100,000 Miles: every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

We have reached the end of the road. After nearly five years and precisely 100,000 miles, my days as the Frequent Father are done. My beloved children are now living with me, in my home, 500 miles away from their mother's little insane asylum. One might think that this would be the best news imaginable, that I finally got what I wanted, that I've reached my desired destination. But it turns out that there was another road laying beyond the end of the previous road, and the new road is steeper and more treacherous than I could have imagined.

It all happened on September 11, thirteen years to the day that shattered so many worlds and reshaped my own. I was awoken at 5:00 by my wife, who was six months pregnant and complaining of acute abdominal pain. We feared she may be going into (very) premature labor, so I got dressed and spirited her to the ER. It turned out to be a minor issue resulting from her fibroids, and all was OK. We got home by 9:00 AM and I was able to get some work done, but had to leave at 10:30 for an appointment. Soon after I left the house my wife, still woozy from not sleeping, slipped on our front walk and hit her head on the sidewalk. Fortunately she was OK and didn't have to go back to the ER, but the day was certainly not going well.

Around noontime I was having lunch with a business associate when my phone rang. The caller ID said it was my wife and, given the sort of day she'd been having, I excused myself to answer the phone and prepared for more bad news. It was quite the opposite: my attorney had received the judge's decision, and the children were awarded to me, effective immediately. And...BOOM...that was the moment when everything changed forever. I raced home after lunch, booked a flight to Boston and a rental car, and readied to leave for Maine early the next morning to retrieve my children. Everything was on track.

Unfortunately--and predictably--my ex-wife was not about to take this lying down. She obviously received the news around the same time and thus had several hours of a head start on breaking the news to the children. I had made a commitment to not say anything to the kids during the court case, as I didn't want them to be anxious about it, and their mother was certainly not ever going to give them the impression that they might have to move away, so they were blindsided. I will never know exactly what she said to them, but it's clear that she communicated at least the following: 1) Daddy lied to the judge, 2) Daddy is stealing you away from Mommy, and 3) Mommy is going to get you back very soon.

I got a taste of all of this well-poisoning that evening. I called my ex-wife's house to talk to her about the pickup arrangements the next day. I intended to keep everything perfectly civil and focus on the business at hand, but that was not to be. Instead my son answered the phone and he refused to give it to his mother. He then unleashed a stream of anger and hate at me, full of words and emotions that should never come out of the mouth of a 10-year old. He hung up on me. I called two more times, with the same result. My elation at the news instantly crumbled into guilt. While I knew that I was doing the right thing by getting my kids out of a toxic environment, I realized at that moment just how difficult this change would be for everyone.

The next day was fraught with fear and stupidity. My ex would not answer her phone, and I was unable to confirm with her exactly how and when the exchange would occur. I had to have my attorney communicate with her attorney and, even then, it wasn't clear how things would go. I worried about a violent scene, so I visited the police department when I got to town to explain the situation to them. An officer told me that he was sympathetic, but that he couldn't show up to escort the kids out--the best he could do was to wait around the corner in case of trouble, which he was kind enough to do.

The scene was set. I drove up to the house at 2:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. The kids had not been sent to school that day, so their mother had all day to get them riled up with sadness and hatred. My attorney pulled up 100 feet behind me, close enough to the corner that she could see the police officer and signal him if there was any trouble. The kids' bags were sitting on the sidewalk, but there was nobody in sight, and the shades in the house were pulled shut. I didn't quite know what to do. I then caught a glimpse of my beloved children hiding behind a bush and wasn't sure what to make of it. Were they hoping that I wouldn't see them and would drive away without them? Did their mother put them up to this? Were they just being silly?

I got out of the car and, making sure to not set foot on the property, I called out to them. My daughter peeked out her head and gave a little smile. She trudged over to the car and got in without any objection. My son remained behind the bush and refused to come out. I told him that he needed to come with me, but that he could take a minute if he needed it. After 10 minutes of waiting I was ready to go bang on the door but he eventually came out on his own and got in the car. He remained very angry and wouldn't talk at all during the ride to Boston. My daughter, meanwhile, was as sunny and happy as could be. I had always figured that, if this day ever came, she would be the one who would be crying and screaming. It was a fitting omen for just how unpredictable things have been since that day.

*    *    *

We are now seven weeks into our new reality. The fact that it has taken me this long to have the time and energy to sit down and write about it is a strong indicator of just how difficult the transition has been. The fact that the judge's order came down a week into the school year was a major contributor to the chaos. I had assumed all along that the decision would be made before Labor Day, so the kids could at least have a fresh start to the school year. Instead, they had the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September to start their Fall activities in Maine and start getting into the flow of the school year. And then, suddenly, they were ripped away from their lives and given two days to prepare to start from zero. It was totally unfair to them, and I will always be upset at the judge for dragging his feet for nearly a month before making a decision.

So the kids did start school here in Virginia on the following Monday, and I moved quickly to get my son on a football team and my daughter in a dance class. They needed to have at least some semblance of continuity to ease the transition, and those activities have definitely kept them occupied. Everything else has not been so easy. My son has continued to express anger at being here, though his resistance has waned in the past couple of weeks. His confusion is being fueled by his mother, who used her phone calls in the first few days to reiterate the three lies she told him before letting him go. This, of course, further upset him and led to oppositional behavior from him that I had never before experienced.

The bigger issue with my son is the fact that he is 10 years old, has Asperger's Syndrome, and has never received any support or counseling to help him with his special needs, as his mother is opposed to the mental health profession. Not a day has gone by since he's been here that he didn't have at least one angry--if not violent--outburst directed at me, my wife, my daughter, my stepsister, or another neighborhood kid. The outbursts are almost never justified: they are typically over being told to eat something, over someone not sharing with him, or over some perceived "unfairness" that is usually unfounded. I don't blame him for this, as he was made this way, but I am deeply concerned that it is too late to help him, as his bad habits and fatalism have been encouraged for so long. More troubling is that, like his mother, he is so far incapable of admitting that he has made a mistake or a bad decision. There have been times when multiple kids saw him do something wrong and, instead of admitting it, he claimed that they were all lying. We are trying to get extra services for him to help with his Asperger's issues, but that's not likely to begin for another month or two.

The end result is that the entire household has become captive to my son's explosiveness. My wife and I are always on edge with him. My daughter, who is used to his behaviors, often goes silent and withdraws. This behavior concerns me a great deal, as I behaved the same way as a child when my older brother went off the handle (he was a lot like my son is now). My stepdaughter, who had been an only child for nine years, had gotten resentful and moody, and keeps saying that nobody ever gives her any attention--I don't blame her for feeling that way. We started working with a family counselor soon after my kids arrived, but it will obviously take time for those efforts to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, my wife isn't getting any less pregnant, and the baby will be born in less than five weeks. We are already struggling to keep up with the practical and emotional aspects of having three kids in the house, and I am flipping out over the prospects of adding a newborn baby to this already volatile mix. We have figured out that we simply cannot have both of us working full-time with four kids, but we also can't afford to lose either person's income. I am actively looking for a higher-paying job, and will hopefully find one before my wife would have to go back to work in March, but there is no guarantee of this happening.

In brief, life is rough for everyone in our home these days. I try to comfort myself with the thought that, however things may be here, at least my children's lives are not endangered by living with a raging alcoholic stepfather and a delusional mother.

Things in Maine have actually gotten even worse since my kids left. My ex-mother-in-law's house caught on fire under mysterious circumstances a couple of weeks ago, and I strongly suspect that my ex-wife and her husband orchestrated the fire with the hope of collecting on an insurance settlement. I am thus very happy that my kids aren't living in that environment, but they aren't totally free of it. My ex is actually here in Virginia this weekend (she's a long distance parent now!) and I'm sure she is filling their heads with terrible things. Worse, the kids will be traveling to Maine for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving her (and her drunk husband) plenty of time to do their damage. It is terrible for me to say this, but I think the best thing that could happen for my kids would be for their mother to be convicted of arson and insurance fraud and go to jail for a while. They would be free of her influence, and they would learn an important lesson about the consequences of bad behavior.

*    *    *

 

The Frequent Father is dead. There will be no more nightly phone calls behind the Iron Curtain. There will be no more sleepless nights wondering what the screaming in the background of my phone call was about. There will be no more expensive travel itineraries booked for the sole purpose of watching my children grow up. There will be no more overnight bus rides, nights spent sleeping in rental cars, or long winter days holed up at the Howard Johnson's. There will be no more stares from people wondering why I lugging a car seat through the airport with no child in tow. If all goes as planned, I will never again set foot in the State of Maine. I know the scenery is beautiful and the lobster is delicious, but I do not need to be reminded of all of the years of pain and sadness that I endured in that place. I think I'll vacation elsewhere from now on.

 

Now I'm just plain Daddy, having to do all of the things that any other parent has to do every day to raise children. It isn't exactly normal, as I now have to deal with the long distance parent on the other end of the phone. But, assuming she doesn't go to jail, I have to believe that she will eventually accept reality and move here. When I first met her, she lived 15 minutes away from where I now live, so it's not exactly foreign territory, and she would have no trouble finding a good job here--that's something I never could do in Maine.

 

Seven weeks into this new reality it is very hard to imagine things ever settling down. But I feel a lot better knowing that we've all survived the hardest part. The initial shock has worn off, and each passing day makes things a little less strange for everyone. I am not sure if I will continue to write about my parenting experiences from here on out, as they really aren't going to be that much different from anyone else's. It has been a long journey to this point, and I am frankly amazed to have actually gotten to this point in one piece. The road ahead will not be easy, but it will be different. That alone is worth celebrating.

 

Long live The Frequent Father.

99,000 Miles, headlights pointed at the dawn

It is astounding to me that I haven't posted anything here for more than five months.  I guess I have been afraid to sit down and confront my deepest thoughts and emotions, and have contented myself to bury them under a veneer of moodiness and depression.  I have avoiding writing because I was fully expecting the next entry I wrote to be the last entry on this blog. The court case was supposed to be done in April. In May. In June. In July. In August.  And still...

It would take several entries to recount all that has happened in the intervening months.  I spent two long weekends in Maine, one in late March for my son's 10th birthday, and one in late May for my daughter's dance recital and my son's debut as a starting pitcher in Little League.  I then got the kids in late June and had them with me for most of the summer--I only returned them to Maine eight days ago.  There were many great times had, and a summer full of angst about what would happen, when it might happen, and what I would even say to my kids to explain things. 

Alas, that is a problem I've still yet to have to face.

The custody trial is over, it happened six days ago.  It was the farce I expected.  I went first and told my story.  My ex-wife then took the stand and claimed that, well, she just didn't understand what alcohol abuse was, had no idea that alcoholics lie and deceive people about their drinking, and now recognizes that she was naïve and has learned her lesson.  She went on to say with a straight face that her husband has now been totally sober for eight months, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.

The guardian ad litem (GAL) took the stand and presented his report, which stated very clearly that the drunk guy was still drinking, that my ex wasn't going to keep him away from the kids, and that the kids should come live with me.  He added that, in 20 years as a GAL, he had never felt so strongly about his recommendation.

Then the drunk stepfather actually took the stand.  He looked lobotomized, or at least heavily sedated.  His hands shook during his testimony.  He was incoherent and kept forgetting what he was saying.  His behavior screamed DRY DRUNK. Finally, my ex-wife's brother took the stand--he is sick about what his sister is doing to my kids, and he offered his services.  He is a drug addict with a checkered past, but he was very convincing in presenting his accounts of the alcohol abuse in her house and her refusal to acknowledge the danger.

And then, it was 3:30 PM and both sides rested.  And the judge said that he wasn't going to render a decision and that he was leaving for a two-week vacation in two days and didn't guarantee that he'd have a decision before he left.  The case was specifically added to the August docket as a back-to-school case that needed to be decided before Labor Day.  It was heard on August 18.  He did not rule before he left for vacation.  If he lets it wait until he returns, school will have started and my kids will return to their school in Maine.  The arrogance and laziness of this man is simply shocking.  How can he just leave us all hanging like this when he knows very well what is at stake?

Well, my question doesn't matter, because that is exactly what is happening.  The judge is on vacation, and won't return until after Labor Day.  I've been told that it's possible he will send in his decision while he's away, but he's given no indication of this.  I have literally been in shock for the past week about this turn of events.  I feel completely confused and empty, and have been scarcely able to go to work, eat a decent meal, or sleep at night since returning from Maine.  There isn't even any guarantee that he will render his decision when he returns.  My attorney has told me that she has another case with the same judge that has been hanging on for more than a month without a decision.  I do not understand how a legal system can exist that allows a judge to avoid doing his job with no repercussions.

So now I am sitting here alone with my thoughts on a Sunday afternoon.  My kids are back in Maine.  My stepdaughter is in Atlanta for two weeks with her father, though he's been an useless as ever and she has been bouncing around amongst other family members.  My wife is out shopping for school clothes, leaving me in complete isolation and feeling desperate and hopeless.  I have been having terrible headaches and stomach problems all day, and feel like just going back to sleep, because consciousness is the worst possible thing for me at this stage.

I am burned out with my job, and seriously contemplating leaving it, either to find something that pays more so my wife can quit or just up and leaving it to have time to be with my kids if and when they come here for good.  I didn't mention that we are expecting a baby in December, which would mean four kids in the house, including an infant.  There is no way we can both go on with full-time jobs like we have now, so something is going to have to give.  I am not exaggerating a bit when I say that I am at my breaking point.  I have used up all my strength just to get this far, and don't feel like I have anything else in reserve for the future.  And this is all assuming that the judge rules in my favor and I get my kids.

And if I don't...well, I'm trying not to think about that, but I already know the answer.  We will have no choice but to give up our life in Virginia, such as it is, and go back to Maine.  I have the promise of a steady stream of consulting work from a colleague, so I wouldn't have to be in an office all day, and could be a stay-at-home dad with the new baby and my wife can keep her job, as it's a telecommuting situation.  With the housing cost difference, we could actually get by up there financially.  But I doubt we'd get by in other regards.  We both hate it there--we hate the people, the culture, the weather, the lifestyle, you name it.  The only thing there is my two wonderful children, but I feel that would take precedence over everything else.  I've been away from them for five years, and I am done with this.  No more.

But I have to assume that, in spite of the delay, this ultimately will fall in my direction.  The evidence and the GAL's report are squarely on my side.  To believe my ex-wife requires believing in a whole bunch of fairy tales and coincidences.  My attorney even asked my ex if she knew what Occam's Razor was--she didn't, so it was explained that it is a philosophical principle that, in the absence of a known answer, the simplest explanation should be assumed.  In this case, the simplest explanation for all of the incidents and accidents (and hints and allegations) in my ex-wife's home is the presence of a raging alcoholic.  I think that sums it up very well.

So that's where things stand right now.  My kids are 500 miles away and, as far as they know, they will be going back to their familiar school routine in nine days.  I have every reason to believe that they will be coming here to live very soon, but I have no idea when "very soon" may actually occur.  And when that day does come, I have no idea what I'm going to say to them, nor do I have any faith that I will be able to provide what they need, given my fragile emotional and psychological state.

It is dark right now, so dark that I have a hard time even imagining the dawn coming over the horizon.  But all reason and rationality suggest that the sun will be rising at any moment.  I somehow need to pull myself together before the dawn comes, if it comes.

95,000 Miles, getting ever closer to the end of the tunnel

This installment covers one more trip to Maine and one major step towards the end of my Frequent Father days.  The trip was my best effort at exercising my visitation rights for my kids' February school break; I technically have the right to have them for the whole week, but due to work, life, and financial constraints, I couldn't retrieve them and bring them home, so it was reduced to me coming to Maine for 3.5 days.

I was fortunate to find a 2-bedroom condo on the beach for the same price as a Hampton Inn (love Airbnb.com!), so we had a cozy "home" for the visit and I saved a lot of money by buying groceries and preparing meals in the unit.  The weather even cooperated well enough--one day in late February was warm enough to go down to the ocean, which afforded the very Maine experience of having a snowball fight on the beach.  It was a good time all around.

The trip would have been just an upbeat footnote in the mostly grim annals of the Frequent Father, but for the semi-miraculous turn of events that began on Thursday afternoon, soon after I arrived in Maine.  I had given up on making any progress in my custody case during the trip, and was resigned to having to wait until late March just to have a (stupid, pointless) mediation session and then wait another week for a court-mandated status conference, meaning that the actual final hearing couldn't even be scheduled for another month.

At the time of my arrival, there was still no word from the guardian ad litem (GAL) as to whether or not he (this GAL is a man, acronym notwithstanding) would be filing a report.  Also, there was no word from my attorney as to whether or not she had succeeded in scheduling a private mediation session for the next morning that would still be stupid and pointless, but would at least move things along.  I was tired of waiting for answers, so I called up the GAL, and he was very forthcoming with me.  I won't specify what he said (I don't know if my ex knows about this blog or not!) but he told me that he wasn't ready to deliver his report just yet, as he was still trying to track down medical information about the drunk stepfather.  Then my attorney called back to tell me that she had succeeded in scheduling a mediation for the next morning.  Things were looking up.

The mediation was just as useless as I expected, and my ex (naturally) refused to sit in the same room with me, so the poor mediator had to shuttle back and forth between rooms at her lawyer's office, which wasted time.  We settled nothing, but we did "check the box," so we could proceed.  Both parties then agreed to file a joint status report, thus allowing us to skip the pre-trial conference and paving the way to getting a trial date and moving forward.  It still may not happen until late April or May, but at least we're making progress.

It's been a long road to get to where I am now, and I'm feeling very optimistic about all this.  I'm not thrilled about the upheaval that my kids will need to undergo if they come to live with me, but it's far, far better than the dangerous and toxic environment where they now live.  I am certain that someday, when they are grown, they will thank me for getting them out of that environment.  Their lives are going to be so much better and happier, and so will mine.

There will be at least two more trips to Maine: the annual March birthday trip in two weeks and the final hearing.  And then...I hope I never have to set foot in that state ever again.  Yes, I know it's beautiful and scenic, and the lobster is great, but I've had my fill of Vacationland forever.  There will be one lest goddamned tourist for them to hate.  I'll find my special place somewhere else.

94,000 Miles, stuck at the airport

So here we are, well into 2014, five months after the ER visit that set this round of legal action into motion: nothing has changed, and it looks like nothing will change for several more months.  The GAL has not issued his report yet, in spite of assurances that he would complete his work by the end of January.  He has six more days to deliver, but he could ask for an extension if he feels like it. 

I had been hopeful that he would get his report in, I would get my final court hearing this coming week (before my kids' school vacation), and we'd load up the car and go.  I was actually doing pretty well at getting up in the morning, motivating myself to face the day, and being a productive member of society.  Then, with no fanfare, a notice arrived in the mail last week stating that there was a "mediation hearing" scheduled for late March and a "pre-trial/status conference" scheduled another week after that.

That one piece of information knocked me right off course.  The judge had ordered back in December that there would be a mediation hearing within 75 days of the appointment of the GAL; that date would come in mid-February.  At the time, my attorney assured me that we would be able to bypass mediation and get a final hearing scheduled for that same day.  It seemed simple: the GAL will present his report, testify about it, and the judge will make a decision.  But now I'm getting a completely different story.  Apparently the court can just ignore its own order to delay this for no good reason.

I asked my attorney to estimate, based on the new scheduling, when I could expect to actually have a final hearing at which custody could be switched, and she wouldn't say, but she didn't dispute my assertion that it wouldn't happen until May.  Worse, she denied telling me that the whole thing should have been done this month, and when I challenged her on it, she slipped into lawyer-speak: "well, I'm sorry if you got that impression.  I don't recall ever saying anything like that."  She is a good lawyer, but she still has a vested interest in stringing this thing out: after all, each hearing is another $1,000 for her.  She says she will try to schedule a private mediation with my ex's attorney, but even that will only save a couple of weeks.

So now, in a best case scenario, it will be sometime in April before any decisions are made.  In the meantime, another school year has been lost, and my kids are one year deeper into the abyss that is their mother's world.  The isolation, paranoia, narcissism, over-attachment, and tolerance of bad behavior that she displays has had one more year to seep into their souls, making it that much harder to undo the damage.  The separation has gone on for another year, leaving me only tied to them by a phone call each night for weeks on end during the long, dark winter.  I grudgingly made my arrangements for another long weekend over the President's Day holiday that will be spent holed up in a hotel room in Maine. I had convinced myself that there would never be another weekend like that, and signing up for at least one more is a stab to my heart.

I had a reminder yesterday of just how long things have gone on like this.  I was watching the 2014 Winter Olympics, and remembered the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, when I was hunkered down in a sparsely furnished apartment in Maine without TV service.  As a result, I missed the now-legendary U.S.-Canada gold medal hockey game.  Now that the 2014 Olympics are underway, it's been a full four-year cycle spent living like this.  When it started my son was in Kindergarten and my daughter was just barely two years old.  Now he is about to turn 10, and she is well into first grade.  So much time has passed, they have grown so much, and I have experienced so little of it.  Even if they eventually do come to live with me, I will always feel a deep sense of loss for the years of their childhoods that I did not get to share with them.

There is a certain feeling that has been coursing through my body each day since the court scheduling notice arrived last week.  It is a feeling that I have come to know too well, but can't really explain it.  It's a sensation of emptiness and coldness, tightness in the chest, detachment, and confusion.  It is not something that I ever felt before moving away from my children, so it's not just depression.  I have come to realize that is something far deeper, something that can only come from losing something you love.

I love my children more than I ever thought I could love anything.  I know it is still quite likely that they will be living with me soon, but, until that day comes, I am just left with one day after another to feel the cumulative effects of being separated from them for so long.  For now, I don't even know what the GAL will say, when my real day in court will come, or what will be decided.  Until all of those things happen I am just going to continue to feel like I do right now. 

It is a terrible way to be living--stumbling through life in a fog and wishing days away just to get out of this darkness.  I am 40 years old now and have wished away enough days--days that I won't be getting back.  This period of my life has been reduced to simple survival.  I don't know how many days or weeks it will take until anything changes, but I am fully aware that I am going to continue to walk around feeling terrible every day until then.

I don't even want to think about what I will feel if the court does not agree with me and my kids are allowed to stay put.  I am not OK with that and probably never would be.  I know that it's not a likely outcome at this point, and I am trying not to think about it, but the possibility definitely exists.  I have had so few things go my way over the course of my adult life, so I should be used to disappointment.  But if ever the time was right for the karma to even out, this is it.  I have suffered enough.  My kids have been poisoned enough.  The world may not be fair, but I'm not asking for fairness.  Life has already been so unfair to me--I'm just asking for a little less unfairness.

94,000 Miles

Well, it's 2014, and I'm still waiting for the verdict that will determine my children's future.  The court hearing in December began with the judge saying that she wanted to appoint a guardian ad litem (or GAL in legal-speak) to investigate the case, but that she was willing to hear our testimony just for kicks.  So I got to take the stand, where I related my story to the court, telling the judge (100% truthfully) that I had only brought this action as a last resort after my ex-wife refused to do anything to protect our kids from the dangerous drunk living in their home.  I fielded the predictable accusations from her attorney of being a bully and a meanie, and then asked him if he would be concerned if his child had been sent to the ER.  He was speechless.

My ex, as she will do, proceeded to steal the show.  Without any emotion whatsoever she admitted that her husband still consumed alcohol on a regular basis (in direct contradiction to her prior statements and countermotion), but that--get this--was engaging in a NIH-sanctioned practice known as "low-risk drinking."*  She did not acknowledge at any time that his drinking was dangerous in any way to our kids.  She then talked about how she "lived in fear" of my harassment, namely my "constant threats" of taking her to court.  For the record, I haven't threatened to take her to court; rather I have actually taken her to court when she demonstrated that she would never shield our kids from a drunk.

*I researched this after the hearing, and low-risk drinking is a regimen aimed at preventing casual drinkers from becoming alcoholics.  It consists simply of limiting yourself to no more than four drinks** in a day or 14 in a week.

**One "drink" is equivalent to eight ounces of regular-strength beer.  Her husband favors 40-ounce malt liquor, which is equivalent to six drinks.  If he even has one of these in a day, he's over the "low-risk" threshold, and I'm quite certain he has at least 2-3 per day.

Anyhow, after all of this, the judge did what she said she would do, and appointed a GAL, the same one who had investigated our case three years earlier.  The GAL was hired (costing me nearly $3,000) and he traveled to Virginia during Christmas break, so he could observe what life was like in my home for my kids.  The GAL's visit couldn't have gone any better.  It was a warm sunny day, and my kids were outside playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, looking like happy, well-adjusted kids who would do just fine if they lived here.  My mom even came over and make cake pops, so the playing was followed by a stream of neighborhood kids coming into our house to enjoy them.

More importantly, I had about an hour to drive him around and show him the local area, then drive him to his hotel.  During this time he told me candidly that my ex-wife had filed for divorce from her husband, but that he thought that was a stunt, and that she would likely keep him in her life no matter what a legal document would say.  He then asked me to tell him what sort of visitation I would want her to have if I had primary residential rights.  I told him that I wanted her to be in the kids' lives, as it would be good for them, but that I would want her to go through a parenting class and counseling before she would be granted regular visitation.  He nodded and said that seemed fair.

In short, I came away from his visit believing that he was ready to grant my request.  I'm not counting chickens yet, but the questions he asked and the things he said all pointed to him being appalled at my ex's pattern of denial and irresponsibility, and ready to remove the kids from her home.

*        *        *

The rest of the visit was as it ever was--a lot of fun in a very small amount of time, followed by a long day of travel and a hasty goodbye.  I did not and have not told my kids about what is going on, but I sense that they are aware of what could happen, and they seem to be embracing that my home is their home too.  They have each taken ownership of their rooms here and, more importantly, my daughter did not cry even once for her mommy during the visit, which is a first.

And now all I can do is wait.  The GAL is set to complete his report in the next 30 days, and a court hearing will be scheduled immediately thereafter.  In theory, my kids could be living here with me by the time Spring begins, but it could also be delayed or--worse yet--the judge could rule that my ex has done enough by removing the drunk and divorcing him, so the kids can stay with her.  In any case, it's been a terrible struggle for me to continue to go about my daily business under these conditions, with so much up in the air. 

I have been afraid to sit down at my computer and write about all of these goings, because it's just been easier to not think about it.  But, really, it's all I can think about, as nothing matters to me more than my children's safety and well-being.  I am hoping that my next entry will herald the end of my Frequent Father days, but I am not letting myself believe that, at least not until the GAL report has been issued.  There will be plenty to digest and dissect at that point.

91,000 Miles

Another 1,000 miles have been added to the frequentfatherometer, and it seemed like just another routine three-day weekend.  My wife and stepdaughter came along this time, so it was five of us crammed into a hotel room, enjoying the free buffet, the indoor pool, running around on the beach in spite of the cold weather, and even a jaunt down to Boston for the afternoon.  It was, as always, wonderful to have some time with my kids, but sad to say goodbye to them for a while.  The difference this time was the thing in the air, the thing we can't discuss, the specter that is haunting everyone.

The custody case.

It's been 2.5 weeks since the prior hearing, and it will be another 2.5 weeks until the next (and hopefully final) one.  I have hit new lows emotionally and mentally during this period, often unable to work, think, speak, or be around other people.  My nightly phone calls with my kids have been a burden, as I am so depressed I can barely converse with them.  In short, I am paralyzed by the way things are, and am absolutely frightened at the prospect of being told "no thanks" by the judge.

I am trying my best not to think about that potential outcome, but I can't.  I know it is very possible that the court will conclude that removing the alcoholic from the home will take care of the problem, and then give my ex one more chance to prove that she can be a responsible parent.  It's equally possible that the judge will conclude that she needs to know more about me and my lifestyle before transferring custody, which would mean appointing a guardian ad litem who would then spend several months and several thousand dollars investigating my life.  That may be the worst outcome of all: more waiting and more money that I don't have.

Being back in Maine for three days was harder than ever.  First off, I hate November in Maine--the trees are barren, the sun goes down before 5:00, and the permanent midnight of the Maine winter is beginning to set in.  Second, I felt myself feeling like telling my kids what I was doing and why I was doing it, but I know that I can't put them in the middle of this.  Finally, and most importantly, I found myself looking around, knowing in my heart that, if the judge says they have to stay where they are, I will have no choice but to come back to this place, where everything reminds me of failure, of the nine years of my life that I wasted there, of the stupid decisions that led me there.

In 16 days I will be back in the courtroom again.  I get three hours to prove to this judge that my kids need to be with me.  Those three hours will, for better or worse, permanently alter the course of my life and my kids' lives.  As much as I want that day to come, I dread it as well.  Either way, it is going to be a momentous day, one that will replay in my mind for the rest of my life.  I am in no way ready for it, but really, how could I be?

90,000 Miles

I'll get the good news out of the way.  I went to court two days ago and the judge ordered the irresponsible drunk stepfather out of the house by 4:00 p.m. the next day.  Now he is presumably gone, and my kids will no longer be in danger from his presence.  I have shared this news with many people--my wife, my mother, other friends and family members--and they all have told me that this is "great" or "wonderful" or that I should be "happy" about it.  Instead, I have really never felt worse in my entire life that I do today.  Let's consider.

My son went to the E.R. 56 days ago.
I hired a P.I. three days later.
The P.I. documented the continuing alcohol abuse in the house within a week.
I hired an attorney and she prepared an emergency custody motion within two days.
It took a week to serve my ex-wife, get her to acknowledge service, and file the motion at the court.
It took more than two weeks just to hear from the court as to whether or not they would grant an emergency hearing.
They granted the hearing, but set it for another three weeks down the road.
The hearing was limited to 90 minutes, and the judge was 15 minutes late, leaving just 75 minutes.
The first witness--my ex's neighbor--wasted half the hearing with a bad amnesia act that caused the judge to warn her about perjury, and most of the rest of the time was taken up by the P.I. telling the court what she had actually said to him a few weeks earlier.
The judge concluded that there was no doubt that the stepfather was still abusing alcohol on the property, and asked the attorneys to come to her chambers to discuss how to remove him from the property
They remained in chambers for the rest of the 75 minutes.
When they came out, the judge ordered my ex to obtain a "criminal trespassing order" that bars her own husband from being on her property.  The judge also warned her that the court would hold her responsible for making sure that the guy stayed gone.
The judge set a date for the continuation of the hearing...36 days later.
And....scene.

So there it was--my day in court.  I spent hundreds of dollars on plane tickets for myself and my wife, a rental car, and meals (we thankfully stayed with a friend for free), thousands of dollars on a P.I. and an attorney, got dressed up, planned what I would say and do, and then all I did was sit there and do nothing, while the above kabuki act played out before my eyes.

Now it's going to be another five weeks of waiting, waiting, waiting, and waiting.  My next visit with my kids will pass next weekend (yes, another trip to Maine), another Thanksgiving will go by without them, as my ex gets them for odd-numbered years, and then I'm supposed to get an actual three-hour hearing, at which my children's future will ostensibly be decided.  In the meantime I have to wonder whether or not my ex will actually take the court order seriously this time and keep her drunk husband out of the picture.  I have no faith that she will do this, so I have told several of her neighbors what has happened and that they need to call me and/or the police if they see him hanging around.  I also don't know what she's going to tell the kids--I'm sure she will say something like "Your daddy is mean and made him leave."  It wouldn't be the first time.

I got back to Virginia late last night, and slept for 12 hours.  I know I should be at least a little bit happy about removing the drunk from my kids' home, and maybe even from seeing my ex in tears afterwards--she finally got a consequence for her bad behavior!  But I'm not--I'm just paralyzed with fear, exasperation, and anxiety, and just want to sit in a dark room by myself.  The nightmare isn't over and, given the ridiculousness of the family courts in Maine, I still have no faith that anything is really going to change in 35 days.

My ex's attorney will argue that it will be too traumatic to remove the kids from their mother and their community, and that there is no threat to them with the stepfather gone.  He will make me out to be the big bad wolf, trying to steal the kids from their loving mother.  He will impugn my character and accuse me of stalking and harassing her, and I am going to have to try my best to not scream at him.  It's not going to be a lot of fun, and I am already sick to my stomach about it.

Worst of all, I have the next 35 days and nights to ponder what may happen, and think myself sick with the horrible possibilities.  I just want to rip off the bandage already--I am tired of slowly tearing at it day after day.  I know it's going to be bad, because I really don't feel any better after spending the past hour writing all this.  I almost always feel better after writing, but it's just not happening this time.

More to come.

89,000 Miles, approaching the Mixing Bowl

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.

74,000 Miles

My ex-wife had a running joke in her family that dates back to when her oldest brother, who is now 41 years old, procrastinated on a middle school book report and was forced to write a last minute essay about a work of fiction that was so fictional that it didn't even exist.  Amazingly, his act of creative academic malfeasance resulted in him getting an A.  Three years later his younger brother wrote a book report about the same phantom novel and also got an A.  Another three years on, their little sister followed suit with the same results.  The (nonexistent) book in question was called "All is Quiet Now," written by the great (nonexistent) author Estelle Pendleton.

I think of that moment tonight for a variety of reasons:

• It's a funny story that can't help but stick with me
• It's a reminder that she actually did once have a close relationship with her siblings
• It illustrates how far back her ease with telling lies goes
• It really illustrates how much she and her family have always believed themselves to be smarter than those around them and thumbed their collective noses at authority
• The author's first name was the same as their grandmother's, who recently passed away
• It proves that the teachers and schools in their little town have always more than a few books short of a library, both literally and figuratively
• Most of all, in my house, all is very, very quiet now.

It's been 16 days since I took my kids back to Maine.  Though I was sad to drop them off at the end of six great weeks together it somehow didn't feel quite as awful this time as it did every other time before.  In the past, the car ride from the airport back to my ex-wife's house (as if she would pick them up!) was always a funeral march, with my soul filling with anger and sadness until the tears inevitably sloshed out of me around the time I had to say goodbye to my kids.  This time it was a goodbye party--we joked and laughed all the way.  After kissing them each one last time and bidding them farewell I actually felt at peace, and drove off with a clear mind.

I have to believe that the tighter bond we forged with each other during the summer had at least something to do with the difference in everyone's mood.  My kids had been an integral part of my new life and home for an extended period of time, and they both enjoyed it.  I got to feel like a real parent, and not just a "frequent father," and felt secure in the knowledge that next summer would be the same way.  I wasn't worried about the trip back to Virginia, the two months until I would visit Maine again, or the thousands of miles that I'd be traveling over the next 10.5 months just to maintain a relationship with my kids.  All of my anxieties drifted away in that moment, and smiled as I drove off.

The positive feeling lasted for a few days, as if I had just visited a particularly skilled acupuncturist, and the tingly feling lasted longer than usual.  The intervening two weeks have not been quite so kind.  I came back to my job, which has quickly become tedious and unfulfilling, and I've been having trouble motivating myself to do much of anything.  I took a quick trip to Arizona with my wife, ostensibly for us to have a brief getaway, but really to help my mom and aunt figure out what to do with my 93 year old grandmother, who is rapidly descending into dementia.  My ex's phone went out for two days and, since she refused to get a cell phone, I ended up having to call the cops to do a welfare check (they were fine).  Finally, my wife and stepdaughter have been in Atlanta for the past 10 days--it was supposed to be my stepdaughter's time with her dad but, to nobody's surprise, the bum has only seen her for one afternoon so far.

And, thus, all is quiet now.  I've been largely alone with my thoughts for 10 days.  I work in an office with just one other person and we spend much of our collective day at our respective computers, with little occasion to socialize with each other.  I come home to a dark, empty house and have to motivate myself to do more than slump on the couch.  In between I have forced myself to stay active and busy by playing soccer, riding my bike, and even going to the movies with a high school friend.  All of it has been a largely unsuccessful exercise in not dwelling on my situation and getting on with my life.

I have determined that the only way I'm going to keep going in the right direction is to find a career path that engages and motivates me.  My job is paying the bills, but I come home each night drained and tired, and feeling like I'm just treading water.  If my life at home was in good order, any old job would suffice, and I'd find a way to keep going.  But I need more--if I don't find some meaning in my work I will undoubtedly fall back into a depression. 

There will be many more miles to travel in the coming months.  I am hopeful that I will find my way professionally soon, so that I have the strength and energy that I need to soldier on as the Frequent Father.

73,000 Miles*

*This post's title comes with a disclaimer: I've actually traveled a whole lot more than 1,000 miles since my last  post, but I made the executive decision to only count the miles traveled for the express purpose of seeing/retreiving my children from their permanent home in Maine.  I ventured north to pick them up in late June and have had them in my possession for the past four weeks.

Foremost among the many realizations I have had over the past month is that, at long last, I have finally embraced the idea that my children would be every bit as content living with me as I would be having them.  They have been staying in my new home in Northern Virginia for the past months and they have given absolutely no indication that they are unhappy, miserable, or otherwise homesick for the pathetic excuse of a life that their mother has crafted for them back in Maine.

I'm not going to lie and claim that everything has been easy or free of stress--instead of just one relatively normal six year old, we've instead got three rambunctious kids, including one with Asperger's Disorder.  However, what started out as a frightening proposition has, after a month, turned into a semblance of normalcy.  During the week the kids to go day camp and my wife and I each do our jobs.  At night we find enough time to play board games, have picnics, or watch movies in the basement, and weekends have been filled with fun times.  This weekend alone we had a sleepover with my mom, went to a Washington Nationals game, had a movie night, invited over another family for a playdate, went to the American Indian Museum, and had dinner at a great Cuban restaurant.

In brief, our makeshift Brady Bunch has become a family, and a small part of me couldn't be happier.  I have finally managed to turn the dead-end existence that I had in Maine into a rewarding life in a great city, with a decent job, good friends, a loving wife, and hope for a future.  When I still lived with my first wife I had given up on having much of a life for myself, as we were staying in Maine no matter what, and there were few joys in my world apart from time spent with my children.  I have come to realize that, no matter how a great a parent a person is, fulfillment from one's children is not, and indeed should never be, enough.

For the first several years of my kids' lives, I was little more than Daddy to them.  There was so little to my life that I wasn't able to show them any more than the part of me that fed them, changed their diapers, drove them places, and cuddled with them.  By contrast they saw all there was to see of their mother, who is and always has been a homebody, and so they grew close to her, they pined for her, they sent the message that they could never be away from their beloved Mommy. 

Last year when they spent two weeks with me in my then-home in Atlanta, I never got the feeling that they felt at home, and my daughter in particular frequently whined for Mommy.  But not this time.  This time, they are seeing more and more of the person that I was before I met their mother, and I feel them growing nearer to me and I to them with each day they spend in my care.  I see that they are having a fun and fulfilling experience being here, knowing that each day will bring another exciting adventure.  I hear their laughter and feel their hugs and, most importantly, never have to endure them whining for their mother.

And then, 13 days from now, it will all suddenly come crashing down, and they will go back to the life that they don't even seem to miss.

I know it's not so simple for them.  I have heard both of my kids express in their divergent ways that they wish I could come back and live with Mommy and we could be a family again.  Since I didn't live through a divorce as a child I can't possibly understand this, but they apparently can say this without thought of the fact that both of their parents have remarried.  They don't take the next leap of logic to see that they would have to say goodbye to their new stepfamilies. In my case, my daughter would have to part ways with her stepsister, with whom she has grown inseparable.  But to a small child who has had to endure the unspeakable tragedy of having his or her parents split up, the collateral damage of splitting up two other families to put theirs back together is of no consequence.

I don't have it in me to tell them that their dream of having me come back to Maine and move back in with Mommy isn't going to happen.  I have moved on and, seemingly, moved up.  My thoughts of dropping everythng and going back to at least live near them have dissipated; now it's my wife who talks of doing this, as she worries (with good reason) about the effects on her daughter of not living near her beloved stepsister.  She talks of us moving there, making a simple court filing, and Presto...I would have joint custody of my kids, and they'd live with us 50% of the time.  I tell her that it's not so simple, that doing so would involve a nasty, expensive, and possibly even unsuccessful court battle, a battle that I am in no way capable of fighting right now.

So the clock ticks on, and in two weeks I will be sitting here on my computer on another Sunday night, pounding out my despair and emptiness into my next entry, pondering the good times that I had with my kids over the preceding six weeks, but lamenting the emptiness of the 46 weeks that follow.  I know it's coming, and I'm steeling myself for it by staying up late writing this entry while drinking wine and blasting a long-lost favorite record ("Gish" by the Smashing Pumpkins).

I'm preparing to have many more nights like this over the next 12 years, if not longer.  But I am no longer afraid to let myself daydream about the possibility of my kids living under my roof, whether due to their mother's poor judgment, a future tragedy, or even their own choice at an older age.  I love them.  They love me.  They don't need their mother any more than they need me, and now they know it.  If I have to suffer through the rest of their childhoods as the Frequent Father, then I will, but I'm finally ready to embrace the idea of being their primary parent.

69,000-72,000 Miles

I started this post six weeks ago with the odometer at 69,000 miles.

"Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht," said my 93-year old grandmother to me no fewer than five times yesterday.  While her short-term memory loss causes her to forget what she just said moments earlier, her mind is still there, and her Old World wisdom survives.  The saying translates as "Man plans, God laughs," and she kept repeating it as we sat in Room 4D23 of Shady Grove Hospital while my dying father lay sleeping in bed a few feet away.

It is the saddest thing I've ever witnessed to see my own father, lying motionless with an IV plug in his arm, oxygen tubes in his nose, a catheter bag hanging from the bedside, and, as of yesterday, a feeding tube in his stomach.  I studied him, his eyes opening and closing, and wondered what motivates him to keep breathing.  Is he hopeful that all of the tubes will be removed and he will stand up and walk out of the hospital?  I hope not, because that's not going to happen.  The bacterial infection that sent him to the hospital 10 days ago is gone now, but his body was so weakened by its effects that he can't swallow, sit up, move his arms or legs, or even talk.  Even if he does regain his strength, the wasting disease that has already stolen his old age has been advancing and was likely going to kill him off by the end of the year remains, meaning that he'll have to spend many weeks in a rehab center just to re-learn all of the basic motor skills that his body has forgotten.

Last night, after my mom and grandmother left, I spent a couple of hours alone at the hospital with my dad.  He would try to speak, then stop, then close his eyes, then, open them to look at me, then try to speak again, then drift off again, and so forth.  Every time his eyes shut I felt myself hoping that they would not again open, that he would not have to go on suffering as a prisoner in his own body.

That's as far as I got that night.  I was exhausted and had to get to sleep to go to work in the morning.  I'll pick up the story here.

My dad died two weeks later.  The last 14 days of his life passed exactly as I hoped they wouldn't, with him in and out of consciousness, his fever up and down, his breathing uneven, his speech all but nonexistent.  I spent endless hours by his bedside, first at Shady Grove Hospital and then, at the very end, after the community hospital had finally thrown up its hands, in the care of the best doctors available at Georgetown University Hospital.  He was brave through it all, facing his untimely death at 68 years old with grace and without fear.  I won't say any more about it now, as there will have to be a whole post on another day about the complex emotions of saying a long goodbye to a deeply flawed but ultimately decent man with whom I never really developed a true father-son relationship.

The intervening six weeks have been a time of constant motion, transition, and upheaval that have left me on the first steps along a new path, but unsure of where the path will lead and even less sure of how I will find the strength to continue walking.  In that time I have traveled to and from Atlanta twice, once to pack and once to drive the moving truck, and to and from Maine to be present for my daughter's first dance recital.  In just ten more days I will travel back to Maine to retrieve my kids for my six-week summer visitation--their first extended time in my world since I left their home three years ago.

And so I find myself here in a new life, a life I'm just learning how to live.  My wife, stepdaughter and I are living in a rented townhouse in Northern Virginia, 20 miles from where I grew up, but a world apart from it.  I'm commuting to a mostly meaningless job in which I'm running a small nonprofit agency and drawing a respectable paycheck while knowing fully well that this job is just my audition for another job that won't necessarily be in the same city.  I am, as my father pointed out at the end of his life, now the de facto head of the family, since my mother will defer to me and my brother simply doesn't care.  So now at 38 I am the breadwinner, the wise man, the head of the household, and the boss, but my children still live 500 miles away, making all of the above somehow feel empty.

While I am aware that the six weeks I'm about to get with my children will at least temporarily plug the leaks in my psyche, I have no reason to believe that this brief chunk of the year will in any way compensate for all that I have already lost and continue to lose from my decision to live in Maine and have a family with their mother.  I know we will do a lot of great things and create a veritable photo album of lasting memories, but they won't call my house their home and they'll talk about their family and mean their mother and her louse of a husband, and they'll go back to Maine and resume the lives that will be waiting there for them.  Then for the next 10.5 months the cycle will repeat, and I'll fill up more blog posts with tales of sadness, emptiness, loss, regret, anger, frustration and, on rare occasions, poignancy and humor.  Then they'll come back for another six weeks and the whole process will repeat itself for another 12 years and then their childhoods will be over and I will have missed out of them.

Thinking about the crushing weight of the responsibility of being a father under these circumstances has nudged me ever closer to the point of giving up.  I've come to realize that the only times I've been truly happy over the past three years have been when: 1) I'm with my whole family (wife, kids, stepdaughter), or 2) I'm deeply involved in something else so that I don't think about my kids.  Since I'm not going to ever get  Scenario 1 full-time--barring a tragedy and/or a miracle--I have to exist in Scenario 2 as often as possible in order to soldier on.  By that logic, wouldn't my life be better if I just cut ties with my kids and moved on? Sure I'd be upset, but I could treat it like a death, and train myself to live life without them in it.  I have all but convinced myself that burying my children would be easier than continuing to be the Frequent Father.

My wife has told me that she understands why I'm feeling this way but that I love them too much to actually walk away from my children.  I don't know if she is right or not, but I also don't know how I'm going to find the strength to keep on living this way for another 13 years.  I guess I will just dive into the six weeks that I've got them and then do my best to figure out what it all means after they've gone.

55,700 Miles

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."

--Shakespeare, Macbeth

I'm not often one to quote The Bard, but my day in court yesterday reminded me of nothing but Macbeth's conclusions about life upon his hearing of the queen's death. My central conclusion from yesterday is that courtroom is nothing more than two theatrical performances going on simultaneously (all the world's a stage?) To the judge and the attorneys, the proceedings are mostly scripted comedy-drama, with elements of farce. They recite their well rehearsed legalese and misleading questions, and trade occasional in-jokes with one another. Meanwhile, the Plaintiff and Defendant get to muddle their way through improvised tragedy, with their fates at the mercy of the well dressed and highly paid jesters acting beside them. And to top it off, yesterday's performance certainly had the most anticlimactic ending I've ever seen.

For three hours, the motion that I made to protect my children from the ravages of the dangerous drunk that their mother permits to live with them devolved into a series of truths that could not be told, lies that were left uncontested, and, at the end, an announcement that the decision would be sent by mail at a later date, followed by a bang of the judge's gavel.

I don't have the strength to go into bloody detail, but here are the main points of the trial:
- I testified, mostly on the strength of my own knowledge and of several self-incriminating emails sent to me by my ex-wife, about the long and perilous pattern of alcohol abuse, drunk driving, and cover-ups in her home.
- I was barred from discussing hard evidence of her in the form of police reports, because police reports are considered hearsay unless the officer who wrote the report appears in court to testify.
- Her attorney repeatedly objected to most things that I said and tried to get me off on irrelevant tangents such as whether or not the drunken boyfriend's license was officially suspended on October 9 or October 19 (as if it matters--she still let him drive the kids after his second drunk driving arrest in six months). This was all done to waste time and run out the clock, as he knew that only three hours were alloted for the trial.
- My ex got on the stand and skated on the edge of crying for the better part of an hour as she painted herself as an ideal mother, her boyfriend as a wonderful human being who is trying to conquer his tragic disease of alcoholism, and me as one part sterotypical bumbling father who is overwhelmed at the thought of spending time with his children and one part jealous, jilted ex-lover who is trying to get back at her.
- She spun one tall tale after another: saying with a straight face that she never dreamed that their "maintenance plan" of giving him 64-80 ounces of beer a day could ever be considered alcohol abuse; insisting that last week's domestic dispute, which was described in the police report as her boyfriend yelling and throwing things at her, was really her yelling and screaming to him about how mad she was at ME; and, especially, that her boyfriend had not imbibed a drop of alcohol since going to jail last October, in spite of common sense and ample evidence.
- She refused to accept a condition that another incident of her boyfriend drinking or even getting nabbed for drunk driving would automatically result in him being tossed out of her house, arguing that alcoholics never truly beat their disease, and he could be forgiven for an isolated slip-up.

And then the lawyers chewed up the last 10 minutes of our time discussing who would be paying the other lawyer in the room, the Guardian Ad Litem, and then we were dismissed. The case is now left twisting in the wind for at least several more weeks while the judge takes her sweet time writing up a decision. So all the sound and fury signifies nothing, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, things are in typical SNAFU mode. I am hanging around Maine for two more days (possibly longer if I get held up by Hurricane Irene), and was hoping to spend most of it with my kids. I had previously arranged to get them during the day on Saturday, and then emailed my ex four days ago to see about having them Friday night as well. When she didn't respond, I had no choice but to call her at home two hours after the trial ended. She of course barked at me that I can't just drop a last-minute request on her. I told her that I had informed her days earlier, but she snarled that I know she doesn't check her email much, so, no, I couldn't have the kids Friday night. It's just one more example of how she has no concern at all about what's good for the kids, as they haven't seen me in three weeks.

So that's the way it is. More to come.

54,600 Miles, ready for takeoff

It had to happen sooner or later...a blog entry from the airport. I thus haven't accrued any additional miles, and won't until my plane departs in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is the big day--the court hearing. Nearly nine months after filing my "expedited" motion to modify our divorce judgment, D-Day is finally here. As expected (see previous entry) the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL, for short) concluded that my ex is wacky and delusional, but shouldn't lose the kids because: 1) they are extremely attached to her, and 2) I don't live in the same community where they allegedly have a support network.

Now I will admit that my kids are attached to their mother, but they are also attached to me. She did manage to bamboozle the GAL by convincing him that, because she's still nursing our 4-year old daughter, that our little girl simply can't be away from mommy. Of course she just got done spending 15 full days away from mommy and only cried for her one time after hearing her voice on the phone. I am fully convinced that, at this point, the nursing is 110% about the mother, not the child.

As for the second issue, I don't see why my residence matters. Their mother puts the kids in harm's way every day of their lives by letting an unreformed drunk live with them while their other parent (me) has a safe, secure home. The GAL asserted that the kids have a strong support network in their hometown, specifially citing their grandmother. Never mind, of course, that their grandmother was barred from their lives for more than 6 months last year for suggesting that the drunk should go, and that they see her at most once a month, though she lives two miles away. To me, the point is this: one parent puts them in danger and the other does not. Shouldn't they live with the one who keeps them safe?

Well, anyhow, there may be some hope. Call me obsessive, but for the past 1.5 years I have checked up on the drunk boyfriend by scanning the local police log that gets posted online every two weeks. Time after time there was nothing, and I began to think that maybe he actually is serious about staying out of trouble. And then yesterday I took one last-ditch peek at the current report and, Eureka, there it was--a domestic disturbance last Thursday night, the very day that the GAL report arrives. I still don't know all of the details but it seems that my ex and her boyfriend got in a violent screaming match at 6:30 pm (while the kids were home) and a neighbor called the cops. Though they were dismissed with warnings, there is now hard proof of very current bad things going on in her home. I've gotten my hopes up 100 times before, but doesn't this event at this late date portend something positive for me? Shouldn't it?

So will truth and justice prevail? One can only hope so. There will certainly be no shortage of material for the next entry!

Tune in next time for the conclusion to this cliffhanger.

54,600 Miles

The summer has gone by and The Frequent Father was on the move. 1,100 miles to Maine to get my son, 500 miles to Maryland for two weeks with him, 500 miles back to Maine, 1,100 more back to Georgia. Later, 1,100 miles to Maine to corral both kids, 1,100 miles to Georgia for two weeks with them, and one more 2,200 mile round trip to return them and return myself...so that's 7,600 miles in all. Fortunately, there were plenty of good times to go around. Unfortunately, the drama continues to unfold.

Let's start with the fortunate.

For two whole weeks in late June and early July I had my beloved boy with me every day, with nothing to do except hang out with him and enjoy summer. I picked him up from school on his last day of first grade and took him to my parents' house so we could all spend some time together. I took him swimming every day but two, and by the end of the trip he had transformed from being afraid of the water to being able to swim a whole 25 meter lap by himself. We went running at the high school track each day. I had shown him a video of Usain Bolt running the 100 meter dash in 9.58 seconds, so now my boy wants to train to be the world's fastest man. He is very fast for a 7-year old, and can actually run 100 meters in less than 18 seconds, so he's halfway to his goal!

We also did lots of DC tourist stuff--I took him to the Smithsonian, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and even Mount Vernon. He loves presidential trivia, so Mount Vernon was a great experience for him. The only bad part about the trip is that I had to return him on July 3, so I didn't get to spend Independence Day with him. I spent that day traveling back to Atlanta and preparing to start my new job on July 5. The job has been underwhelming so far, but the paycheck is a wonderful elixir, as is not having to stress out about my work situation for a while. The job is only a contract position, though, so I am still seeking a better opportunity.

The real fun came in Round 2, when I went to work on Friday, flew up to Maine after work, arrived at midnight, hit my favorite late night restaurant in Portland, slept in the rental car, picked up both kids at 5am, and caught the 7am flight to Atlanta. The next two weeks were jam packed. On weekdays when I was at work, my son went to "superhero camp" at the YMCA, and my daughter and stepdaughter stayed home and had "princess camp" while my wife worked in the next room. On weekend days we went swimming, had playdates with their many step-relatives, threw a birthday party for my daughter (she's 4 now) and even took a trip to Six Flags. The three kids (my 2 + stepdaughter) all did mostly well--we stayed 11 hours! It was an exhausting but phenomenal experience to operate like a family for an extended period of time.

But all was not perfect. My son continues to have a number of behavioral issues that I simply can't figure out how to overcome. I feel helpless, as his mother has refused to do anything to correct these problems, suggested that he only has them when he's with me, and concluded that I must not be a good parent if I can't manage my own child. After much wrangling she finally did agree to take him to a counselor, so he hopefully will get some direction. I hate to be cynical but I suspect that she only agreed to this because of the threat of the court case.

Ah, yes, the court case. In nine days I finally get my day in court. The guardian is set to deliver his long delayed report tomorrow, and I'm on pins and needles. On the one hand I am dying to see what he actually says about my ex's inexplicable behavior, to see just how outlandish it seems to an independent expert. On the other hand I fear the report, as I'm 98% certain that he will ultimately conclude that she's wacky and delusional, but that she hasn't done enough to merit losing custody.

Either way, the whole nasty business will be done soon, and I'll figure out how to proceed. In the meantime I have been a ball of stress and uncertainty. One day I swear I'll never set foot in Maine again (I told my wife that I'd rather have my manhood hacked off with a meat cleaver than move back there), and the next I'll seriously ponder applying for a job there. One hour I am frolicking in the swimming pool with my stepdaughter, and the next I am sitting on the couch with my heart aching after my son tells me that he's sad that I couldn't come to his karate belt test. I know that the hearing next week won't put the situation 100% right, but at least it will be done, the new rules will be written, and I can make the necessary decisions about my life and career based on them. I am not holding out hope that my days as the Frequent Father are coming to an end, but I'm not giving up either.

47,000 Miles

Summer vacation is upon us, and I, The Frequent Father, am preparing for what will hopefully be the last summer spent under the dreadful divorce agreement that I signed two years ago. As of now, I get two 14-day blocks with my son (age 7) and one 14-day block with my daughter (age 3.75). I don't get two blocks with her until she's five.

Believe it or not, this was the best compromise I could get out of my ex when we divorced, and I signed it so our marriage could be over and we could avoid a long, messy trial. Her opening offer was that I couldn't even have my daughter with me overnight AT ALL until she turned five, as she was still nursing (and still is at nearly four) and there would be "significant emotional damage" to her if she were away from her mommy for even one night. Don't get me wrong--I am an advocate for the health benefits from nursing beyond infancy, but past a certain point (three years?) it becomes more about the mother than the child.

Anyhow, I'll be spending the next two weeks with my son at my parents' house in Maryland, as it turns out that I have exactly two weeks between the end of his school year and the starting date of my job. Yes, that's right, I have at long last secured a good paying full-time job with a great company in Atlanta, which should be a good thing. Unfortunately, the more I have consiered the implications of having this job, the more uneasy I get.

One the one hand, I will be finally making a good salary for the first time in years, will be able to pay off my credit card debt, and will be able to save money to provide for my kids' futures. On the other hand, I need to be in an office in Atlanta five days a week and can't easily get away to see my kids, and that has made me feel rather depressed. But I've already tried the alternative, taking a crappy job in Maine just to live near them, and that didn't work for me. Even though I was there, I still only saw them 4-5 days each month, and felt like I was trapped in someone else's life for the balance of my days.

So, to sum up, I was miserable living near my kids because my job sucked and I had no life, and I'm miserable where I am with a good job and good life because I'm far from them. My wife, sage that she is, has correctly concluded that the only thing that will truly make me happy is to get my kids full-time. Failing that, I'm going to have to learn to live with the situation, whatever it may be.

And so here's what it is: my wife and stepdaughter came up to Maine for a long (four day) weekend in early June. We rented a two-bedroom unit in a dumpy old motel on the beach and had a fabulous time, but it sort of drove home the fact that, once my job starts, I won't be able to randomly do things like that any longer. The guardian ad litem continues his work, and he actually met up with the whole gang and got to see my kids interact with Daddy's new family, which was undoubtedly positive. I'm leaving for Maine in two days to see both kids, then bring my son to Maryland for the last two weeks I'll have before I start my job. It will be fun, but likely bittersweet, as I won't have my daughter (or my wife or stepdaughter), and it will probably be the last time I ever get to spend two uninterrupted weeks with my beloved child.

Last but not least, is the whole legal morass. The trial has been pushed back until late August so the guardian can finish his work. While I'm glad that he's doing thorough job, the "expedited hearing" I requested last December is going to take nearly nine months to occur. During that time my children have been living in the presence of an unreformed drunk and a delusional mother who, at least publicly, doesn't seem to grasp the danger. I called last night to talk to the kids, and I heard the bum in the background yelling at someone at the top of his voice. I have no ideas what the circumstances were, but I know that my heart sank. I'm still not sure what's going to come of this legal action, but I can't let it ruin my summer. I need to just try to enjoy my time with my kids as much as possible and have faith that everything else will fall into place somehow.

44,800 Miles

I just finished the Boston Marathon during the Patriot's Day holiday, but didn't even wear running shoes. No, my version involved flying from Atlanta to Boston, renting a car, driving to Maine, meeting with the court appointed guardian ad litem, picking up my kids, driving back to Boston, flying back to Atlanta for the week, flying them back to Boston, renting another car, driving them back to Maine, dropping them at their ungrateful mother's house, driving back to Boston, and flying back to Atlanta. I'm not sure what the world record is for frequent fathering, but I've got to at least be sneaking up on it.

The good news? The week in Atlanta with both of my kids made all of the rigamarole worth it. It was the first time that my daughter had come down here, and I finally, at long last, had everyone I love in the same place at the same time. My kids got to feel like they were part of my family and my life, and not just hear about it. Every day was an adventure, full of playdates, sleepovers, family celebrations, fun outings, and all around good times. My son played superheroes with his stepcousin, and my daughter played dress up with her new sister (they don't even say stepsister!) and several girl cousins. We all went to a Braves game together, and when I say all, I mean all--our group was 14 people, of which 8 were kids! It was a beautiful experience that I hope will alter their lives forever.

You see, at home, they don't get any of that. Their mother has essentially no friends, and she's content like that. Other than school and daycare, they never get together with other children or other families. They never go to baseball games or movies or even dinner. Their mother is a hermit and she wants to raise them to be hermits too, but they obviously crave what I offered them last week, as they both were smiling from morning to bedtime every day. I am hopeful that, now that they've seen the life they could have if they were with me, someday they will ask to be part of it.

I realize that courts don't let kids choose where to live, parent-wise, until they are much older than my kids are, but I have to believe that their excitement at being in Atlanta will shine through when they speak with the guardian. Oh yes, he will be meeting with them one on one, and he's been doing this a long time, so he'll know how to get them to talk about things. I don't know if he'll get them to describe the drinking habits of their supposed stepfather, but my daughter has said more than once that he drinks beer, so one never knows.

In the bigger picture, we are now definitely on course for a trial. The guardian has already met with me alone, and with the kids and me (at McDonald's, right before leaving for Boston). He's going to meet with my ex, with her and the kids together, with each kid separately, with my son's teacher and the daycare director, and, most of all, the bum himself. I have to imagine that a seasoned family attorney with more than 10 years' experience as a guardian ad litem will be able to peg the guy on sight. We'll see. Once the guardian renders his report in a next few weeks, his findings will set the stage for a trial--then the real fireworks begin.

In the meantime, my life is as scrambled as ever. I have been out of work for three months, but have four job interviews in the next 10 days. I'm trying to be positive about it, but it's getting harder. I don't know how much time I'll get with my kids this summer, as the divorce agreement is likely to change after the trial...but I don't even know if the trial will happen before the summer. Even if I do get more time granted with them, I don't even know if I can use it, since I'll (hopefully) be working full-time. And then there's the trial itself. Dare I even dream about this whole mess ending in me getting custody of the kids and being able to whisk them away from Maine forever? Do I even really want that for them?

The amazing thing is that, in spite of all of these crushing concerns, I am actually beginning to overcome my depression and feel like I am returning to living a full and meaningful life. I left Maine for good three months ago, but have still gotten to spend substantial quality time with my children in places where I can be myself and they can have access to everything I want to give them. I know that I won't be able to do this forever--I'll either get a job or burn through my savings account--but it's certainly put me in a far better place. In a couple of years, even if they are still living far from me, they'll be able to travel by themselves to where I am. Who knows, maybe when they're grown up they'll pay the ultimate compliment by choosing to live with their father. I can dream...

40,400 Miles

Three more months and nearly 12,000 miles later, I am sitting here in Georgia, preparing myself to not see my son on his seventh birthday. Yes, he turns 7 today, and this is the first time that I won't get to see either of my kids on their birthdays. I didn't send anything in the mail because I fear that his mother would throw it in the trash, and I have no expectation that she will answer the phone when I call tonight to wish him happy birthday. And so, life as the Frequent Father has resumed.

My decision to leave Maine came over winter break, when I spent a week at the beach in Florida with my wife, stepdaughter, and their extended family. Yes, I missed my kids, but I was too busy enjoying life again to dwell on that fact. I reminded myself that, even if I were back in Maine, I still wouldn't be with them, and I would probably be all alone. For the first time I felt like I had a new family and that there could be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Our original plan was to come back to Atlanta from Florida, pack up, and move everyone to Maine for good. I had already quashed that plan, as I told my wife that I hated my job so much that I needed to find something else if I was going to stay up there. Not surprisingly, nothing came of my desperate attempts to find anything better, and I got nothing but pessimism from people. By late January I had had enough. I quit my job, broke my lease (in spite of an empty threat of a lawsuit and pathetic attempts to hang criminal charges on me from my landlord), packed my belongings into my ex-wife's 1996 Corolla (she got the good car in the divorce), and hit the road.

I was sad to be leaving again, this time for good, but it felt different this time. I felt like I had built up a stronger bond with my kids through one more year of being near them. I felt like I truly had given it my all in Maine, and that it simply wasn't possible for me to have a good life there. Most of all, I felt like I could finally live with myself if I didn't see my children for more than a month. We'd figure out ways to love and stay attached to each other.

One thing missing this time is Skype. My ex broke the computer that I gave to her last year and claims that she hasn't got the money to replace it, which is funny, because she has enough money to hire a lawyer to fight me over her boyfriend's presence, not to mention that she can afford to buy him cigarettes and alcohol. Yes, I said alcohol--he is quite obviously still drinking. her own brother called me a couple of weeks ago to report that he actually witnessed the guy in the most stereotypical lush pose ever--guzzling wine from a 1.5 liter bottle then whipping it behind his back when he saw that he was being watched and pretending that nothing was amiss.

There have been some additional minor bumps:
- I sent my kids handmade Valentines last month but they told me they never came (nor did those from my parents or grandmother). My ex insists that they did come and that the kids must be lying.
- My ex "forgot" to tell me that my son was supposed to be in a play at Sunday School last weekend.
- A beer commercial came on the TV and my 3.5 year old daughter exclaimed, "That's beer!" I asked her how she knew that and she said that her alleged stepfather drinks it. Swell.

Anyhow, back to Skype, it is hard to not get to see their faces, and the phone can be a challenge at this age, especially for my daughter. Sometimes she won't talk at all. Other times she'll talk for five seconds and run off, or sing me a song and say "bye, Daddy." In spite of this, I still hear the love in their voices, and know that our bond is cemented, no matter what.

Another big change is that I no longer have any qualms about the potential of having to fight for custody. This conclusion came a bit from my ex's continued lying and enabling of her boyfriend, but more from the fact that my daughter has broken out of her iron-clad attachment to Mommy. I took the kids for 9 days during their February vacation--flying up to Maine to get them, spending a week in Maryland with my family, then returning them to Maine and flying back to Georgia (the miles are certainly piling up). During this time, my daughter was perfectly happy and fine, never asked for her mommy, refused to even talk to her on the phone, and even told me that she wanted to stay at Grandma's house when I told her it was time to go. My parents and I went up to Maine again last weekend to celebrate my son's birthday, and the kids didn't want us to leave. My son even told me that he wants to live in Georgia someday (hmm....)

Which brings me back to the legal proceedings. My trip to Maine in February included a mediation session with my ex and our lawyers. During this grueling and expensive session, I got her to agree to a bunch of constraints on her boyfriend's access to the kids, and squeezed more summer vacation time out of her as well. I wasn't exactly happy to be allowing him to stay, but at least I put some clamps on him, so I was satisfied. Well, my satisfaction lasted all of two days, when the aforementioned incident with my ex's brother came to my attention. She was in mediation one day, insisting that her boyfriend was sober and posed no threat to the kids, and the next he was guzzling Thunderbird in the garage. I was obviously irate.

I thus made the decision to not sign the mediated agreement, so it looks like we're headed for a trial after all. I don't know what will happen, but I do know that I cannot trust my ex at all. The court is going to have to decide what to do about her boyfriend and, possibly, about the kids. I don't know that I will get them, but one never knows.

As for me, I haven't found a job yet, but I've had several promising interviews, and I at least feel like there may be good news soon. More importantly, I am getting back to living again, and making it possible for me to be a good father to my children for many years to come. I know they can sense it, and that takes away some of the sting of living so far from them.