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"I suppose I should have known that it was coming, but there it was today. A message in my in-box, addressed to the mediator but cc&amp;#039;d to me (as we agreed - the mediator will not reply unless we cc each other on everything). Now that he&amp;#039;s had time to sit and stew over it, Peter has decided to push back on the amount of monthly child support I&amp;#039;m asking for. He also believes our income percentages are not correct - and he was partly right. The mediator didn&amp;#039;t include my earnings from some of the writing I do, so he added those back in. Then he added the amount he pays in child support currently into my income column, and that is not correct. Child support is not income. Alimony (which I don&amp;#039;t get) is income. Even the federal and state governments don&amp;#039;t recognize child support as income. So I told him I was willing to recalculate, adding in the money I get from my writing (and removing child support from the income column), and the percentage only altered 5% from the original calculation. He also mentioned a few other items that we&amp;#039;re sure to go back and forth on that basically boil down to him getting angry at me for not doing all the footwork on some of the things he&amp;#039;s jointly responsible for and could have looked into just as easily as I could. Apparently, he feels it&amp;#039;s all on me.  I managed to stay civil, and replied very diplomatically to his points, then reminded him that the more he and I can settle without wasting the mediator&amp;#039;s valuable time, the better, and I was available for a face-to-face talk anytime he wanted one. I also reminded him that I&amp;#039;m not trying to take him to the cleaners, but we have one time to do this, and I&amp;#039;m going to do whatever I need to do to ensure I can pay for basic needs for as long as the kids live with me.  Then I sent the email and I went outside to my car and I cried. I find it utterly amazing that he can still hurt me. How is that even possible? And when will it stop? I just want to be able to open a bill without taking a deep breath first. Is that too much to ask?  [Follow Ellie on Twitter and Facebook] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a48050/the-other-shoe-falls/?src=rss>