11th Hour

Yesterday I received an email from my ex's lawyer. It started out with the words "Please provide me with your available dates for the return of the case conference so that I may secure a date immediately." This did not bode well for the rest of the email. Sure enough, while admitting that his disagreements with my proposal "are simply not worth the time and expense of litigating" he went on to add an additional 6 points that are . . . and we're back on track to court again.

Among the six points and a couple that are simply there to annoy me, like accelerating the integration schedule and prohibiting me from re-locating "outside the defiend perimiters of Ottawa." After calls yesterday and today, my lawyer finally called me back earlier this afternoon.

"Where did this come from?" I asked. "I thought we were almost there and then they add all these additional requirements."

"I don't know," he said. "It doesn't make sense."

So, now he's thinking about it and I've been thrown off-course and into sleep all afternoon. I'm recovering by reading The Little One while drinking icy mango juice on the porch. How can I deal with this constant hostility and bad faith bargaining? I tell myself that I can't let it bother me . . . and I try to take 10 second breaths and focus on my future with E . . . but if I can't leave Ottawa, I can't live with E, ever, and then I start to worry again and it is a vicious cycle.

This is an abusive system.