He called as I was getting the kids organized to head out for the hour long drive back to their house.
Back to the house that still bears my name on the mortgage. The house that is in active foreclosure now. The house I'm not "allowed" to go into without his permission. His personal rule, not a legal rule.
He was out of state and informed me that I was to drop the kids off at the house where an aquaintance from church was going to be staying with them overnight and until he returned. I agreed, as usual automaticly responding without thought. But by the time we were in the car, I was having serious second thoughts.
What kind of mom just drops her children off with someone she doesn't know well? For an unknown length of time? Overnight no less. And while their residential parent is out of state more than 3 hours away? When she herself lives more than an hour away? What if something happened to the other parent or to the kids? Alarm bells.
Ok. Be rational. Kids are 14 and 12, old enough to tell someone if they are scared or hurt or being treated inappropriately. People who are to watch the kids are aquaintences with their own child - and are coming to the kids house to stay there with them. But still - you know, it's unexpected for them and for me and I have some questions; I'm still the mom and I have some right to be informed and to have some say. I know several other people with whom I'd feel more comfortable leaving the kids with and maybe we can find a compromise.
I call him back and leave a message saying that I have concerns, questions, and I am not comfortable. I say I'm not refusing to bring the kids home but want to talk about it with him before I do so.
My son is instantly upset. He thinks I am going to get in trouble. He doesn't want that. I have to explain to him about A) my job as a mom, B) that I am still the mom, and C) that a mom does what is best for the kids regardless. He is only slightly relieved.
I call a friend who lives near the kids and tell her whats up, ask her opinion, ask her insight. She understands and validates my concerns, is worried about legal implications however. We talk about the logistics, the facts, the outsider view of what it looks like for me if I DO just blindly drop my kids off and if I DON'T. We toss around some options. He calls back.
I explain my concerns; I say very clearly, "I am not trying to cause trouble or make waves, but this is really important to me. Can we find another place for the kids that I am more comfortable with? Here are some options I can think of..." and I list the three or four I've come up with.
He says, "You have no rights. I am the sole physical custodian and that means I get all say in where the kids go and who they go with. You don't have any choice in this. Your responsibility is to drop the kids AT THE HOUSE at the designated time and that's all. You do what you are legally told to do or you'll be in violation. Until you have proven that you are capable of responsibly following legal guidelines, that is how it will be and END OF STORY."
That is followed by some "discussion" if you will - me protesting and reminding him that we have joint legal custody, that I have spent a year following his every demand and order (and him interjecting that it wasn't true) and that it's reasonable to discuss this issue and consider some options blah blah blah. His near screaming of, "YOU ARE NOT TO BE IN THE HOUSE - do you understand? do you? do you???" is the last of our conversation.
Now is not the moment to write about my heart, my pain, my distress. But it's there.
I call my friend again and we come up with a solution that makes me feel better. I will indeed drop the kids off at their house with these people, but I will stay the night at HER house (a few blocks away) so I am close by if the kids need anything. That's the point you see - that a parent is within easy reach if the kids need something. With him out of state, and me living an hour away, I was uncomfortable leaving the kids there alone.
Now it's over and done and I wait for the repercussions. I wait to see if my actions will impact me negatively, if it will make things even worse for me, if it will make a judge think I am as incompetent and irresponsible and crazy as he keeps calmly stating that I am - and as is being evaluated.
He wants it his way, all the time, in all ways, and with no arguement. He wants 100% control of every single thing. He did that our whole marraige and up until the year before I left, I always agreed and complied. When I started putting up resistance is when things got very bitter and sour - and while I briefly believed that my opposing opinon was invalid, unreasonable, irrational and worthless, as was my own life, I no longer believe that.
The problem is that every single action I initiate is suspect, up for review, subject to scrutiny with already tainted viewpoints. Even if I did something obviously and grossly RIGHT, it would initially be suspicious. The thing that I can't stop thinking about right now, right this minute, is that no matter what happens in court in a few weeks, he will always be this way. No matter what rights and responsibilities are granted to me, no matter what considerations are allowed for me, he will insist on 100% control in every area he can. This? This frightens me. Immeasurably.
Tell someone. Tell someone, on my behalf, that what is happening to me is not right, is backwards, is hurting my kids, is empowering his agenda for power and control. Tell someone that I don't have resources and I need help. Tell someone because the even scarier part is that I am not the only woman out there in this situation.
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 24
Sunday, August 22
The First Part
In 2009, after well over a year, even longer really, of conflicted and frenzied emotional struggling, as my marriage slowly dissolved away under my feet and I helplessly watched my husband morphing into someone I couldn't recognize, I filed for divorce.
There is more to the story of course - the counseling, the blogging and journaling, the desperate pleas to my pastor and various friends and family (which came only after months of silent shame, fear, confusion, and frantic actions meant to salvage it all) but when it came down to that moment, the one moment when I looked around me and thought, "What do I do NOW?", all I could think of was to file for divorce.
The ensueing 3 months proved that things could always get worse. Well, what had I thought they'd be? Better? No, I don't suppose I believed that things would get better, but I didn't think they'd get worse.
Ultimately, I came to another pivotal moment where I was looking around at the carnage saying, "What do I do NOW?"
I think my biggest mistake (oh and I've made so many) was not looking ahead at what the ripple effect of my individual actions would be. Not looking far enough ahead and seeing only the one moment of chaos and crisis.
*see below, Note 1
A second mistake was in that I was so bewildered by the man my husband had become that any of my automatic expectations about his reactions, fed by past experience, were always wrong. I thought he would be honorable, honest, and do the right thing because that was how he'd always been. I thought he'd be thoughtful and devoted to open minded cooperation, giving benefit of doubt. He was no longer that man though, and that was, and remains so, the hardest thing for me accept, understand and remember.
So I left my house, moved into my own apartment; having decided that I could no longer continue to let my kids slink around in that volatile tense frightening confusing environment; thinking that soon we would finalize everything, that soon my kids, age 11 and 13 then, would be out of school and we'd sell the house and share the parenting from two different homes; thinking that physical separation would ease the palpable tension, thinking that I didn't want to pull my kids from their bedrooms, their pets, their routines and small comforts when there was just a couple of weeks left of school anyway, thinking it would be ok.
I was wrong.
That wrongness? That slap in the face wrongness of it all was shattering. I found myself financially broke - more than you might ever imagine and more than I could explain - with no legal representation and no means to gain any, with a bitter angry vindictive man holding my children hostage from me and asking me to jump through hoops of power plays and control with rules that changed randomly. Things did what they'd come to do: they got worse.
I was told that I wasn't worth anything, that I'd abandoned my children, bailed out, jumped ship. I was told I didn't have any rights. I was threatened with legal and police action if I argued about when I could have the kids or when I had to return them. I so desperately wanted to keep my kids out of the mess, out of the middle, away from the conflict. Desperate enough that I was easily manipulated. When threatened with police intervention if I didn't return my kids to my husband and the house I once lived in at a specific time (no, there was not any court order but I was trying to establish a cooperative flexible non-legal precedent that didn't scar the kids) I returned them because the thought of police showing up and frightening my kids went against everything I was trying for.
*See below: Note 2
Broke, broken down, defeated, harrassed and still under my husbands constant demand and orders in spite of not living together, still trying to meet those demands and orders, overwhelmed by loss and grief (I lost my marraige, my husband, my community, my church family, my life as I knew it, my role as a parent, my home...), tortured by missing my children and by seeing their own grief and confusion and wanting to help them understand while not hurting their love and respect for their daddy, I found myself holding onto that proverbial last straw.
I filed for divorce in March 2009. I moved into my own apartment just 3 months later in mid-June. A few weeks after that, in July '09 my husband told me that he was taking the kids out of state to visit his family (in spite of the week off I'd taken to be with them - a week off I couldn't afford with no vacation time to use) and that he didn't care if I had taken time off because I didn't matter - and then he handed me HIS proposal for our divorce.
His proposal included the following: he would allow me alternate weekend visits from Saturday to Sunday. He would allow me a midweek dinner visit. He would take my name off the mortgage (quit claim deed) in return for him assuming all the debt associated with our joint credit cards and home equity loan (we were, and are, in tremendous debt). I was not to receive alimony, any percentage of retirement, mutual funds etc but would not have to pay child support. I could have a one week vacation in the summer provided I give adequate notice of such by April of each year. I wasn't to have custody, just visitation.
And that last straw fell. I shattered completely. I was so full of shame, so humiliated, so alone, so 'without', and so beaten down emotionally that I couldn't see anything other than what he showed me: unworthy, replaceable, bad, incompetent, unreliable. My kids were better off without me, he was perfectly fine parenting them on his own, after all, I'd left them behind anyway right?
What do I do now?
Back in March, several people gave me advice. People are good at giving advice when they can go home to their own homes and their own husbands and their own children and leave you and your broken life behind. One person said something that was perhaps the most understanding comment I'd ever heard. She said, "I know what I would do Mia, but you aren't ME and I would never expect you to do what I do because it isn't in your heart. You are different and so you have to do things your own way." I loved her for saying that.
She'd said that back then, before March, but by July, she was no longer willing to be a part of my life in a way that supported me like I needed. Like nearly everyone else, she didn't want to "take sides". No one wanted to "get involved; create an uncomfortable situation; make it awkward". People wanted," to stay neutral; just keep it open and light; to stay connected for the kids sake". In theory, I get it. It's all very PC and grown up and reasonable. But in reality, by not defending me against a force I was unable to defend myself against, I was left defenseless and finally defeated. As had been shown to me over the past few months, I knew that if I called someone and asked what to do they would have grimaced sympathetically, hugged me, wiped my tears, patted my hand, prayed for me or with me, felt very bad for me, but nothing else because, you know, they didn't want to take sides.
*See below: Note 3
So there I was - alone and defeated and at yet another moment when I didn't know what to do next. The more I wondered what to do, the more I wondered why I should even do anything at all. And the more I tried to find a reason for doing anything, the more I felt like there wasn't one.
With all that in my head, and my heart, I chose to - and these are difficult, ugly, painful words to write, words that I can't yet say out loud - kill myself. A suicide attempt - I felt so worthless that suicide seemed to be a valid action.
And I am here today to talk about it.
I am here because I Am Still The Mom.
Love,
Mia
*Note 1: I have learned that a crisis will still be a crisis after a nights sleep, and chaos will remain until it's dealt with - no matter the emotions drowning me, no crisis or chaos I faced back then needed an immediate decision - no bleeding, physical danger, or loss of life was at hand. It felt as important maybe, I don't want to devalue the pain and fear, or the intense desire to fix something with just the right action, but I've learned now to sit on things a little more and a little longer, to try and map out the potential results of an action and weigh those all out to see the variations and their potential results.
*Note 2: hindsight - with good solid parenting, when you already have good communication with your kids, it is worth it to allow some legal or police intervention to establish a record. Nonaction based on fear will undermine every effort in the future.
*Note 3: I don't blame any one person or hold them at fault for or responsible for my life as it was at that time: devoid of support, defense, and validation; but the truth is that no one wanted to get involved in a way that backed me up, no one wanted to stand up to my husband and tell him to stop on my behalf, no one wanted to call him out, lift me up, or step outside themselves to speak up for me when I was speechless. And a year later they still don't. One 'friend' told me just today that whenever she sees my husband she wants to hit him, but she smiles instead and just avoids real eye contact if they speak. Another friend, who remains an anchor even now, validated my circumstances back then when she remarked, "When someone abuses you emotionally, they make you think you are crazy - that's what they do, it's how they work. Hold on to what you know." But it's hard to hold on when the only thing you know isn't honored or believed or validated by anyone outside.
There is more to the story of course - the counseling, the blogging and journaling, the desperate pleas to my pastor and various friends and family (which came only after months of silent shame, fear, confusion, and frantic actions meant to salvage it all) but when it came down to that moment, the one moment when I looked around me and thought, "What do I do NOW?", all I could think of was to file for divorce.
The ensueing 3 months proved that things could always get worse. Well, what had I thought they'd be? Better? No, I don't suppose I believed that things would get better, but I didn't think they'd get worse.
Ultimately, I came to another pivotal moment where I was looking around at the carnage saying, "What do I do NOW?"
I think my biggest mistake (oh and I've made so many) was not looking ahead at what the ripple effect of my individual actions would be. Not looking far enough ahead and seeing only the one moment of chaos and crisis.
*see below, Note 1
A second mistake was in that I was so bewildered by the man my husband had become that any of my automatic expectations about his reactions, fed by past experience, were always wrong. I thought he would be honorable, honest, and do the right thing because that was how he'd always been. I thought he'd be thoughtful and devoted to open minded cooperation, giving benefit of doubt. He was no longer that man though, and that was, and remains so, the hardest thing for me accept, understand and remember.
So I left my house, moved into my own apartment; having decided that I could no longer continue to let my kids slink around in that volatile tense frightening confusing environment; thinking that soon we would finalize everything, that soon my kids, age 11 and 13 then, would be out of school and we'd sell the house and share the parenting from two different homes; thinking that physical separation would ease the palpable tension, thinking that I didn't want to pull my kids from their bedrooms, their pets, their routines and small comforts when there was just a couple of weeks left of school anyway, thinking it would be ok.
I was wrong.
That wrongness? That slap in the face wrongness of it all was shattering. I found myself financially broke - more than you might ever imagine and more than I could explain - with no legal representation and no means to gain any, with a bitter angry vindictive man holding my children hostage from me and asking me to jump through hoops of power plays and control with rules that changed randomly. Things did what they'd come to do: they got worse.
I was told that I wasn't worth anything, that I'd abandoned my children, bailed out, jumped ship. I was told I didn't have any rights. I was threatened with legal and police action if I argued about when I could have the kids or when I had to return them. I so desperately wanted to keep my kids out of the mess, out of the middle, away from the conflict. Desperate enough that I was easily manipulated. When threatened with police intervention if I didn't return my kids to my husband and the house I once lived in at a specific time (no, there was not any court order but I was trying to establish a cooperative flexible non-legal precedent that didn't scar the kids) I returned them because the thought of police showing up and frightening my kids went against everything I was trying for.
*See below: Note 2
Broke, broken down, defeated, harrassed and still under my husbands constant demand and orders in spite of not living together, still trying to meet those demands and orders, overwhelmed by loss and grief (I lost my marraige, my husband, my community, my church family, my life as I knew it, my role as a parent, my home...), tortured by missing my children and by seeing their own grief and confusion and wanting to help them understand while not hurting their love and respect for their daddy, I found myself holding onto that proverbial last straw.
I filed for divorce in March 2009. I moved into my own apartment just 3 months later in mid-June. A few weeks after that, in July '09 my husband told me that he was taking the kids out of state to visit his family (in spite of the week off I'd taken to be with them - a week off I couldn't afford with no vacation time to use) and that he didn't care if I had taken time off because I didn't matter - and then he handed me HIS proposal for our divorce.
His proposal included the following: he would allow me alternate weekend visits from Saturday to Sunday. He would allow me a midweek dinner visit. He would take my name off the mortgage (quit claim deed) in return for him assuming all the debt associated with our joint credit cards and home equity loan (we were, and are, in tremendous debt). I was not to receive alimony, any percentage of retirement, mutual funds etc but would not have to pay child support. I could have a one week vacation in the summer provided I give adequate notice of such by April of each year. I wasn't to have custody, just visitation.
And that last straw fell. I shattered completely. I was so full of shame, so humiliated, so alone, so 'without', and so beaten down emotionally that I couldn't see anything other than what he showed me: unworthy, replaceable, bad, incompetent, unreliable. My kids were better off without me, he was perfectly fine parenting them on his own, after all, I'd left them behind anyway right?
What do I do now?
Back in March, several people gave me advice. People are good at giving advice when they can go home to their own homes and their own husbands and their own children and leave you and your broken life behind. One person said something that was perhaps the most understanding comment I'd ever heard. She said, "I know what I would do Mia, but you aren't ME and I would never expect you to do what I do because it isn't in your heart. You are different and so you have to do things your own way." I loved her for saying that.
She'd said that back then, before March, but by July, she was no longer willing to be a part of my life in a way that supported me like I needed. Like nearly everyone else, she didn't want to "take sides". No one wanted to "get involved; create an uncomfortable situation; make it awkward". People wanted," to stay neutral; just keep it open and light; to stay connected for the kids sake". In theory, I get it. It's all very PC and grown up and reasonable. But in reality, by not defending me against a force I was unable to defend myself against, I was left defenseless and finally defeated. As had been shown to me over the past few months, I knew that if I called someone and asked what to do they would have grimaced sympathetically, hugged me, wiped my tears, patted my hand, prayed for me or with me, felt very bad for me, but nothing else because, you know, they didn't want to take sides.
*See below: Note 3
So there I was - alone and defeated and at yet another moment when I didn't know what to do next. The more I wondered what to do, the more I wondered why I should even do anything at all. And the more I tried to find a reason for doing anything, the more I felt like there wasn't one.
With all that in my head, and my heart, I chose to - and these are difficult, ugly, painful words to write, words that I can't yet say out loud - kill myself. A suicide attempt - I felt so worthless that suicide seemed to be a valid action.
And I am here today to talk about it.
I am here because I Am Still The Mom.
Love,
Mia
*Note 1: I have learned that a crisis will still be a crisis after a nights sleep, and chaos will remain until it's dealt with - no matter the emotions drowning me, no crisis or chaos I faced back then needed an immediate decision - no bleeding, physical danger, or loss of life was at hand. It felt as important maybe, I don't want to devalue the pain and fear, or the intense desire to fix something with just the right action, but I've learned now to sit on things a little more and a little longer, to try and map out the potential results of an action and weigh those all out to see the variations and their potential results.
*Note 2: hindsight - with good solid parenting, when you already have good communication with your kids, it is worth it to allow some legal or police intervention to establish a record. Nonaction based on fear will undermine every effort in the future.
*Note 3: I don't blame any one person or hold them at fault for or responsible for my life as it was at that time: devoid of support, defense, and validation; but the truth is that no one wanted to get involved in a way that backed me up, no one wanted to stand up to my husband and tell him to stop on my behalf, no one wanted to call him out, lift me up, or step outside themselves to speak up for me when I was speechless. And a year later they still don't. One 'friend' told me just today that whenever she sees my husband she wants to hit him, but she smiles instead and just avoids real eye contact if they speak. Another friend, who remains an anchor even now, validated my circumstances back then when she remarked, "When someone abuses you emotionally, they make you think you are crazy - that's what they do, it's how they work. Hold on to what you know." But it's hard to hold on when the only thing you know isn't honored or believed or validated by anyone outside.
Wednesday, August 4
Hope Reigns
I met with my attorney today.
He's representing me for free - I don't have a huge amount of faith in him, because nothing has gone my way even remotely in the past year, but it's better than not having an attorney at all (and I've been without one for some of the process so I know). But today felt a little different.
Several months ago he told me that it was highly unlikely that I'd ever be the primary parent again - nor was it likely I'd have a chance at being considered a 'residential' parent even if part time. My absolute frustration at that was a like a thick simmering bitterness always faintly bubbling under the surface; the main feeling around his statement was pure howling grief.
Now, some level of grief is what I've been feeling daily for the past year. It's what has me always afraid of drowning within it. Yet that moment, as I had to sit there calm and composed and accepting, that howling grief became something that fractured the last tenuous hold I had on the will to keep moving forward. Up until then I'd been broken, but I was still the mom. At that point, I was only broken.
Fortunately for me, I have a couple of truly supportive, encouraging, and listening girlfriends who rescued me with their love, their feirceness, and their anger on my behalf. I also have my writing, an adult daughter who came home to stay with me and remind me that I wasn't done being a mom yet, and the sweetest most loving dog who curls himself around my heart every day and loves it back to life.
I picked myself up, only stopping to howl and grieve and fall apart once in a while in private, and moved forward.
Today I met with him again to discuss some recent issues: my ex's ongoing claim that I am mentally unstable and a threat to my children, his continued lack of regard for the "joint custody" status and the way he decides on medications, ear peircing, and camp enrollment for our kids that he fails to inform me of or tells me about with no notice (hey, the kids are leaving in 4 days for two weeks of camp. period. end of discussion.), and to talk about what comes next while we wait for our next court date.
Our discussion wasn't exactly fruitful, but I think something elemental has changed.
Somehow I've moved, in my attorneys veiwpoint, from some charity pro bono case he got suckered into handling by a "can't say no to me octogenarian who made legal history and is a county wide legend" who took pity on me to a real actual client.
Somehow altered in his eyes from some "very likely crazy incompetent parent who I'm forced into defending by stupid unwritten lawyer code of brotherhood" into a mom who is getting totally shafted by a power and control abusing ex and whose kids are at the heart of it and who really really really wants just one person in power on her side.
I'm not sure what it was: was it all the medical records I gathered and forwarded to him? Was it all the letters of reccommendation from my friends, my doctor, and my adult daughter combined that I handed to him? Was it some discussion he had with my ex's attorney off record maybe? I don't know. All I know is that at some point in our conversation, his words went something along the line of this: "it's a ladder we are climbing and we are starting at the bottom rungs. We have to go up just like everyone else, rung by rung, and we move from more liberal time with your kids until you finally are in a place when your kids ARE WITH YOU full time..."
That's all I can hear now, resonating in my heart... "when your kids are with you full time"...
I have potential. I have hope. I am, yes, I am, still the mom.
Love, Mia
He's representing me for free - I don't have a huge amount of faith in him, because nothing has gone my way even remotely in the past year, but it's better than not having an attorney at all (and I've been without one for some of the process so I know). But today felt a little different.
Several months ago he told me that it was highly unlikely that I'd ever be the primary parent again - nor was it likely I'd have a chance at being considered a 'residential' parent even if part time. My absolute frustration at that was a like a thick simmering bitterness always faintly bubbling under the surface; the main feeling around his statement was pure howling grief.
Now, some level of grief is what I've been feeling daily for the past year. It's what has me always afraid of drowning within it. Yet that moment, as I had to sit there calm and composed and accepting, that howling grief became something that fractured the last tenuous hold I had on the will to keep moving forward. Up until then I'd been broken, but I was still the mom. At that point, I was only broken.
Fortunately for me, I have a couple of truly supportive, encouraging, and listening girlfriends who rescued me with their love, their feirceness, and their anger on my behalf. I also have my writing, an adult daughter who came home to stay with me and remind me that I wasn't done being a mom yet, and the sweetest most loving dog who curls himself around my heart every day and loves it back to life.
I picked myself up, only stopping to howl and grieve and fall apart once in a while in private, and moved forward.
Today I met with him again to discuss some recent issues: my ex's ongoing claim that I am mentally unstable and a threat to my children, his continued lack of regard for the "joint custody" status and the way he decides on medications, ear peircing, and camp enrollment for our kids that he fails to inform me of or tells me about with no notice (hey, the kids are leaving in 4 days for two weeks of camp. period. end of discussion.), and to talk about what comes next while we wait for our next court date.
Our discussion wasn't exactly fruitful, but I think something elemental has changed.
Somehow I've moved, in my attorneys veiwpoint, from some charity pro bono case he got suckered into handling by a "can't say no to me octogenarian who made legal history and is a county wide legend" who took pity on me to a real actual client.
Somehow altered in his eyes from some "very likely crazy incompetent parent who I'm forced into defending by stupid unwritten lawyer code of brotherhood" into a mom who is getting totally shafted by a power and control abusing ex and whose kids are at the heart of it and who really really really wants just one person in power on her side.
I'm not sure what it was: was it all the medical records I gathered and forwarded to him? Was it all the letters of reccommendation from my friends, my doctor, and my adult daughter combined that I handed to him? Was it some discussion he had with my ex's attorney off record maybe? I don't know. All I know is that at some point in our conversation, his words went something along the line of this: "it's a ladder we are climbing and we are starting at the bottom rungs. We have to go up just like everyone else, rung by rung, and we move from more liberal time with your kids until you finally are in a place when your kids ARE WITH YOU full time..."
That's all I can hear now, resonating in my heart... "when your kids are with you full time"...
I have potential. I have hope. I am, yes, I am, still the mom.
Love, Mia
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