I've been reading this forum for awhile, and figured it's time to introduce myself...
I live in AB, a 43 year old guy in an 18 year marriage. 2 kids in the 10 to 12 age range. For a variety of reasons, I think my marriage is coming to an end. Things have been going downhill for awhile now, but getting worse over the last couple of years, and more so over the last 6 months. At one point, I thought about trying to hang on for the kid's sake, but I've given up on that idea... It was hard enough to hang on for the last month.
I had my first session with a therapist yesterday... No idea what to expect, but I wanted to have a one-on-one session with someone. One of the things that struck me that he said was that it seems that I've gone through a grieving process for my marriage already... Kind of hit home. Actually, the whole visit seemed to be the first "big step" to dealing with this, which left me feeling strangely positive at the end. I was expecting to feel more upset/depressed/whatever, but I wasn't.
Anyway, some of the things I've been going through are the obvious ones... How to make this as stress-free as possible for the kids (in particular)... They haven't been seeing us fight at all, so this could come as a relative surprise for them. I think my spouse knows something is wrong, but we haven't talked about it yet (next step). How we're going to work out the finances... All the potentially ugly stuff.
In our household, I make about 85% of the income (100K+), and have moved to a sole-proprietorship consulting company in the past few months. She works at about a 75% of full time hours at a local coffee shop (14K or so). We have some equity in our house (80K or so), but little else in terms of assets (2 cars, one fairly new but financed, one old but paid, not much for savings or RRSP's). In the end, I'm thinking that she will end up with majority custody of the kids, and I'd like for them to be able to stay in the house as it's right across the school that they attend. But she'll never qualify for the mortgage on her own. Any solutions on that? One of my thoughts was putting the mortgage in my name, paying CS and whatever SS is required, and having her pay me rent.
I'm hoping that we can deal with our issues through mediation or collaborative law, and if that involves some sort of creative agreement that I'm still protected, I'm all for it. I want to do what's right for the kids in particular. Still a significant amount of guilt for doing this to everyone, I guess...
Anyway, I'm sure things will come up in the next little while, and I'll be back... Sorry for the rambling.
C
I live in AB, a 43 year old guy in an 18 year marriage. 2 kids in the 10 to 12 age range. For a variety of reasons, I think my marriage is coming to an end. Things have been going downhill for awhile now, but getting worse over the last couple of years, and more so over the last 6 months. At one point, I thought about trying to hang on for the kid's sake, but I've given up on that idea... It was hard enough to hang on for the last month.
I had my first session with a therapist yesterday... No idea what to expect, but I wanted to have a one-on-one session with someone. One of the things that struck me that he said was that it seems that I've gone through a grieving process for my marriage already... Kind of hit home. Actually, the whole visit seemed to be the first "big step" to dealing with this, which left me feeling strangely positive at the end. I was expecting to feel more upset/depressed/whatever, but I wasn't.
Anyway, some of the things I've been going through are the obvious ones... How to make this as stress-free as possible for the kids (in particular)... They haven't been seeing us fight at all, so this could come as a relative surprise for them. I think my spouse knows something is wrong, but we haven't talked about it yet (next step). How we're going to work out the finances... All the potentially ugly stuff.
In our household, I make about 85% of the income (100K+), and have moved to a sole-proprietorship consulting company in the past few months. She works at about a 75% of full time hours at a local coffee shop (14K or so). We have some equity in our house (80K or so), but little else in terms of assets (2 cars, one fairly new but financed, one old but paid, not much for savings or RRSP's). In the end, I'm thinking that she will end up with majority custody of the kids, and I'd like for them to be able to stay in the house as it's right across the school that they attend. But she'll never qualify for the mortgage on her own. Any solutions on that? One of my thoughts was putting the mortgage in my name, paying CS and whatever SS is required, and having her pay me rent.
I'm hoping that we can deal with our issues through mediation or collaborative law, and if that involves some sort of creative agreement that I'm still protected, I'm all for it. I want to do what's right for the kids in particular. Still a significant amount of guilt for doing this to everyone, I guess...
Anyway, I'm sure things will come up in the next little while, and I'll be back... Sorry for the rambling.
C
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