growing up too fast

Yesterday I was helping the girls decorate their Valentine’s Day boxes and get all their cards together for the class party.  Girl#1 got upset because she had wanted to get a special card for this one boy.  Awwww.  She confessed she has a crush on him.  So cute.

So I asked her if she wanted to be his girlfriend and hold hands and stuff.  She nodded blushing a little.  Then she said he had a girlfriend already.  WHAT?!  She is in 3rd grade.  Isn’t that a little too soon to be pairing off?  Then she told me that other people are couples too.  And they go behind the shed at recess and kiss each other! 

She told me how there are popular people and unpopular people.  The unpopular people get teased.  She said she’s kind of popular, but not the most.  So she gets teased a little, but not much.  I don’t want her to be worried about these things yet.  She’s too young and still trying to develop her self esteem.

I didn’t start thess kind of things until 6th or 7th grade.  Why is it starting so young?

when is it too soon?

In August I met this man.  We went out of coffee and had a few dinners together.  He was sweet and open and pretty cute.  Things didn’t get serious because well, I’m too fresh from the breakup.  Hell, my divorce isn’t even final.  His divorce was final just a year ago or so.  Neither of us was ready for a relationship where you meet the other’s family.  We were just looking for someone to spend time with periodically.  It worked.  We enjoyed each other’s company.

One evening he fell asleep and was late coming over and didn’t respond to my attempt to contact him.  I got a little ticked off because the STBX used to do that to me all the time, but I wasn’t really mad because I wasn’t thinking of him as my boyfriend and I could easily kick him to the curb.  However, I did tell him he ticked me off and I wasn’t sure what his intentions were.  He apologized and explained he’d fallen asleep.  That’s why he was late.  I felt like a heel.  Obviously I have some things to let go that were issues between me and the STBX.

He walked into my house that evening and wanted to apologize again, and I told him it was not necessary.  He grabbed me and said “look, I’m not going to dick you over.  I’m not that guy.  I will tell you exactly what I’m thinking and I want.”  I think he wasn pretty honest about that.  He is open with his thoughts and what he wants.  He’s not wishy washy or promising to call when he actually doesn’t.

I still see him once every couple of weeks.  When I don’t have the kids.  I’m still not ready to meet his parents or son.  He feels the same.  We watch movies, football, get food, go to a movie..that kind of stuff.  And oh..well..we have a lot of sex!  It is fun and I LOVE it.  I was worried when I left my marriage that I’d have to go years without sex knowing I didn’t want a relationship for at least a while, if ever.  (I am in the place right now where I feel like I’ll never get serious with another man because it’s just too much trouble.  Friends tell me that feeling won’t last.  We’ll see.)

Sometimes I’m ashamed to admit his presence in my life.  Is it too soon to be spending time with another man even if it’s not anyone I’m introducing to my kids?  Even though I don’t spend all my time with him, just an evening here and there?  I left the STBX a year ago this month.  I have some personal things to iron out before I have a “relationship” and get serious.  However, I like having a man around to spend time with once in a while.  So I kind of keep him a secret so as to not get criticized.  Should I be ashamed?  Is it too early?

single parenting is hard

I mentioned that I worry about my girls.   Last night didn’t help matters much.

While practicing for her spelling test Girl#2 was obviously near tears and trying to hold it in.  I put her on my lap and told her to go ahead and cry.  So she let loose and cried.  Hard.  She explained that they are reprimanded at school for crying and of course the STBX isn’t so good at dealing with tears.  I told her she could cry with me if it made her feel better and she said it does.  They both felt comfortable with expressing their sadness and anger with me last night.

What followed were details about times when they thought the STBX was being unfair to them and they were upset about it.  Mad.  For instance he found the batteries of the Wii remotes were removed and he blamed one of them.  They both kept saying they didn’t know who did it.  His response was that if you are saying “i don’t know” then you have something to hide.  He yelled at them.  What were they to do?  They had no idea.  Later his sister told him that she removed the batteries.  Oh.  He didn’t acknowledge that he yelled when he shouldn’t have.  He didn’t apologize to them.  Girl#1 wanted an apology.  Girl#1 wanted him to understand that sometimes you in fact do not know and you aren’t hiding something.  I am pissed.  I’ve seen this behavior from him and it pissed me off when we were together.  We argued about almost that exact thing…the use of “I don’t know.”

I read so much about how you have to accept that you can’t control the other’s parenting style when you do in fact divorce.  There’s nothing I can do.  I sometimes feel like I abandoned them and they have no one to protect them from him and some of his unfair ways.  My therapist and the kids’ therapist says that still, leaving, and providing them with a home where there is no guilt or manipulation or unfair things happening is still better for them if it’s part time versus when we were all together and they were subjected to it full time.  I guess because in reality while I thought I could protect them from him, they would have had to deal with him anyhow in spite of my presence.  So giving them a home where they feel safe emotionally and can talk freely will help them.  Giving them a home where they aren’t being yelled at unfairly or manipulated into things will help them.  They will remember as they grow where they felt safer and treated right.  And I can equip them with the strength to speak out when they think they aren’t being treated right and the knowledge that he isn’t always right just because he’s the adult.  Of course I never bad mouth him, but I can still instill in them the confidence to know that sometimes the kid is right not the adult.  I can do that without trash talking their dad.  It’s important that I don’t trash talk him.

So that is what I’m striving to do for them.  Yet, I worry if I will be successful.  I worry what kind of impact he will have on them.  We argued a lot about some of his parenting tactics.  He is too harsh and unforgiving.  He thinks he’s right all the time (not just with the kids) and will almost never relent.  His parents treated him this way and look at him.  Ugh.  Then I look at his brother who is wishy washy and totally lacking in self confidence.  He’s a shell of a man.  I don’t want that for my girls either.

Last night Girl#2 ignored my instructions to do something.  Repeatedly.  So I got mad.  I didn’t yell but I told her that she isn’t supposed to ignore what her mom says to do and she’d be punished a little once I figured out what to do.  Oh how she hates upsetting her parents.  She cried and cried.  I’m sure she was overtired.  None the less, she cried and cried.  I sat her on my lap and reminded her that I love her.  And she said “when you are mad at me it feels like you don’t love me.”  I explained that I will always love her no matter what happens.  If she’s good or bad, gets a good grade or bad grade, when she’s 6 and 16 and 36, when she’s a teenager yelling that she hates me, always and forever.  The STBX and I used to say to them all the time “I will always love you no matter what.”  I hope that sinks in.  I hope she remembers that even though I might have to punish her for things from time to time, it’s not because I don’t love her.  It’s because I do love her and want her to learn to do the right thing.

I wish I had a crystal ball to see what will happen in the future and if I’ll be successful in this.  I’m constantly worried about them, and there isn’t much I can do is there?  I just have to roll with it and love them unconditionally.

when did my ex become such a baby?

It Never Rains In Seattle (http://itneverrainsinseattle.wordpress.com/) commented on my last post and I felt like I should reply.

First, I’m curious about your thoughts on when I become a grown up.  Frankly, one day I woke up and realized I was a wife, mother, home owner, career woman and responsible for everyone.  It freaked me out a little to realize I was the “grown up” and had to take care of things.  I always thought I’d FEEL grown up and ready for all this, instead I’m just learning as I go along.  I now know that that is what everyone else is doing too.

Actually, I didn’t have much of a childhood.  I was the grownup even as the child.  My mother was absent.  In bed.  Drunk.  Out without us.  She was an alcoholic.  A pill popper.  Bipolar.  She neglected my sister and me.  My sister and I did the cleaning, got ourselves to school, made food for ourselves and generally took care of life so we could function.  When you are left to be the adult in the house you don’t have much time to be a child and so we were kind of robbed of that.  Oh how I want to make sure my kids still get to enjoy their childhood.

As far as my ex being a baby.  So funny, because I actually used to look up to him and think he had it all together.  I thought I was an emotional wreck and wanted to be more like him…able to roll with the punches, hold my own in an argument and not care if people were mad at me.  Now I see that when things don’t go his way he pouts.  To punish you he will ignore you and refuse to talk to you for days or weeks.  Now THAT is passive aggressive.  He blames everything that goes wrong on someone else.  He doesn’t believe that he contributes to issues that plague his family.  He spent many nights over the years telling me how I needed to get a grip and then maybe we could actually have a normal relationship.  He said he was waiting for me to learn to actually be able to have a relationship with anyone, because he didn’t think I was capable of doing so, especially with him.  If he didn’t get his way, or you didn’t do things the way he thought it should be done, he’d freeze you out.  I couldn’t get him on the phone during the day.  He’d leave in the middle of an argument and not come home for 2 days, once it was a week.  Once he left me at his parents house 3 hours away.  I stayed up there for 2 weeks (I had the time off work).  He wouldn’t answer anyone’s call.  So when I decided to go home, I didn’t go home.  I went to my aunt’s.  That was the first time I left him.

In marriage counseling we learned that he was very wrong on most counts.  The counselor looked him right in the eye and told him he was verbally and emotionally abusive.  He showed him how he contributed to the issues and what he did to make them worse.  He called him on his passive aggressive behaviors.  He showed him where he was critical and overly negative.  The STBX finally was able to admit he did all those things.  So what stopped us from getting back together?  He still treated me that way.  He couldn’t stop doing it.  And well, I then reacted to it in a very bad way.  We had a bad cycle we’d fall into every time.  We couldn’t stop it.

The counselor showed us how he acted like a parent and I acted like the child.  He would demand things and punish me if I didn’t do it his way.  So I’d hide things from him if I didn’t think I could live up to his expectations and I worked hard to please him.  I avoided being “reprimanded” at all costs, not even realizing that he wasn’t treating me like his partner, but his child.  As I grew more confident and started to show him that he was cutting me down all the time, he fought against me.  He’d insist I was mentally unstable.

When did the STBX become such a big baby?  The answer: I don’t think he ever stopped being a baby.  He’s been this way our entire relationship.  I just couldn’t see it.  I mistook him for a confident man with strong beliefs.  So, he thinks that I did something wrong by retaining a lawyer.  He assumed I’d be ok using a mediator and no lawyer to work out the divorce details.  This is wrong because we all know he’d steamroll me and I’d get manipulated into things I didn’t necessarily agree with.  I really need someone working with me who has my best interests in mind.  He thinks the kids are fine with the parenting schedule the way it is.  He won’t admit that they are struggling with things and upset much of the time.  I disagree and am doing things differently than he wanted.  He can’t strong arm me into do things his way anymore so he is punishing me by freezing me out.  He’s trying to control me.  What that idiot can’t see is that it’s not punishing me.  I actually enjoy not having to hear his voice on the phone.  But he is punishing the kids, and that is just more wrong than anything else he’s ever done..in my opinion at least.

going to court

Next week we go to court to see the referee.  We are laying out the rest of the dates that various documents are due to the court.  We are also going to address my concerns regarding the current parenting schedule and issues that have popped up as a result of the STBX refusing to talk to me.

I’m nervous.

Last year initially I wanted to do something like the traditional father getting every other weekend, but make the weekend like Thursday thru Monday morning.  The STBX told me I wasn’t considering the kids.  He assumed I was trying to punish him by keeping the kids from him.  That is not what I was doing.  I was trying to ensure the kids were happy.

I’ve been close with STBX’s sister for years.  She showed up to my house one night and wanted to chat.  I got tricked or bamboozled.  By the time she left I was willing to do a 50-50 arrangement and that is how we ended up with the current schedule.  I allowed myself to be talked into something I didn’t think was a good idea.  That family always could do that to me.  I absolutely hate it.  They are always “right” and won’t stop bugging you until you agree with them.  She’s more subtle than her brother is about it, though.  He would just harass me and then shut me out until I gave in.  She reasoned with me and appealed to my softer side talking about how much the STBX loves his kids.  I gave in.

SHIT!

So now I have to try and get that reversed.  I’m scared.  The kids are unhappy with the current arrangement.  So next week in court we are going to ask for a change in the schedule.  He will fight it and so I won’t get that changed right away.  His family will start bugging me again trying to  convince me to change my mind, accusing me of trying to hurt him at the expense of the children and telling me I’m doing the wrong thing.

I’ve read and read and read some more and find over and over that studies have proven that kids need to have one home that they call home.  They should be in the same bed on all school nights.  They need a place to do their homework that is quiet.  They need their own space.  They need stability.  Right now it’s not stable, they are being shuffled around multiple times a week.  At his house they share a room and don’t have a place to do homework.

I don’t doubt his love for them.  I know he works on homework with them.  I know they have fun with him when they see him.  I just doubt that the back and forth is good for them.

Also, my lawyer says he can bring up the issue of the STBX refusing to talk to me and the issues it’s caused.  Not sure what the referee will do or say to him, but apparently it won’t make him look good.  I’m not interested in making him look bad or punishing him, so this kind of scares me and upsets me too.  Not sure why, because I know that he wouldn’t care about making me look bad.  For some reason I always cave and don’t want to be as forceful about these things as I need to be.  It is time to find my strength to stand up to him no matter how it affects him.  I need to worry about the kids first.  Things need to get done.  We need to parent together.  And we can’t the way it’s going right now.  Things are a mess right now.  I’m sick of it and it’s not fair to the kids.

Suck-It Sunday

Over at the Housewife Diaries (http://www.thehousewifediaries.com/) the Housewife has started “Suck-It Sunday.”  This week I want to take part.

1. This one is obvious..but the STBX can SUCK-IT!  For berating me and belittling me year after year.  For putting our kids in between us…for being too mad at me to even talk to me causing the children grief.

2. People who stick too much of their noses in my life, full of opinions or “advice” can suck-it.  People who think that every detail of your life is their business, follow up on everything you do and  pissed off when you don’t do it their way.

3. Not being able to drive a car until May 19th can suck-it big time.

4. My cat can suck-it because he keeps pooping on the floor.  Why oh why does he do this?!

I’m sure I’ll participate in this again next week…….maybe next week I’ll have bigger, better and more people who can suck it!

useless

In the state of Michigan if you have a seizure you aren’t allowed to drive your car for 6 months.  6 months!!!  I had my seizure 2 months ago.  I’ve had to rely on friends and family to get me places and it’s so frustrating.

I feel useless.  I can’t run out to the grocery store to grab something.  I can’t even take my kids to school or ballet.  I can’t drive myself to work!

I have friends and coworkers lined up to take me to work each morning.  My family arrives early in the morning to take the girls to school.  Family picks them up and carts them over to dance or therapy and birthday parties.

Today I had to call my aunt to take me to the grocery store.  I hate having to do that.  She lives 20 minutes away from me and willingly drove all the way here to take me to the store.  She is so kind and helpful.

I’m counting down the days until I can drive again.  May 19.  It can’t get here fast enough.

finding me

On the weekends that the girls are with their dad I still struggle figuring out what to do with myself.  It’s been nearly a year since I left the STBX and I still struggle with it.

It seems that the mutual friends have gone to him.  Most of them anyways.  He actually told me some of the things he’s said about me and it’s not pretty.  I can’t fight against lies.  I talked to one friend and asked her to remember that there are always 2 sides to every story.  She’s told me not to worry, but ignores all my attempts to contact her.  It hurts.  The other friends that I am still in touch with are parents who can’t get out much to begin with.  So it’s hard.

I have a few friends who are divorced and I get out periodically with them.  However, I often find myself just wanting to go home and be alone.  I turned down a friend who asked if I wanted to do dinner last night.  My therapist says this is normal, yet I thought I’d be back into socializing by now.  Guess not.

Last night I sat on my couch worrying about my kids, hoping things are going ok for them with their dad.  That they don’t feel guilted or manipulated into anything.  I used to shelter them from that, and now i feel as if I’ve left them defenseless against him.  So I was blue last night.

This morning I woke up, made some coffee and sat on the couch, where I proceeded to waste the day away with the TV on.  And reading my book.  I do have plans for tonight, that I’m not going to cancel because I know I need to get out.

During my childhood I was the parent, not the child.  I had no time for my interests or hobbies.  I had housework to do and a mother to take care of.  I met the STBX immediately in college and got so wrapped up in his world that I never explored my own interests or passions.  During my marriage we did what he wanted to do and very little of what I wanted to do.  Although, if it came right down to it, I’m not sure I would have known what I wanted to do.

Now that I’m alone I actually have time to take care of my own interests.  I don’t know what to do.  I have a mild interest in photography and think I could get very into it should I put some effort into it.  I’m thinking of taking a photography class.  I like to read, but that doesn’t get me out.  I like to travel but money is tight right now due to the lawyer fees.

I suppose in time I’ll slowly find myself again.  I’m just mad that it’s taken 36 years to get to a place where I have the space to explore myself.  I’m mad at my mom for robbing me of my childhood.  I’m mad at STBX for taking control of my life in my 20s.  I’m mad at me for allowing it to happen.  I have to get past the anger and find myself and enjoy what is the rest of my life, because the 2nd half is going to be awesome.

worries

I am constantly worrying about my kids these days.  I don’t trust the STBX right now.  He used so much guilt and manipulation on me that I walked on egg shells around him and constantly doubted myself.  I don’t know if that is going on at his house with the girls or not.

STBX REFUSES to talk to me.  At all.  Not via email, text or on the phone.  He is either trying to protect himself or upset/manipulate me at the expense of his children.

Girl#1 told me she was afraid to ask STBX if she could call me to say good night because she knew he didn’t want to talk to me.  She worried he’d be upset with her if she wanted to talk to me.  It made her cry.

He had Girl#1 call me and ask me a question he should have asked himself.  He used her as a messenger.  Not to mention that I’d already emailed him that info.  If he’d read the emails from me he’d have had the info he was looking for.

Girl#1’s gym uniform is missing and we think it’s at his house, but he won’t respond to my requests for it.  She wears other sweats to school and is embarassed because she’s out of uniform.

Girl#2’s teacher says she needs to practice her reading more.  She’s struggling.  I’m doing what I can when they are with me.  I’ve emailed him numerous times to tell him she needs more help.   I don’t think he’s reading the emails as Girl#2 says that he is not practicing her reading with her.

We share them 50-50.  I don’t think this is working well.  You can’t coparent and share custody like this if the parents don’t talk.  Neither girl wants to be away from me for such lengthy periods of time.  They’ve said as much over and over.  Girl#1 admitted she worries if she is with me more STBX will miss her.  I’ve explained she shouldn’t worry about us, it’s not her job.  She says she can’t stop worrying. 

I’ve consulted my attorney about custody and he said that most judges end up disliking the 50-50 arrangements and prefer for kids to be in one house on school nights and for the other parent to have them every other weekend.  You know, the old school way of doing things.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to request that we get an arrangement more like that laid out, but am afraid the judge would end up chosing him over me as the custodial parent.  I have no reason to be called unfit, it’s just a fear of mine.  I worry about everything.

However, since I am sure the STBX will fight me every step of the way on this my lawyer told me it could take up to 6 months to resolve this.  In the meantime I’m worried about how all this is impacting my children.

a long overdue update

Sorry for not posting for 2 months.  I’m just fine.

After many tests and Dr visits they determinded it was a medication I was on that caused the seizure.  I was on anantidepressant called Abilify.  It has a mild risk of seizure.  Even though, I’d been taking it for over a year before the seizure occurred, they are 99.9% sure it was that.  So, I’m off it and on another one, which seems to be doing it’s job.  I feel pretty good these days.

As for the STBX who stuck around the entire time.  I don’t quite know what that was all about, but after a few harsh words and a battle over who got the kids for the holidays, he refuses to speak to me at all, making the coparenting very hard.

The holiday issue was this:  He says he “allowed” me to have the kids for Thanksgiving because he felt badly about everything I had been going through.  So he wanted them for both Xmas Eve and Xmas Day.  My feelings on the matter were that next year he’d get Thanksgiving and we share Xmas; the kids do Xmas Eve with one and Xmas Day with the other.  He basically told me he’d leave town with the kids for Xmas and I’d have no say in it.  Bastard.  I can’t drive for 6 months because of the seizure so he knew I couldn’t come get them from his parents place 4 hours away.  So I filed papers through my lawyer asking to share the holiday and he countered wanting them for the entire holiday.  In the end I won, and we shared the holiday.  He got reprimanded pretty harshly by the judge for his threats and the unilateral decisions he tried to force upon me.  I’m curious..for those of you out there that are divorced how do you share/separate the holidays with your children?

What really steamed me about the whole thing was that he told the kids they would not see me for Xmas and they showed up at my house mad at me one day.  Asking why they wouldn’t see me on Xmas, why I didn’t want them.  That just broke my heart.  He brought them into our battle.  I had to explain that I very much wanted to see them, but that Daddy and I were having trouble deciding how to handle it, but that they shouldn’t worry about it.  Well, they did.  They worried a lot.

I have a lot to say, a lot to share on the state of my divorce and life in general, so stay tuned….