Changes

Every so often I feel the need to do a bit of reflection on my life and recently I have been feeling the need to put into writing some of the changes I have been going through.

As regular readers will know I have been going through a lot of family and personal changes in the last couple of years. I think things are finally beginning to settle down a bit.

Last week I had to see my solicitor to sign a legal separation agreement at last.  It covers most of the outstanding financial arrangments.  The matrimonial home will finally be signed over to me in return for a lump sum of money equivalent to half the funds the property might make if sold.  It also confirms that neither of us will make claims on each other’s pensions and that the furnishings in the house have been divided up.  The only financial matter not covered by this agreement is maintenance for the children and that has now been passed to the Child Support Agency to sort.  They have actually been much quicker in sorting things out then I feared they might be.  It took raising court actions to get these things progressed and sorted out but at last it has been done.

The children have three weekends out of four with their father and he is renting a house round the corner from us now so from July I haven’t had to move out of the house at weekends.  There are also phone calls every evening and as he is so close Rowan sometimes visits his father of an evening during the week for a bit.  The children seem to have settled down well to this routine.  The children usually spend some of their school holiday times with their father too. 

Rowan started back to school in mid August (that’s the usual time here in Scotland) and Rose has now started school.  The first couple of weeks first year pupils are only in for the mornings and from the beginning of September they are full time.  There were some glitches in her behavior to start with but things seem to have settled down a bit which is good.  So far Rowan has had a good term as well which is great especially as towards the end of last school year he had some pretty bad outbursts at school.

Healthwise my thyroxin issues have settled down and I’ve come off the anti-depressants.  I’ve been coping fine since coming off the anti-depressants and my energy levels are much improved now I am on the correct dosage of thyroxin.  It does make me wonder how much of the problems I had healthwise were actually due to the thyroxin imbalance though.

I’ve now reduced my working hours from full time to the equivalent of four days a week.  It’s a temporary change at the moment as I’m not positive how things will work out financially although with Neil’s help I think everything will be fine.  One of the reasons for doing this is that I need more flexibility in working hours to be able to cope with getting both children to school and dealing with the various meetings I have to attend both at school and other places with Rowan. This month has been the first month of my reduced hours and I am already feeling the benefit of it.  And with Rowan due to start secondary school next year I suspect I will need this flexibility even more.

The other very important major change is that Neil has now moved in with us and has stopped renting his flat. He moved in at the beginning of this month but he’d already been doing a fair amount of diy for us. He had gradually been spending more and more time with us at the house since he moved up to Glasgow last year so this change did not come as a sudden shock for the children. They seem very comfortable with him and so far there haven’t been any problems. 

I’m feeling more settled than I have been for a long time and with Neil I am so much happier than I was before.  Neil is a wonderful partner, someone I can talk to about anything and someone who I can lean on when I need to.  Life has become so much more fun with him around!

So lot of changes but things finally seem to be settling down a bit.  I know there will be more changes ahead of us but hopefully we will all get a bit of time to absorb what has happened and settle into a new family dynamic.