Finally (almost) done

[40days_in_desert]

I haven’t posted in a while but want to share some good news. Short background: Ex left and moved to another state 3 years ago. She filed 3 months later in the state we had been living in despite saying divorce wasn’t an option. She started a romantic relationship as soon as she moved to the new state. I moved to be close to our children. We mutually dismissed the original divorce case due to logistics. There were 6 recycle attempts. I fell for the first one and maybe one more a little. The temporary custody agreement for our youngest children was the typical EOW and one dinner each week. Our oldest has lived with me full time for 2 years. Our second oldest has been informally staying with me about 40-50% of the time the past two months.

I was fighting for 40% custody of our youngest; no share of 401k for her and one year of spousal support post divorce for a total of 4 years. She was fighting for the same custody agreement that was in place, an additional 3.5 years of spousal support and half of the 401k. We had a judicial settlement conference (basically mediation with a retired family court judge) set a month and a half before our court date. Two days before the JSC, she wants to talk. She basically agreed to everything. I went ahead and extended the spousal support by six months. The good news is that I have 40% custody so I can finally be more than the weekend dad. The big risk was cancelling the JSC as we wouldn’t have been able to schedule another until November and another court date after that. So my L said that we need to meet immediate before she changes her mind. We met at ex’s L the next morning and signed everything. Should be final within 30 days.

I left out all of the BPD details of the summary to keep the post short. I’m sure I’ll have more to share or seek advice in the years to come but I’m looking forward to this chapter closing and the next one beginning.

[ForeverDad]

What a relief, you've reached a landmark in your parenting struggle!  There's something good to note about the benefit of sticking to your boundaries, as in, "this is where I stand and your position is not reasonable".

Looking back, my case felt so fragile, my ex was so demanding, and the delays and divorce steps were so many that it felt the mountain was just too high to climb.  But eventually things got better.  Yes, it took far longer than I felt appropriate but at least we here who "kept our noses to the grindstone" and persisted did get to better places.

If you have 40% then likely she will be considered the Primary Parent.  Were you able to inset clauses that defined some level of Decision Making or Tie Breaker status to avoid or minimize risk of returns to court?  Every time I returned to court (first for custody and then for majority time) it took nearly 1.5 years to resolve each one.

Just a side note for others reading this, way back when she had just moved to her other state, it takes 6 months of residency before a case involving custody can be started.  You would have been able to start your own case in your prior state (if you had wanted to) up until she had established 6 months elsewhere.  That's one of the few details that all states abide by.

[40days_in_desert]

Thank you ForeverDad. We have joint legal and joint physical custody. She was being very cooperative all of the sudden so I didn't want to risk putting final legal for me on matters of education, medical and religion. On religion, our children attend church with me every weekend that they are with me and she has never protested that. She hasn't attended church in several years but the churches that she has mentioned wanting to attend are congruent to my beliefs which are the same as when we attended church as a family in years past. There is language about moving too far away but she can move to another school district. Once she has to move out of her mother's house, she says that she wants to stay within the same school district. If she does, I'll have to cross that bridge if we're ever at that point. As far as medical, I schedule all dental and take them to their appointments. I schedule all medical for D16 which I've done for the past 2.5 years. I have taken D14 to some of hers but there haven't been many nor have there been many needed doctor appointments for our youngest three children. She is responsible for 50% of all out of pocket medical expenses.
Yes, most states have a six month period to establish residency before filing. I have no idea why she didn't wait three more months before filing where we both live now. I only know that it cost us a combined 17k for the case where she filed and about 20k for the case where I filed. I am thankful for the attorney that I have now but hopefully I won't be lining her pockets too deep with cash in the future. I'm sure I'll be writing her another check at some point in the future though.