Big D stuff
All right. I've had three meetings with my attorney in the past two weeks, and my emotions about the situation have run the gamut.
Well, actually, I should start farther back, for those of you who are reading now but have not been getting details along the way.
Back in September I decided that I wanted to get a divorce. I "slept on it" for a month and when my mind hadn't changed, I told my husband. He protested a bit and claimed (still claims, in fact) that he still loved me and thinks our marriage and our family are worth fighting for, but eventually he gave in, just basically tossed up his hands and said, "It's your thing. Do what you have to do," with the condition that he would be able to have primary custody of Morgan for two years, after he graduates from school and moves back to California, the way I have her for these two years in the meantime. Now I can understand where he's coming from with that, and on paper it does look fair. But, no way in hell. We pretty much agreed to disagree and the argument remained unresolved.
I called the attorney who had taken care of my parents divorce very smoothly for both parties, but at the time he was not accepting new clients, and when I asked when he might be available, his secretary said he was booked up through Christmas. So I sat on my hands for two and a half months, and called back the week between Christmas and New Year's. His secretary remembered me (and my parents, who apparently made a good impression there), and remembered that she had told me after Christmas, so Mark (the attorney) agreed to take my case, as long as it would not go to court; he only had enough time for the paperwork. That's just fine, as I didn't expect that it would need to go to court - hoped to God it wouldn't. So I set an appointment for the 11th of January. Eep! Okay, remember to breathe...
So I go in there to talk to him (alone, as dad had to stay home with Morgan because her usual sitter had a doctor's appointment). He's a friendly guy and puts me at ease and I start thinking that maybe everything will turn out okay after all. I tell him about Johnnie's demands - he has, in the meantime, "compromised" and says he will take the two years in two one-year blocks, instead of all together; this is hardly any more acceptable than his original idea - and Mark says that is something that can be dealt with later, once Johnnie is here and we can sit down together with someone to hammer out the custody arrangements as of that point. So he drafts a petition for dissolution and I sign it and we work out the retainer agreement and I walk out feeling Oh My God I've Done It.
On Monday the 16th, Johnnie and I have a chat conversation in which this year-with-daddy issue comes up and things get heated. I think it would be damaging to Morgan's development to take her away from everything that has become familiar to her and move her into a completely new environment where she is to stay and have no contact with "home" for a year. Johnnie claims it won't adversely affect Morgan and that I'm only refusing his "request" because I'm selfish and don't want to let her out of my sight. He even mentions that "I'll file here in Missouri and ask for sole custody if you're going to be a bitch about this." Neither of us making any headway in bringing the other around to our point of view, we once again sign off and leave it unresolved. I go feed Morgan lunch and Johnnie (supposedly) goes to bed as he has to work graveyard that night.
When I come back to my computer after feeding Morgan, there's an email there from him, and I can tell from his tone that he's writing in the same mood he'd been showing in our chat conversation. Thankfully he at least refrains from cussing at me any more. But it's very reactionary and I can tell he's trying to get a response out of me. He even says he'll give up the chance for having a second year with Morgan, as long as he has the one, expecting me to jump on that and thank him for being so magnanimous. So I don't answer it; the next day I call Mark's office and ask if he has time to see me, because given the tone of the email, I'm very convinced that Johnnie might have decided to file out there after all. I call Johnnie and let him know that I'm meeting with Mark (so he doesn't think that I've gone around his back), and it turns out that he would be available to call Mark and we could all three talk to each other on speakerphone (Mark can thus get a better sense of Johnnie's personality and what he's likely to do or not do).
Incidentally, Mark agrees with my position on the year-with-daddy thing, and has literature from a PhD in the field of child development who specializes in custody evaluations, to back up our position. So Johnnie calls and we talk, Mark and I present our point, and Johnnie is still digging in his heels. No progress is made, but Mark says he'll overnight the literature to Johnnie so he can look it over, and another appointment and conference call is set up for Friday.
So I go back again on Friday, still quite anxious but calmer than I had been on Tuesday (because by then I'd managed to shake off the incendiary email). Johnnie's calmer, too, and has read the literature. I won't give the details of that meeting, because frankly I don't remember exactly all that was said, but two hours go by, and we finally have a compromise. Johnnie gets his year (grumble, I know), but it is only to be taken after Morgan's third birthday, and once he is living in California, in the same metropolitan area as Morgan and I are at the time. A transition period must precede this year, so as not to shock her system with a new environment, and I am to be granted visitation while she is in his custody. At the end of that year, she will come back to me and Johnnie will have visitation rights, until she's eighteen and can make up her own mind about whom she wants to be with.
*deep breath*
That was the main sticking point in these proceedings. Johnnie and I have nothing worth arguing about other than Morgan, so really this whole process hinges on that custody and visitation arrangement. And now it's set. Compromise is theoretically finding something that will make everybody happy, but what it generally ends up being is that it's something everyone can live with, though nobody is necessarily "happy." Johnnie was silent for a long time after Mark and I presented our offer. "Is that acceptable?" Mark asked him, and Johnnie grudgingly agreed. Grudgingly! The man straight out gets what he has asked for, and he still somehow quibbles about it. But he has agreed. Mark is going to draft up papers to present to both of us and over the next month or so the three of us will hammer out the finer details. But the big part is done.
I nearly cried right there in Mark's office when Johnnie hung up, and my hands were shaking as I drove home. My sense of giddy relief stuck with me the whole rest of the day, and I still have this kind of surreal feeling about it.
For those of you who didn't follow the cut; it's an emotional rollercoaster, but everything looks to turn out okay.