couple of times and the feeling was the same. I miss her so much it hurts. I just want to be with her. I think back to when I first met TSTBEW, did I have the same feelings? I did, but these feelings seem stronger for Miss B. My biggest fear and concern is the boy. He’s not even two and his world is being split up. His Daddy is not going to be living in the same house. His Daddy isn’t going come home every night like he’s done since he was born. His Daddy isn’t going to take him to nursery every day, sing to wake him up, tickle him every morning, make silly noises when eating breakfast, play lots of different music in the car on the way to nursery, chat and sing in the car every day. But, his Daddy will always be there for him. His Daddy will see him at least 3 times a week and two of those, he will stay at Daddies new house. He’ll see Daddy every day on Facetime or Daddy will pop around. We’ll still go swimming. We’ll still do the silly things. The Boy will love spending time with his Daddy like he always has done. I am incredibly lucky that Miss B is incredibly supportive and is happy to have the Boy as part of our relationship. To the point that if I ever try and give up she would beat me into next month. In her opinion, it is vitally important to have a father figure growing up and she won’t let that happen to the Boy. Her support is just fantastic and I am so lucky to have someone who understand this.

You’ve probably guess what my decision is. Yes, I am splitting with the Wife or TSTBEW. I can’t continue with the way things are. I’ve tried and it’s not enough. She needs to start realising only she can make herself better. I want to be with Miss B. I can say that I have absolutely fallen head over heels in love with her! ❤ She makes me so happy, I feel so relaxed in her company and we can and do talk about absolutely everything! There are times when we don’t even speak to each other, just look into each other’s eye’s, smile and kiss. It’s magical. It feels so right. I want to be with Miss B! Thankfully she feels the same, so now we are looking at becoming an official relationship and live together. I cannot wait!

On Thursday evening, I was cooking dinner and started chatting to TSTBEW. It suddenly turned into an argument. She is finding it difficult that I am tying to keep things normal. Like cooking dinner, watching series together and general chatting. I tell her that I’m doing this so there is some normality in our lives after what has happened. Then she came out with this gem ‘I can’t get better until you leave and I’m not as ill as you think I am’. Ok, I’ll start looking for somewhere, I was going to start doing it in the new year, but, I’ll start it now. ‘Well, you’ve obviously made your mind up’, and she stomped off.  So I’ve started looking for places. I’ve decided that I want an apartment, the higher the better. not a ground floor or basement one. Ideally penthouse!! Looking at the finances, I can afford some fantastic apartments to rent. There’s one I’ve got my eye on, which is top of budget, but it’s a 3 bed, 6th floor (top floor) penthouse in the centre of the town I live in, just over a mile away from the office, so I can walk to work and drop or pick up the Boy on route. Will take a look at it next week and get the application in. There is thirteen years of relationship to untangle. It’s not going to be quick or easy, but it needs to be done. Starting with taking my wedding ring off my 4th finger on my left hand and moving it to my thumb.

So in a week, so much has changed. Decisions made. Lives changed forever. Are they the right decisions? My mind and emotions are saying yes, without a doubt. I love you Miss B! ❤

Tune of the day: Tina Moore – Never Gonna Let You Go 1995 (album version)

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