We are still on a high from yesterdays win at mediation. I can not believe that she agreed to not pursue. You have to read yesterdays blog. But, BM gets no CS. She was so sure the last 9 months that she was entitled to all this money. Nothing. Zero....

She made a lot of remarks in mediation that he was getting all these promotions and she was entitled to that. Didn't matter, hasn't happened yet. She still made more money than he does. She even seemed to want them to disregard a very large bonus she got. Turns out that is why we never got the financials before court. It was pointed out that they never turned them over. DH pointed it out. Turns out that the calculations with those financials showed she might owe him. When he pointed out that if she pursued he would go after her for CS when SD turned 18 they came back and said they would agree to zero. Agree, my butt. They had no choice. Made some other provisions and it is done. He still has shared custody, but she doesn't live with us. I can live with that.

BM brought up the divorce and financials from that. She said she had to go buy a house and new furniture. He said you left and I gave you thousands to do that. She seems to have revised the past in her mind. Bringing up that his 401K had more money than hers. He brought up that he paid for her education. She said he didn't that she got a scholarship. Later he said to me that that was $100 grant. He was like I wrote the checks, I know what was paid. Everything was brought up, the SD's expulsions, her non-compliance on telling DH anything. She said, he is difficult to talk to. Mediator said you have to. They kept going in and out to talk to the mediator and the lawyers. DH is sure they told her that all the things she had been doing wrong, wouldn't have gone over well with the judge. Between that and the fact that he will collect on her in a few years, she agreed to stop it now and accept nothing....

DH admitted today that he will continue to have a relationship with her. He joked that now he could be the "Disney Dad". I said that was fine, as long as it wasn't about gifts and trips. She was not going on vacations with us. She doesn't get to live her. He said I will keep her away from everyone else and just try and have a relationship with her. He said again he can't parent her this way, so he wasn't even going to try.

I am good with that and feel like we can all move on from this. As long as she keeps things the way they are. She has to stay away from my son. I said I had no problem seeing her away from the house, but I expected apologies for the lies and manipulations before that would ever happen. He seemed to understand.

For us, it feels like this financial cloud is lifted. We can start planning again. We can do the vacations we want to and not worry about not having enough money or BM hearing about it and going to court and having it thrown in our faces. It was so great to have the mediator and our lawyer give her grief on all the things she had done. DH had even a small break down in there, when her lawyer questioned about the night he dropped SD off at BM's. He said he wasn't a machine. He may have handled it poorly, but what was he supposed to do? He admitted to coming home and having the breakdown for days. BM never said a word. She had made him out to be evil. We were even accused of planning to put down SD's dog. That child manipulated everyone into believing things. BM bought into it and is now paying for it.
His breakdown, probably helped things as hard as it was on him. I am sure her lawyer said if you put him before a judge, he was going to look like this poor Dad who only wanted to do the right thing.

DH reminded me this morning, that he had been doing everything by the book all this time and she hadn't and it finally caught up to her. I feel good and we are going out to celebrate this weekend. I still want to tell BM off, but I can wait until SS is 18. Hopefully, things will go well now with DH and her. Maybe she will actually do things the way she is supposed to and not keep things secret.

I doubt it, but maybe she finally understood that she doesn't control everything and DH has rights here to. We know we will only find things out about SD14 if things go terribly wrong. We have discussed that we will probably go back to the lawyers if they do and sue for full custody. I don't know how I feel about that. But, I agreed with DH on that one for now.

Anyway, it feels really good not to have to pay that witch a dime. She caused all this mess, thankfully, she won't profit from it as well.