Can't a girl get a break?

I got to see my kids tonight for a while... nice.

As he dropped them off for their two-hour visit, The Ex announced, "We're moving to Phoenix." Not so nice.

Today a process server rang my doorbell and handed me The Ex's petition to the court. The Ex is demanding full legal and physical custody of our kids, so that he can move to Phoenix. He chose to relocate rather than get laid off and take a severance package. Work in his new territory starts Monday. He will move in May when Big'Un finishes kindergarten. This is what he says, with the arrogance of someone who is convinced that THIS IS WHAT IS SO.

He couldn't have told me this a month ago, when he found out about the change in the work situation? We couldn't figure out a solution in mediation?

"It's not mediatable," he said. "I'm working out my life and this is how it's going to be."

"I'm glad your life is working out," I said. I chose not to say, when he said he was going to get the judge to let him move to a different city with my kids, "Good luck with that."

So--instead of talking to me about this, he just slapped down a retainer with a new attorney who will drag me into another legal battle, as if an 11-month-long and despicably expensive divorce process wasn't enough. I guess he didn't learn much when I swept the board at the settlement hearing the day before the scheduled trial.

So now I have to come up with a retainer for an attorney, and interview a few recommended to me by a friend in the Biz. Then the battle begins. Never mind my recovery process, which, I suspect, will be severely curtailed by this added stress and the hours of painstaking legal defense that lie ahead.

My lawyer friend cautioned me against representing myself "in proper person;" given my fragile constitution, I need a reputable lawyer with good character and good knowledge of the law to defend me. We have a no-nonsense judge, but I'll still need a lawyer. My divorce lawyer told me, at the end of our time together, that I would be fine representing myself WHEN the next legal skirmish occurred, but that was before I got so sick.

I asked for an update on how the boys have been doing at school, at daycare, with their birthday pediatrician appointments and immunizations, etc.

He never took them to the doctor in September and October, for their respective birthdays. He'll get to it, he says. And about daycare... Little'Un has been withdrawn from the daycare center that I pay for, and he will be with a nanny. Thanks for telling me, I carefully do not say aloud.

Perfect, I say, recalling how he REFUSED to let a nanny take care of the kids after he left, though we had help while we were married. How 'bout if she comes HERE so I can spend time with the kids with her help?

"I'll ask her," he shrugged, arms crossed across his chest. "But I won't encourage it."

"Why? It would provide some nice consistency for the kids," I said, and left out all the other benefits to this broken family.

"The only consistency these kids have in their lives is me," he said, and walked off to his car. I closed the door V E R Y quietly instead of slamming it off its hinges.

A few weeks ago I was served by mail with the Ex's suit to recover child support he is still paying. I filled out the requisite forms, had them notarized and sent them by certified mail. The next day I received a statement of his arrears from the months he paid NO child support. The state cheerfully assured me that I get any amount of his tax return that helps bring him up to date in one big chunk.

My life is all about filling out forms for legal challenges and application for disability. And doctor's appointments. And soon, outpatient physical therapy. And trying to survive this LUDICROUS series of events that slams me down each time I begin to stand up.

A friend who overheard our exchange from another room, then read the list of horrible claims The Ex makes about my incompetence as a mother in his sworn affidavit, told me that there is a place in hell for people like this.

So... I take on Entropy and Entropy ALWAYS wins.