by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Divorce, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Estrangement |
I am forty-three years old – an Interior Designer who has done well for herself over the course of sixteen years. I married thirteen years ago and have four beautiful children. My husband has had a series of losses in his life which turned him into a raging drunk, drug user and abuser (emotionally and physically towards the children and I).
After a series of abusive situations involving the children, I finally made my way to the attorney’s office and filed for divorce. Was that the right thing? I have been nothing but punished since that day in July 2009.
He destroyed the business I have had for seventeen years. He took all the money I had to support me and the children. He stole from the house and took all the money in our accounts.
He has not only hit me a few times, but he hit the children to the point that child services got involved. After they interviewed the children, they told me I would be charged for never turning in all these abuses in the past year. The children and I are all in counseling.
My first attorney did everything wrong, My second attorney took what money I had left and dumped me because I couldn’t pay any more. A guardian ad litem was finally appointed to our family and I had to pay for that out of the investments I had left. She actually believed him and never interviewed half my witnesses. She also never talked to the boys. Then, I was sent to another attorney (a third one) who said he would finish up the divorce for a flat rate. Well, I can’t come up with the rest of the money. He and my -soon-to-be ex’s attorney seem friendly and I feel like I am just getting screwed.
The worst part about all this is that the children are so messed up from the divorce and the abuse they suffered from their father. I have done everything I can to protect them but the Florida courts don’t seem to care.
We are getting ready for trial now and I can’t seem to get anyone to understand how bad this is for me and my children.
They hide in their rooms when he comes to get them.
My nine-year old ran nine blocks away and called me from a gas station because she was afraid to be with her dad.
My four-year old has seen his father throw me up against my desk and hold my head down as he threatened me. He nearly drowned at his cousin’s house and his father was nowhere to be found.
On his second birthday, he took my son out of his car seat because he was crying and stuck him out the window as I was driving down the highway.
My six-year old keeps getting thrown into walls by his father, his dad calls him pussy boy and tells him he cries like a school girl.
He makes him sleep on a sofa at his house to punish him for his mother filing for divorce.
My eleven-year old is pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows.
Where am I to turn? I don’t know how to get people to understand what is going on and change this for my children.
I bought my house when I was single and have fixed it up, paid the mortgage on it for eleven of the fourteen years I’ve owned it.
In 2004, I walked into my house to find a lender and a lady sitting there because he wanted to refinance the house. I was stupid and signed the papers not really knowing how bad I was going to be screwed – until now, when I can’t afford food, let alone the house. I am about to be forced out onto the streets.
His attorney is trying to get me out of the house so he can move in. The only reason I would do this is for my children so I know they have a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head, but in the process I have nothing.
No money, no place to live, no support and an attorney who told me to marry better next time. My whole family lives up north and the few friends I have here have their own problems.
I never thought this would be happening to me.
I have gone to the courthouse for help with the abuse center. They can’t help me and just send me to the shelter. I can’t find a job and am so confused. I can’t figure out what is going on.
I guess I don’t know what to do at this point. I have tried everything I can except to just take the children and run away. Believe me, I have thought about this so much, but what kind of life is that for them? What if I got caught and then can never see them again?
Do I just give him the kids and walk away? I know that would kill me. I can sleep in my Suburban for a while, but since I can’t secure a place to live because he ruined my credit and took all our money, I will lose the children anyway.
I am a rat stuck in a very bad situation. Crying is not helping me out of this giant mess. Where did the strong business person go? Why can’t I get anyone to understand that I divorced this ass to make my children’s lives better? Where do I go from here?
How do my children survive this nightmare?
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Estrangement, Grief, Loss, Loved One in Prison, Parent Loss |
I found out yesterday that my biological father, Michael, passed away. I still don’t know how to process the news. I have been estranged from him for most of my life but he was always a constant figure on the back of my mind. My mom divorced him when I was a baby and married my step-father when I was three. My step-father is my father, he raised me, he walked me down the aisle and he has always been there for me.
When I was little, I would spend a little time with Michael and I have good memories of those times. As a kid you’re oblivious to the bad stuff. As I got older, I found out about all the bad things and I saw him less and less. He wasn’t a good man to my mom and my brother. He was abusive and mean to them. I struggled with that for awhile because I never saw that side of him. He was careful to only show me his good side.
When I was twelve, he went to jail.
That was the last of I saw of him. It was then that my parents realized he would never change so they stopped letting me see him. I went about my life. I’d occasionally get updates through the grapevine and I was fine with that. I would imagine sometimes that one day he’d be different and we’d be able to have a relationship.
When I turned 18, I tracked him down and gave him a call. I drove to see him by myself and spent the afternoon with him. It seemed like old times but was very awkward at the same time. We didn’t know each other any more, but we tried. We began speaking on the phone fairly often and were trying to get to know each other again.
It was nice, and I thought that maybe he really was a different person from the one my mom and brother knew. Then one day, I saw that side of him for the first time and it scared me. I never spoke to him again.
About a month ago, I received a phone call. He was in the hospital about to pass away.
I was devastated but I don’t know why. He was never there for me. He wasn’t my ‘dad,’ but I was still so upset. My husband convinced me to go to the hospital and make my peace. He came with me. I’m so glad I went, even though it was incredibly awkward. He was skinny and frail. He wasn’t the strong handsome man I remembered from my childhood. I stood and we spoke as if we were acquaintances, we didn’t speak of the past at all. We made light conversation for about an hour and then I left.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
My aunt called yesterday to inform me that he passed away. Apparently, he tried to smoke a cigarette while hooked up to oxygen and it didn’t end well. I feel awful that he went that way. I wish it could have been a peaceful death for him.
Since that phone call, my emotions have been all over the place; anger to sadness and everything in between. I still have the man I consider my father and Grace’s grandfather, but I still feel such a sense of loss. Mostly a loss of the future relationship I still thought I would one day have. I’m angry I didn’t have a ‘normal’ childhood with a regular family and a dad that wasn’t crazy. I have a lot of what if’s and they’re driving me crazy.
There is nothing I can change now. Everything is final. Our relationship will never change. He passed away alone, without me in his life and I feel like it was my fault. Like I withheld my relationship from him to punish him and he didn’t deserve it. The rational part of myself knows this isn’t true. He hasn’t tried to contact me once in the past ten years.
I can’t change any of that, I know, but I can focus on the here and now. I will focus on my daughter, Grace, and I will make sure she never has to go through anything like this as a child or an adult. I will focus on the father I do have in my life and let him know how grateful I am for all the love he has given me and that fact that he has been always there for me. He calls me everyday just to tell me he loves me. He IS my dad and Grace’s pawpaw.
I will chalk yesterday up to a bad day and try to move on with my life.
I can’t change my past but I can let it not affect my future.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Abandonment, Anger, Blended Families, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Estrangement, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness, Loss, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Self Loathing, Sociopathy |
I’ve never written for a blog. I mean, I tweet, but to share something so insanely personal? I can’t believe I’m doing this…but then hell, the guy with one ball had the courage to tell his story, so surely I can muster up the courage to tell mine! Single-jingle, you’ve inspired me! Well, okay, that’s a half-truth. Aunt Becky inspires me too; and can I say that I secretly want to be her when I grow up? (ed note: *blushes*)
I know you may be shocked with the title of this. I mean, come on, what parent would ever admit that they would give back their precious little heathens?
I am an eternal optimist. My glass is always almost-full & I can always find something positive in every person and situation. I am the oldest of six children, raised in a home that cherishes family. My parents are both alive and still married. My mother’s parents were married for 68 years and they raised eighteen children. My grandmother died first and when she did, my dear grandfather told me that he would die from a broken heart; and he did, six weeks later.
So, when my ex-husband (the charmer that he is) and I divorced almost nine years ago I was the second one in my mother’s entire family to divorce. As painful as the divorce was, little did I know that I would experience a pain so great, and so severe, that it would cause me to question my very existence.
My ex told me on 9-11 that he wanted a divorce; that he had never loved me. Great, gee thanks you asshole. He was psychologically and verbally abusive for most of our marriage. He wasn’t like that when we dated, or even for the first two years that we were married.
Honestly, it was as if a light-switch had been flipped the day we brought our daughter home from the hospital. He was angry with me because I was giving our newborn too much attention. WHAT?!? Are you fucking serious?? Yes, he was. That started the downward spiral of our marriage. He would tell me to do something, but when I did what he asked, he yelled at me because I either didn’t do it exactly as he thought I should, or he denied ever asking me to do it in the first place. In a nutshell, he expected me to play ball but kept changing the rules of the game without telling me.
I decided that I didn’t want our daughter thinking that our marriage was the example she should use as a basis for her future relationships. I knew our marriage wouldn’t last, but I had to wait for the right time. During our separation we worked with a child psychologist negotiating our co-parenting plan. Afterward, the psychologist told me that she believed that he was a sociopath. Perfect…and I have a child with this guy.
The first three years after we were divorced weren’t bad. We actually got along well and cooperated. Don’t get me wrong – the guy was still an asshole and thought he could/should control me, but I guess he was just less of an asshole. Well, that lasted until he met and married his current wife. Now, I’m not blaming her, but she certainly hasn’t told him to straighten his shit up. In fact, I believe that the two of them feed off one another.
You see, as parents, we all know that kids naturally try to pit us against one another, right? Well, it can be even worse with children of divorce. As soon as these two yahoos got together, they began telling my daughter what a terrible mother I am and how I must not love her because I don’t do this, or a I don’t do that. Step-monster has told my daughter that she thinks I’m a bitch; they both told my daughter that they think I dress funny, I’m stupid, I’m fat, I talk funny, etc…the list goes on and on.
I share this with you for you two reasons:
1.) If you’re a parent and pulling this bullshit – STOP THE SHIT NOW! You think you’re hurting your ex, but really what you’re doing is demoralizing and destroying your child. My divorce attorney said to us (before he would take my case), “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” That was the smartest thing that man ever said.
2.) When I divorced, I made a promise to my daughter that she would never know exactly how I feel about her father; that while I may not agree with what he does, what he says, or how he lives his life, I would demand that she respect him as her father. I’m not perfect but I’ve done a pretty good job of this. I think I’ve called him an asshole a couple of times, immediately realized what I had done and asked her for her forgiveness.
Last July, after picking up my 13-year old daughter from an extended weekend with her father and step-family, she got angry with me and became belligerent and uncontrollable on our way home. I will say right here that I believe in corporal punishment, but only when it’s used sparingly. There are just some kids that need a good swat on the behind – mine being one of them.
So, I did what many parents have done and will continue to do and that was to swat (there IS a difference between a swat, a spanking, and a beating) her.
It was done to get her attention and only after I had pulled over on the side of the road in an effort to calm her down and talk through why she was so angry. I swatted her on the leg – she was wearing shorts – there was no redness, no mark, no nothing. That night she was hugs & kisses begging to do ‘girls night’ (girls night consists of us hanging out doing whatever she wants to do & always ends up with us giggling and snuggling in bed).
The next day she went back to her dad’s and thus began my personal journey in hell.
My beautiful, precious daughter accused me of beating her. Yes, beating her. I’ve never even kicked a dog, how could I beat my child? I may have had visions of killing severely maiming my ex, but I could never intentionally harm my child. Because my ex never questions anything that our daughter says and wants so badly to believe that I am the bitch that has made his life hell (it couldn’t possibly be because HE’S made his life what it is today), he believed her and hot-lined me.
Then, he took her to a therapist (which may just be the smartest thing the asshole ever did), and the therapist hot-lined me. It was at this point that I suddenly realized that if my daughter was so willing to make these false accusations against me, what would she say about my husband, her step-father? I emailed her father and suggested that until our daughter have several therapy sessions and we figure out what’s going on, that I thought it best that she stay with him. And there she has remained.
Working with the division of family services, or children’s division (whatever clever name your state has given it), is akin to having your annual exam (ladies) and inviting everyone in to see your vagina. They invade every freaking part of your life. Fortunately for me, the caseworker I was assigned to work with was thoughtful and compassionate.
I spoke with her on the phone and she explained to me that I was being accused of physically abusing my daughter. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I wanted to vomit. How could the child I so dearly love and would give my very life for say such monstrous things?
The only logical, rational reason I could come up with was that she was being influenced by her father and step-monster.
The case worker then proceeded to tell me that after her interview with my daughter and her father, she had decided not to interview me. Her conclusion: “This is not a case of abuse or neglect, but a custody issue and I am closing the case.” Thank God – what a relief!
My hell isn’t over. I haven’t seen or talked to my daughter in over three months. While I retain joint physical and legal custody of my daughter, I don’t want her here if she doesn’t want to be here. Do you know the story of Solomon? If not, look it up…you’ll understand me.
So, why do I not want to be a mother?
The pain I have experienced over the last three months is so intense that there are many, many days that I just don’t feel like I can go on. I have been rejected. Repudiated by my own daughter. She won’t return my calls; won’t respond to texts or emails; won’t have anything to do with me. I sit down every Sunday and hand-write her a letter updating her on what’s happening in our family. I tell her about Buddy, the family dog she left behind and how he lays down in front of her door almost every day waiting for her to come home; I tell her about her new cousin Ainsley that has a hemangioma on her eyelid and may go blind; I tell her that all of her aunts, uncles and cousins ask about her every time I see them. I also tell her that we love her and miss her.
What I don’t tell her about is the intense sadness and pain my husband and I have inside as a result of what’s been happening. I struggle most days just to get out of bed. I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to do the things I used to love doing, I just don’t want to do anything, or be anywhere. I cried everyday for two months. There are still days when all I do is sit with a box of Kleenex and cry all day. Seriously. All day. I hate coming home – because it reminds me of her. But where else would I go? Dying seems like an attractive alternative sometimes, but then I realize that would give my ex too much pleasure. Fuck him.
I don’t want to write to her anymore. In fact, I don’t want to be a mother anymore. There’s just too much heartache and pain. Where the hell is the reward? She doesn’t respond to any of my communications, so why keep up the charade?
Through this experience I am learning what it truly means to love another human being. To be able to look past the faults of another and still love them with all your heart and soul is an incredible place to be. I’m also learning what it means to forgive. Not to just say “I forgive you,” but to really feel it in your heart.
Wait, wait, wait a minute! I’m not forgiving that son-of-a-bitch father of hers, not sure that I will ever be at a point where I can forgive him for what he’s doing to her. I’m working on forgiving her. I realize that this isn’t all her…she’s torn. She is a true ‘daddy’s girl’ and adores her father. However, she needs to bear some responsibility in this. I have to believe that as she grows and matures she’ll realize what she’s done and she’ll be embarrassed and will regret her actions.
I’ve also learned that to be rejected by one’s child is perhaps one of the most painful experiences, other than the death of a child, that a parent can ever experience. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I tried that…there’s this guy that I really can’t stand, yet I pray that he never experiences the pain and agony I live with every day.
What do I say when people ask how my daughter is; how is she liking the 8th grade; how is she doing in school; what sports is she playing this year? Uh, hell if I know. Call her father. I’ve moved all of her pictures from public viewing at home – it’s just too painful. I put away all of her personal belongings in her bathroom and have redecorated it…again, too painful to see her stuff. Her bedroom door is closed and I haven’t been in there for two months. Too painful. When I go in there I am reminded of all of the love and the fun that we shared together. I am also reminded that she’s not here.
For all you out there that are divorced with children, please let this be an example of what NOT to do and remember what my attorney said, “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” Your children deserve the best of what you have and that includes treating your ex with kindness, compassion, and respect.
I will see her for the first time next week in a joint therapy session. I’m sure it’s going to be awkward and I expect her to be cold and distant. I am going to do my best not to cry. I’m going in armed with drugs. Buspar and I have become very close friends in the last couple of months.
In my heart, my hope is that next week will be the beginning of the end of my personal journey to hell.
