Envious of the life my kids are having without me after divorce

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you talked to a divorce lawyer now that his income has gone up? Maybe you could renegotiate it.

Also "it was worth some tradeoffs I had to make for my own" - what sort of tradeoffs did you make? It sounds like you did may have made too many, frankly.

Here's one thing I will say. My mom grew up poor, managed to go to college and marry my dad who had some family money and a successful career. I always felt like on some level she was jealous of me, for having so much more than she did growing up. I remember her once sneering at me, "poor little rich girl" when I was stressing out about my law school gpa limiting my ability to find the top flight jobs I wanted. She made a comment about how I probably would not have gotten in were it not for my dad. Not sure - my LSAT and gpa were slightly above the median for the school.

Anyway, try not to let a jealousy dynamic creep into your relationship with your kids.

I won’t go into detail about the tradeoffs, but I decided I would rather have less money for myself in order to get more things for my children, especially long-term, non-standard things in our settlement that can’t be unwound in a couple of years on Ex’s whims and are a hedge against an early death.

Ex will live forever though.

It sounds like you got plenty and also that you have primary custody which would mean you get plenty of cs. Why do you have the kids so much more? It is unusual for a judge to award less than 50/50 these days. Was it a financial play? At any rate, maybe your ex feels like he has to do fancy things with them because he isn’t spending time with them in their daily lives. You do sound jealous and that you are operating from a scarcity mindset.

[Anonymous]

You can still use your used old skis. Or buy used ones on FB marketplace. Lift tickets at some places are cheap and so is lodging if you aren’t fastidious.

You are still doing very well if your DH was able to keep a ski house and you were able to buy another house. Most divorced people rent apartments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The arc of post-divorce life is long but it bends toward justice.

In my own family, at the time of divorce 13 years ago, my father seemed to be completely at fault and my mother the victim.

It took 6 or 8 years for dawn to break, but now we children see that my father, for all his faults, did not hold nearly so much blame as we thought. And he is now far closer to his children than my mother, who ended up more well off, but bitter and distant.

But skiing with the kids is fun. No doubt about it. This might sound lame, but it's not: where I live we can ski cross country on publicly maintained trails for free, and we have a blast doing it. Buying lift tickets for my family of 7 would be out of the question, but we love cross country.

This is a totally bizarre response to the OP.

[Anonymous]

Move on ..
Be thankful your kids have their father in their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, aren't you getting child and spousal support in addition to half of your marital property? I am mad for you as I read your story. Also, sorry about missing out on the skiing; that would crush me, too.

Spousal support for a few years but I have been out of the job market for a very long time so I am living very conservatively because I am not sure if I will have a true career in the future vs the low paying jobs I’m stringing together right now.

Our assets were relatively low compared to DH’s comp at the time of his filing. He had a big promotion the year he filed and another one last year. I do not benefit from that one or anything else that is happening with his now very lucrative career, which of course wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t been able to work and travel whenever needed because I was holding down the fort.

I am getting plenty of child support for the kids so they can have what they need. I am not going to take that for myself.

OP, this sucks. I'm sorry. Your feelings are perfectly normal. Kudos to you for dealing with this in such a positive way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach your kids how to be financially independent. Stress academics. Thats the lesson learned. Don’t rely on another spouse. You never know what will happen down the road, so get them to focus on a career.

This is a sad message that really shortchanges children. I would say - choose a better spouse.

Both partners in a partnership have to be ready to earn money for the family and weather the economic storms of reality. A better spouse doesn’t prevent layoffs or shutdowns of industry.

[Anonymous]

My first instinct would be to remarry a rich guy who skis.

If you live in a place near skiing, this should be easier!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is like I no longer have my Ferrari, I have to drive a BMW. Hard to feel sorry.

+1. The real answer is for OP to gain perspective so she still understands how great she has it. And then she can see the joy in her own life. Kind of surprised on the reception she’s getting here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can ski and travel again if you want. If you don’t have to worry about your kids’ college tuition and financial security you can find the money. Plenty of people on modest incomes ski and travel.

My family in Sweden (who are not rich-just regular middle class) go cross-country skiiing all the time. It’s their passion.

OP, maybe you can open a couple travel credit cards and use the points for a Sweden trip? Just a thought…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach your kids how to be financially independent. Stress academics. Thats the lesson learned. Don’t rely on another spouse. You never know what will happen down the road, so get them to focus on a career.

This is a sad message that really shortchanges children. I would say - choose a better spouse.

Rude. My parents are still married in their 80s, but watching our mother put up with our dad's crap inspired both of us DDs to get degrees, stay employed, and not marry guys so alpha that our needs would be subsumed.

We were given everything reasonable in an intact home, but we still got to see the patriarchy in action up close and personal.

Same. My sister and I grew up in the same dynamic and we both have post grad degrees and work full-time as professionals. We were motivated by not becoming our mom.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am so sorry for your loss of your old life. Divorce sucks in so many ways. Would it be worth to ask your ex if you could go with the kids to his ski house for a trip at some point? Is your relationship with him acrimonious? Maybe he might say yes?

[Anonymous]

OP, whatever you do don't listen to the advice to open up a bunch of credit cards in order to get "free" points to travel.

That is a ship that has long past sunk. Points are getting harder to use, they are asking ridiculous amounts of points for airfare/hotel room and opening/closing up credit cards do nothing but jack up your credit rating in the long run.

PP had a good idea - ask your ex if it might be possible for you to spend time with the kids in the ski home (when he is not there, of course) and see what he says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, whatever you do don't listen to the advice to open up a bunch of credit cards in order to get "free" points to travel.

That is a ship that has long past sunk. Points are getting harder to use, they are asking ridiculous amounts of points for airfare/hotel room and opening/closing up credit cards do nothing but jack up your credit rating in the long run.

PP had a good idea - ask your ex if it might be possible for you to spend time with the kids in the ski home (when he is not there, of course) and see what he says.

Ignoring some of the other stuff in this thread, during the negotiations prior to the settlement, occasional time in our ski home with the kids was something that was discussed during mediation, and DH would only agree to it with a lowered equity buyout (arguing that if he rented it out over the years, that would represent the lost income for those times, even though we never rented it).

I loved that house but the memories we had there are just memories now and it would not feel good to be back there. I think anyone going through divorce needs to be thoughtful about cash over memories and sentimentality.

Also the kids say it’s gross now, so no thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I get it. So much. My story is very similar – SAHM and blindsided. I went back to work after many years, but make very little. I'm over 50, so I will never make up for that lost time, salary-wise.

Similarly, XH kept the vacation house and still takes the kids on the same sort of vacations we did as a family. The first vacation he took them on was one we had planned as a family before he walked out. And then he sent me pictures. Lovely. I haven't gone anywhere since he left. I have neither the time nor the money. It's just the way it is.

So many people have it far worse than we do. I get it. It sounds ridiculous to so many. But it was a pretty awful lesson to learn and it hurts.

Gosh, also a SAHM who was blindsided, and my stbx kept the mountain house. (He told me I can use it whenever I want, but that seems too painful still, especially since I know he took his AP there. So all my stuff sits as I left it a year ago, as some kind of weird mausoleum.)

I am very lucky that for all his faults he offered me a lot. I have lifetime alimony and I even get to keep it if I cohabitate with someone some day. But it's a big change to live on a fixed income and I'm adjusting.

OP, travel is very important to me. I would try to still do the things you love, just differently/cheaper. I cut our NYC trip budget by more than half by staying in a motel (and earning points) with free breakfast, got the second cheapest tickets to all of our shows instead of the second most expensive, traveled coach on the train instead of business, etc. My kids just love it when I give a Ted Talk on the all the ways I've "saved" money on the relatively expensive vacation we're still taking, haha. But also, those changes make barely any discernible difference in our overall experience and saved thousands of dollars. That's a good lesson for them.

For his part, stbx has taken the kids skiing out west, to Europe, and to NYC in the year since he left. He's definitely "Disney Dad"ing them out of guilt. He's also a fool who earns a ton of money but hasn't saved for college or retirement. Being away from him and the stress of his idiocy is profoundly healing.

When we went to NYC without him, my 15 year old said, "It's so much less stressful without dad!" And when he took them to Europe, they called me missing me and complaining about how boring it was, ha. We love being together. We watch movies and snuggle when we're together. But they don't miss him when they're not with him. And he's only taken them to the mountains twice in the year since he left me, because he would always go off and entertain himself and the kids and I would have fun doing a puzzle or playing a game. So my absence is felt too heavily, so he avoids it.

I know these are first world problems. I do spend time remembering that I am one of billions of creatures careening through the vast universe on a tiny pebble. Not getting to go to Europe with my kids is a small sacrifice indeed. I am so very blessed. I have my kids, and we are thoroughly bonded, and that's what matters.

And I'm saving towards my own trip to Europe. Because being kind to myself is important too.

I totally get it, OP. It hurts. As a SAHM whose whole life was my family, I felt like I was put on an ice floe and cast off. Like I was kicked out of my own life. But then I got my bearings and realized that my connection with my kids is what's important, not where we vacation or what we spend money on. I don't want them to be rich a-holes so I'm glad that they get to experience having a budget and saving for what you want.