My Demands

We have another go at mediation on Wednesday. The last one seemed successful until I read the boilerplate agreement that was drawn up. It had nothing about the criteria that needed to be met for STBEW to get the kids, and it had us discussing joint custody.

I'm not sure why I'm even going to mediation. I've given her my best offer. It's actually more than I think she can deal with at the moment. If I was going for that, it woul be unsupervised daytime visits for her. No overnights. No weekends. No vacation weeks. Because that's truly all she can handle right now.

Here's my offer:

I get sole custody. She gets every other weekend, every other holiday, and one month in the summer with them, provided that she meets the following criteria:

• She has a place for them to sleep
• She has food for them to eat
• I know where they are, or at least can get in touch with them
• No smoking in the house while they're there

That's it. Fairly reasonable, I think. But more than she can give right now. And we both know it. And it pisses her off. As an addict, she wants what she wants when she wants it, regardless of reason.

So I think I'll go in and give her one last chance to agree to this. If not, well, see you in court. I like my chances much better than I like hers.

I just wish I wasn't so damned worried about the outcome.

yeharr