living with the ex

Did you know that I was living with the ex?

Yea. It's true.
Let's talk about how that's an interesting pick up line. No...really, it's not.

Most people don't really let it process when I say it...and when it finally hits, "OMG, you're living with your ex-husband?!" - their eyes get big and a bit panicked.

At this point, a month into this project, I can chuckle; but only because I've wrestled down the dirty monster of panic.

It's a delicate, mixed bag of tricks:

I've started and invested just about everything I have - time and money - into my new writing career. The time came when I had run out of money and needed to make some big changes in living arrangements (i.e. I couldn't pay rent any longer).

I am thankful to report that I really had a lot of options...people who would accept me into their homes, even with the little man in tow. But they're all out of state. Which means that I'd be uprooting the little man, mid-year, and starting the IEP process in an unknown environment; or that I'd be giving his dad 24/7 parenting responsibilities. Either option wasn't really an acceptable option for me.

And...

Even though I asked my ex to remove my name from the mortgage 2 years ago, he still hasn't managed to get that paperwork completed. And this is with the incentive of 100% of the financial gain - I told him that I would forfeit any portion of the equity at resale, all he had to do was remove my name.

He tried to complete the paperwork over this past summer, but come to find out, an appraisal is required as a part of the process. He didn't want to schedule a meetup for the appraisal, because he hasn't been taking care of the property.

(The neighbor told me a story...
The Girl Scouts came around selling cookies and asked her if it was safe to visit the house just because it looked so bad on the outside. I responded that if they thought it looked bad on the outside, only the things of horror-stories lived on the inside. Sigh.)

And so...

The choice became clear. I would move back into still-my house and become the property manager, moving towards the final solution of getting my name off the mortgage & deed of the house and surrounding property. It would be the almost-best solution for the kid. And it would give me a little more time to get a successful marketing campaign up and running for the books that I had just published.

I would just have to live with the ex...

So, I've done what I always do...
I've started a blog: livingwiththeex

Enjoy the insanity!