When you and your STBX can’t agree on how to divide your parenting time the court will and even then there’s no guarantee you’ll like the arrangement.
My current guest, Donna F. had wanted to move to Colorado from Arizona after her divorce and thought that her ex would go along with the move since he had indicated early on that he’d want a more traditional custody arrangement, seeing their daughter every other weekend. However, Donna’s ex fought for custody and the court ruled for shared parenting which meant Donna would have to stay in Arizona in the same neighborhood as her ex. Donna still wasn’t comfortable with the arrangement: Here’s Donna:
I was doing a lot of therapy at the time and a lot of envisioning, trying to see where I was going.
One of the things that I tried to do with my husband was, “OK, let’s get a new house and where is it going to be?” I went on this women’s retreat and he would never participate. He was like, “We need air, food and water. That’s it.” That was kind of his goals. “I don’t have goals. We just need air, food and water.” I’m like, “OK.”
On this women’s retreat I had this vision in my dream that I was like, “OK, where is it? With or without him, where am I going.” I saw this snowcapped mountain. I was living in Arizona at the time. I came from cold weather. I really wasn’t planning on moving to cold weather. So it freaked me out a little bit. And I was like, “Oh, man.” But I wrote in this journal, really visually what I had seen that night in that dream.
Anyway, I go through the court thing and the judge says we’re living in Arizona. My friend and her family were moving to Colorado and I helped her. We drive up and it’s kind of an overcast rainy day. The next day I get up and out her front window is what I saw in that dream. I saw the Rocky Mountains. I was like, “Oh, my God. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
That’s what I had been asking the court for anyway, but it was just this overwhelming confirmation.
I go back to Arizona and I’m pretty depressed, because I can’t imagine doing back and forth with someone who’s not going to do what’s best for my daughter who was only two.
Then my friend was talking to a psychic and she said, “Oh, my gosh, Donna is going to be having the biggest decision of her life.” When she told me that I said, “Well, I don’t know what it can be, because the judge said I have to live here.”
That weekend my daughter was with her dad and a friend who I hadn’t even seen in months invited me up to Flagstaff for a campout. I didn’t really know anyone else there but it was in Sedona. We drive past this little thing and there’s this psychic there and I’m like, “Oh how fun, let’s go.”
I go in, walk up the stairs and I talk to this lady. She says,
“Do you live in the mountains?”
And I go, “Not really.” And she goes, “No, like mountains.” And I go, “No.” And she goes, “You really need to live in mountains.”
I still can see it to this day. She sits across the room from me, we’re sitting in these two chairs and I don’t say anything and she goes, “You’re about to make the biggest decision of your life. Do you know what it is?”
And I think, “Oh, my God, it’s like the exact same words from two different people and two different states.” And I said, “Yeah. I think my daughter needs to live with her dad.”
That was all I remember about that conversation, except for the fact that I’m now at a campout with no cell service, I can’t talk to any of the people I would normally process things with and I have three days with people I don’t know to really sit with this idea.
I was in shock. It was just odd.
When I got out of there what I realized was that my moving away was probably going to be the best way to keep my daughter out of conflict, because again, he was mad at me and so he was willing to take it out on the situation. I just felt that whole moving back and forth was going to be worse than anything else, because in the few weeks and months that we were doing it during the whole court mandated thing it was horrible.
Before I said anything to my ex, I went back to the therapist and he raked me over the coals to make sure that was the right thing. I was working with a church and I went and I talked to the priest. And I said, “This is what I think I need to do and everyone’s fighting me about.” And he said, “It’s your life and it’s your daughter’s life and you need to do what you think you need to do regardless of what anyone else thinks.”
Again, I didn’t make the decision lightly.
I said to my ex, “I’m going to still move and our daughter can live with you and this is how I’ll see her. I want her in one place. If that has to be with you, this is how we’ll do it.”
What I know today is it really was about my spiritual journey, because I had to trust God above what anyone else thought. Truly there was only one or two people that supported me in that decision. It was my friend who’d moved to Colorado and one other friend. The rest of my family just thought, “Oh, my God, what a terrible mom,” and the whole thing.
The Divorce Coach Says
I know that some of you may read this and discount the experiences with the psychics. I understand that but I encourage you not to discard your dreams because your dreams are you deep inner conscious speaking to you, trying to get you to see a particular perspective.
I had a dream that even now, some seven or eight years later I can remember as if it was a high definition movie. In the dream I saw myself taking a glass milk bottle from the fridge and placing it on the counter. As I started to take the cap off, the bottle cracked. I moved one hand to hold the crack together and with the other hand continued to take the top off. It cracked in a different place; I moved my hands to hold it together. It cracked again and I re-positioned my hands. This happened a couple of times before I let go – the milk bottle fell apart and the milk flowed.
I interpreted that dream as a sign telling me that I couldn’t keep the facade of my marriage together any longer. Up until then I had never even seen divorce as an option.
So listen to your dreams even if they challenge your views of “acceptable.”