Three Thursdays ago, at about 11:30 p.m., I was awakened by the telephone. I rolled over after the second ring, but couldn't get myself out of bed and over to my dresser to answer the phone before it went to voicemail. As soon as the voicemail notification popped up, I listened to the message. It was from my ex-wife, informing me that she had just returned home from the E.R. with our son, but that he was OK.
She went explain that the whole incident occurred when my son got home from football practice and her (irresponsible drunk) husband tried to help him take off his cleats. It seems that her (irresponsible drunk) husband has a device on his leg called an external fixator--this horrible contraption holds his leg together as a result of his recent (irresponsible drunk) trip to the E.R. resulting from him falling off of a curb and shattering his tibia. Anyhow, when my son's foot popped out of his cleat, his leg swung downward, directly into one of the five-inch long rods protruding from the fixator on the leg of his (irresponsible drunk) stepfather. His leg was impaled an inch deep into this awful thing, and he needed six stitches to repair the laceration.
I called her right back but she didn't answer. I called again in the morning to ask how our son was doing, and, while I was relieved to hear that he was recovering, I was furious about what had happened and that she waited several hours to tell me about it. I asked her if her husband was drunk at the time of the incident and, of course, she denied it and got indignant at me for even asking. She then handed off the phone to my son, and I talked to him. He was upset by the incident, but he stood strong and told me he would be right back on his feet, and so he was. He only missed one football game, and was back on the field the next weekend, when I came up to see him play.
So it would seem that everything turned out OK--my son was hurt, but recovered quickly, and seems to bear no mental scars from the incident. He was very lucky to have not severed an artery or developed an infection--this surely could have been much worse. I thought about the incident a lot for the next day or two. Yes, it was an accident, one that I suppose could have happened to anyone. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that this incident was the direct product of living with an irresponsible drunk. The guy had this contraption on his leg in the first place because he fell while drunk. Furthermore, if a clear-headed adult had something like this on his leg, he would be more careful when helping a kid take off his shoes.
I got angrier and angrier just thinking about it. This was it: the crossroads. This was where I had to decide whether or not I was going to make a stand against my ex-wife's denial and deception and protect my kids not only from their (irresponsible drunk) stepfather, but from their (stupid stupid stupid) mother.
The next day I called my attorney, and asked her point blank, "if I can prove that the guy was drunk during this incident, can I get custody?" She didn't guarantee it, but she said that I would have a very strong case. She referred me to a private investigator, and told me that, if I hired him, he would find out "more than you think he will." The P.I. proved her right--he interviewed a couple of neighbors, who confirmed that the guy still drinks malt liquor all day long, is often verbally abusive towards both my ex and the kids, and often passes out in the garage or on the lawn. He also heard from one neighbor that my ex had come over to her house in tears a few months earlier, telling her that she couldn't control her husband's drinking and that she didn't know what to do.
Game, set, and match. The guy is always drunk, and she clearly knows it. I met with my attorney that Friday, right before picking up my kids for the weekend. Two days later, after dropping them off, I went to her office and signed the custody motion. I missed my flight home and got stuck overnight in Boston, but I wasn't even upset about it, because I knew I was doing the right thing.
I only wish that this newfound inner peace would carry me through the present and the immediate future, but there are too many other things eating away at me. First off, my ex wasted no time dumping this on the kids. The very day she got served, during my nightly phone call, my daughter got on the phone and told me, "I don't like the letter you sent to Mommy." At first I didn't know what she meant, so I asked her, and she answered, "You know, you told her that you want me to come stay with you forever. I don't like that." I kept my composure and told her, "I wish Mommy hadn't told you about that. That's really between Mommy and me." I simply can't believe that she would burden a six year old with this sort of information, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything she does anymore.
Second, my current lifestyle continues to fall well short of being satisfying. I've begun counseling with my wife, and think that the therapist is good, but I still don't think that she is ever going to fully accept that she is in control of her own life. My job is proving to be far less interesting or rewarding than I thought it would be, and I find myself daydreaming about doing something else. I am still having trouble socializing and trying to make or retain friends, as I am consumed by anxiety.
Most of all, I have now put my children's futures, and my own, in the hands of the Maine District Court, the same court that refused my plea to remove the (irresponsible drunk) guy from my kids' lives two years ago. Maybe, in light of the new evidence and my far more ambitious request, I will get what I want this time around, but then I worry about whether or not I actually want it. As much as I love my kids, I worry a great deal about the impact of taking them away from their mother and depositing them into a new life just like that. I know people always say that kids are adaptable, but I can't imagine having your whole world altered like that. I suppose that's why I have resisted doing this for the past four years.
But now it's happening. I am reasonably sure that this will end up with one of two scenarios. If I do get custody, I will retrieve the kids and set about adjusting to a new reality. If I don't, then I have to assume that my kids will be staying in Maine until they grow up, and I will most likely go back there again, as much as I hate it there. After this latest incident, I simply can't imagine staying so far away from them, totally unable to help them or be there to protect them from the dangers in their own home.
Either way, my days as the Frequent Father are most likely nearing their end. Just typing these words makes my heart leap. The emptiness, pain, and emotional trauma that I've experienced over the past four years has pushed me to places I'd never been before, and hope to never go again. I know that many long-distance parents make peace with their situations and embrace the fact that their children will love them no matter what. Knowing that there is an irresponsible drunk in my children's home--and that their mother will never do anything about it--I simply have not, and can not come to that sort of acceptance.
I have now proceeded through the crossroads, but am not yet sure which road I'm on. I can't help but think of the so-called "Mixing Bowl" interchange, just a few miles from my house in Northern Virginia, where three interstate highways and several surface streets all come together. As you approach it, a jumble of layered ramps 10 stories tall lead in all directions, disorienting even those who drive through it every day. I have gotten on a ramp, but I don't really know where it will lead or how long it will take to get there. The only certainty is that, once I come out the other side, I will no longer be the Frequent Father, I'll just be Dad.
That's really all I ever hoped to be.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Sunday, September 1, 2013
88,000 miles and idling in the driveway
There haven't been any more frequent father miles added in the past 3+ weeks, but the tickets are already purchased for the next two trips, one in mid-September and one in early November. Six short days spread over two visits--that's all I'm going to get with my kids until Christmas, as this is their mother gets them for Thanksgiving in odd-numbered years. The mere fact that I have already purchased the tickets and made hotel and rental car reservations is a sign of progress. In the past, my anxiety has been such that I haven't been able to commit myself to buying the tickets until it's often too late. The result of my procrastination has typically been that plane tickets get so expensive that I have to do some creative travel gymnastics, like taking overnight buses or trains, or flying back home at 5:45 a.m. on Monday morning. Thankfully there won't be any of those this time around.
As with last August my wife decamped for two weeks in Atlanta with her daughter; they arrive back in Virginia in about two hours. I'm not sure exactly why they need to make this trip. On the surface, it's for my stepdaughter to spend time with her mostly useless father, but all he's able to spare for her is a few hours on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons. Even though my wife has gone as far as to offer him use of our house and car for a few days if he comes to visit here, he has never come up to see his daughter, and I'm sure he never will. When I think of all I do to maintain my relationship with my kids it makes me viscerally angry at the guy for not giving two sheep about his daughter. I guess he'll pay for that when she grows up and hates his guts.
So why is she there if not for that? She says it's so her family can see her daughter, but we were just there for a week two months ago. Then she says it's because her mom and aunt are getting older and sicker, but: 1) they don't seem any different to me; and 2) they could come to visit us here, as they both have all the free time in the world. In truth it's just that, at 39, she still doesn't see herself as a grown-up, because her mother and three older sisters will always treat her as such. She simply can't live her own adult life independent of her family.
She proved that fact in spades during her time away. The first day she was gone, she told me that she had registered a positive pregnancy test. She had already been pregnant twice before since we've been back together, with both ending in miscarriages within 8 weeks. In both instances she had, against my wishes, gone and told her whole family, thus creating expectations. My thinking has always been to not tell anyone until after the first trimester, lest there be an issue. The fact that it had happened twice before, I think, validates my point of view. Anyhow, there it was. She tested positive, I told her not to tell anyone, and she said OK.
A few days later we were talking about it, and she was telling me that she was feeling very tired and nauseous, and was "worried" about what her family would think. I told her that it really wasn't their beeswax, as people are allowed to get sick. I could tell in her voice what was really going on--she had obviously spilled the beans. I asked her about it and she said that, yes, she had told her mother. She then went on to say that she had already told her mother several days earlier, and had lied to me when I had asked her if she had told anyone. Apparently her mother found out before I did; she screamed in the bathroom after testing positive, and her mother asked if she was OK, so she told her the news.
No big deal, right? Her mother inadvertently found out, and that should have been that. But, no, she had to lie to me about where things stood. As I see it, she decided to protect her mother, rather than our marriage. Up until this point I was actually doing OK during my time alone--I was certainly doing better than my two weeks alone last August when I ended up in the ER and almost checked myself into the psych ward. But then, what? My wife had just clearly demonstrated to me that our marriage did not and would never come first to her, that her relationship with her own family would always take precedence.
I have been alone with this thought eating away at me for the past week, and it has sent me back into a depression. Aside from going to work, taking a bike ride with a childhood friend, and my daily phone calls to my kids, I have had no contact with anyone else in the past week. I haven't attempted to make any plans with anyone, and I've mostly just moped around the house. I have spoken very infrequently on the phone to my wife, and have told her that she is on notice--one more lie or betrayal of my trust, and I'll be serving her with divorce papers.
I'm not sure if I mean that or not, but I think I do. I have come to the realization that, for all of my defiance about not wanting to ever go back to Maine, my marriage enables me to go on living away from my kids. Having a house, a wife, a stepdaughter, and an extended family, gives me something to hang on to. During my time alone I have thought a lot about what I would even do if I really did get divorced, and it has become clear that I would have to go back to Maine. If I'm going to be on my own, then why should I pretend that it's OK to be so far from my kids? Part of the reason why we settled on Virginia, as opposed to further north, is that it's an awful lot closer to Atlanta than is Maine.
Oh, and it turned out she wasn't actually pregnant; she had something called a "chemical pregnancy," in which the egg gets fertilized but never implants. When my wife told me this, I asked her, "well, now, don't you feel silly for telling your mother?" She did. I hope her mother didn't start knitting any baby blankets in the intervening week.
So we are going to go see a counselor. I will tell the counselor that I feel like my wife is, and always will be married to her birth family. My wife will tell the counselor that she recognizes that, and that she is going to make some changes. We will get on with our lives, and then the next time her family breathes on her, she will stand at attention, just like always. I know she loves me and part of her wants to truly embrace our marriage, but I just don't think she's capable of drawing real boundaries with her family. At some point I am either going to have to just accept that I love her most of the time, in spite of her shortcomings, or say enough is enough, pack up my life, and start all over again, again.
None of this has much to do with being a long-distance parent, I guess, but it all certainly adds more unwanted stress and drama to my already overstressed and overdramatized existence. At least I am not fixated on my ex-wife for once, which is a good thing. Onward...
As with last August my wife decamped for two weeks in Atlanta with her daughter; they arrive back in Virginia in about two hours. I'm not sure exactly why they need to make this trip. On the surface, it's for my stepdaughter to spend time with her mostly useless father, but all he's able to spare for her is a few hours on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons. Even though my wife has gone as far as to offer him use of our house and car for a few days if he comes to visit here, he has never come up to see his daughter, and I'm sure he never will. When I think of all I do to maintain my relationship with my kids it makes me viscerally angry at the guy for not giving two sheep about his daughter. I guess he'll pay for that when she grows up and hates his guts.
So why is she there if not for that? She says it's so her family can see her daughter, but we were just there for a week two months ago. Then she says it's because her mom and aunt are getting older and sicker, but: 1) they don't seem any different to me; and 2) they could come to visit us here, as they both have all the free time in the world. In truth it's just that, at 39, she still doesn't see herself as a grown-up, because her mother and three older sisters will always treat her as such. She simply can't live her own adult life independent of her family.
She proved that fact in spades during her time away. The first day she was gone, she told me that she had registered a positive pregnancy test. She had already been pregnant twice before since we've been back together, with both ending in miscarriages within 8 weeks. In both instances she had, against my wishes, gone and told her whole family, thus creating expectations. My thinking has always been to not tell anyone until after the first trimester, lest there be an issue. The fact that it had happened twice before, I think, validates my point of view. Anyhow, there it was. She tested positive, I told her not to tell anyone, and she said OK.
A few days later we were talking about it, and she was telling me that she was feeling very tired and nauseous, and was "worried" about what her family would think. I told her that it really wasn't their beeswax, as people are allowed to get sick. I could tell in her voice what was really going on--she had obviously spilled the beans. I asked her about it and she said that, yes, she had told her mother. She then went on to say that she had already told her mother several days earlier, and had lied to me when I had asked her if she had told anyone. Apparently her mother found out before I did; she screamed in the bathroom after testing positive, and her mother asked if she was OK, so she told her the news.
No big deal, right? Her mother inadvertently found out, and that should have been that. But, no, she had to lie to me about where things stood. As I see it, she decided to protect her mother, rather than our marriage. Up until this point I was actually doing OK during my time alone--I was certainly doing better than my two weeks alone last August when I ended up in the ER and almost checked myself into the psych ward. But then, what? My wife had just clearly demonstrated to me that our marriage did not and would never come first to her, that her relationship with her own family would always take precedence.
I have been alone with this thought eating away at me for the past week, and it has sent me back into a depression. Aside from going to work, taking a bike ride with a childhood friend, and my daily phone calls to my kids, I have had no contact with anyone else in the past week. I haven't attempted to make any plans with anyone, and I've mostly just moped around the house. I have spoken very infrequently on the phone to my wife, and have told her that she is on notice--one more lie or betrayal of my trust, and I'll be serving her with divorce papers.
I'm not sure if I mean that or not, but I think I do. I have come to the realization that, for all of my defiance about not wanting to ever go back to Maine, my marriage enables me to go on living away from my kids. Having a house, a wife, a stepdaughter, and an extended family, gives me something to hang on to. During my time alone I have thought a lot about what I would even do if I really did get divorced, and it has become clear that I would have to go back to Maine. If I'm going to be on my own, then why should I pretend that it's OK to be so far from my kids? Part of the reason why we settled on Virginia, as opposed to further north, is that it's an awful lot closer to Atlanta than is Maine.
Oh, and it turned out she wasn't actually pregnant; she had something called a "chemical pregnancy," in which the egg gets fertilized but never implants. When my wife told me this, I asked her, "well, now, don't you feel silly for telling your mother?" She did. I hope her mother didn't start knitting any baby blankets in the intervening week.
So we are going to go see a counselor. I will tell the counselor that I feel like my wife is, and always will be married to her birth family. My wife will tell the counselor that she recognizes that, and that she is going to make some changes. We will get on with our lives, and then the next time her family breathes on her, she will stand at attention, just like always. I know she loves me and part of her wants to truly embrace our marriage, but I just don't think she's capable of drawing real boundaries with her family. At some point I am either going to have to just accept that I love her most of the time, in spite of her shortcomings, or say enough is enough, pack up my life, and start all over again, again.
None of this has much to do with being a long-distance parent, I guess, but it all certainly adds more unwanted stress and drama to my already overstressed and overdramatized existence. At least I am not fixated on my ex-wife for once, which is a good thing. Onward...
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