Life keeps soldiering on and so do I
I've been quiet lately and slow to respond to emails. This is due to stress surrounding the last round of divorce mediation, which was Friday. I went into it expecting another frightening farce like the last time, but instead it turned into an actual negotiation. Three and a half grueling hours later, we had a deal. Attorneys are off typing it up, then I'll review the written form, maybe have some tweaks to it, and sign. After that a judge will rubber stamp it and then we'll work on implementing it, divvying actual property and getting the ex's name off the title of the remaining house. The upshot is that I get the kids 2/3rds of the time and lose about half of my net worth. But no alimony, so that's a plus.
I'm not sure I'm done negotiating. One of the classic tactics of selling or negotiating is "going back to the well". You come to a deal, everyone shakes on it. You get out the paper to memorialize it in writing, and just before your pen touches parchment, you realize (or pretend to realize) some last minor or critical detail that needs to be resolved. Pen poised, you hold the entire process hostage in exchange for concession on this "trivial" point.
It's a bit low and maneuvers like that is why people hate car salesman (and are generally unhappy to be on the opposite side of the negotiation table from me). One of the other tactics best employed at this stage involve disregarding the fine points of the verbal agreement and writing the deal in one's favor. Then you assert ignorance later on when the discrepancy comes up: "What? I thought you knew that when we agreed to split the net money from the sale of the houses, that I meant the net proceeds only and not the net overall." That was actually my one of ex's claims at the mediation, that he wanted to divide the profits, but I could suck the expenses by myself. Luckily for me, the "deal" he was referring to was verbal only, with no witnesses - of course! how convenient for him! - and his argument failed.
And then there's legitimate buyer's remorse, paired up with re-evaluation of the deal. In buyer's remorse, something you thought was a great idea at the time, you later decide was not. In re-evaluation, you find out later that what you verbally agreed to wasn't what you thought you agreed to (maybe it's the definition of a word, or you you didn't realize what 6% interest really meant, dollar-wise, or didn't understand how the frequent custody trade-offs would impact your work schedule). Or you can discover something critical that was overlooked, which is the same thing as 'going back to the well', but not done in a premeditated fashion.
I've negotiated a lot of deals on behalf of the companies I've worked for and I'm pretty good at it. This was way tougher. It was wrenching. It was draining. It was terrifying. I suppose the stakes could have been higher, but I don't want to contemplate that. I've never had to negotiate for the continued well-being and access to my children, my ability to keep my salary, my right to my possessions and to the accumulated wealth that I've earned. And to have this negotiation with someone I fear and strongly dislike, who abused me for a decade and a half, who is backed up by an aggressive, unsympathetic attorney ... yeah, I was stressing about it. I'm still stressing about it. I didn't sleep much or well the last couple nights and my emotions are all over the place.
I've written a little, though I consider it to be a bit uninspired and substandard. Still, you know, unfinished greatness vs. finished crap and all. Hopefully I'll publish some of it soon. I have 15 unanswered emails in my box, most of them a week old. I've tried to stay current with the people I know, but unfortunately those are the emails that require the most mental and emotional energy from me. I think I've succeeded in not sending weird, freaking-out-over-irrelevant-stuff emails to anyone. If I break down and do in the next week, please don't take it personally.