80,000 Miles

I have sat down at my computer so many times over the past four months with the intention of writing my next blog post but it has (quite obviously) never happened.  In the meantime there was a long weekend in Maine, Thanksgiving in Atlanta, and New Years' in Virginia, totalling 6,000 FFMs, an awful lot of money spent, and a treasure trove of good times and sweet memories. 

Now that I am entering the fourth year of being a non-custodial parent I am finally starting to pick up on the rhythms of life that the visitation schedule forces upon me.  The summer is great, of course, with the kids basically living with me for an extended period.  The fall is not too bad, as the memories of the summer are still fresh, and the gap between longer visits is relatively short.  But, come January, with winter weather all around and the next long visitation nearly six months away, the mood drops instantly.

From now until school gets out in late June, I will have four weekend visits to Maine, each of which has taken on its own tradition.  February will be a long weekend for Presidents' Day spent mostly at the indoor pool at the Howard Johnson's.  March is the shared birthday weekend for my son and my wife, and we will go to the Japanese hibachi place for dinner and have a fun getaway party--this time at an indoor waterpark in New Hampshire.  Late April is a springtime weekend, with a lot of time spent at playgrounds.  Early June is a beach weekend spent at the Ocean House in Old Orchard Beach and always involving going to the rides at Palace Playland.

In between those good times are gaps of four to six weeks when I become just a voice at the other end of the phone to my kids.  I have maintained my commitment to my son to call every single night.  My ex-wife has made it clear that she doesn't like that I call every single night--she sent me an email saying that it takes away from her "fun time" with the kids, and she has flat out told the kids that she wishes I didn't call so much.  It's just more evidence of her selfishness, her lack of understanding of my connection to our kids, and her absolute disregard for how badmouthing me might affect the kids.

While the distance and separation aren't quite as hard in year 4 as in years 1, 2, or 3, there are times that it feels overwhelming, particularly when my kids are having a hard time and I can't be there for them.  My son has had ongoing conflicts with a couple of kids at his aftercare, which is basically a function of his Asperger's-related inability to regulate his emotions and impulses.  I have pushed for three years to have him see a counselor who can work with him, but my ex hasn't agreed.  I have been working through his school to try to get them to provide him with such services but they have used every excuse and dodge known to man to avoid this responsibility.  Last week, I finally got the school to consent to set him up with a counselor from a local nonprofit social services agency, but his mother is again resisting.  She apparently thinks (incorrectly) that this agency only works with juvenile delinquents and she (incorrectly) fears that he is going to be taken out of school and sent to some sort of detention center.

I will still never understand what exactly goes on in her head that tells her that our son's obvious emotional issues do not exist.  I know she is herself mentally ill, but for godsakes, aren't there parental instincts that take over at some point?  I am confident that I can successfully work with the school and get her (under threat of court action perhaps) to consent to getting our child the help he so clearly needs.

Meanwhile, in Frequent Father land, I have at long last gotten the great job I have been chasing for more than 10 years.  I am now working as a researcher for a major public university, doing really fun work and earning a good salary.  I have still not gotten my arms around the fact that, for the first time since before I married my first wife, I don't have to fret over my career or my professional future.  It is, in a way, a similar feeling to what I experienced after my divorce.  When you spend year after year in an unpleasant situation, you develop both a hard shell and the defensive mechanisms needed to keep the shell intact. 

I have mostly overcome my personal Stockholm Syndrome, thanks in large part to the love and support of my second wife.  We've been married for nearly three years now, but I feel like I was a ghost for most of that time, either physically living away from her or being so preoccupied with my personal and professional demons that I didn't pay much attention to her.  For all of this time I have kept my head down, operating under the creed: "when you're going through hell, keep going."

Well now, I suppose, I am no longer going through hell.  I have crawled my way out of the sewer pipe and am standing in the sunlight on the other end.  I no longer need to look straight ahead and imagine a future that will have to be better than the unpleasant present.  As much as it's possible as a long distance parent, I have reached the other side.  I have a great job, a great marriage, a happy home, a stepdaugher who calls me "Daddy" more often than not, and, yes, two kids who love and need me no matter where I live.  I'll be going to see them in two weeks, and then again and again and again.  Before I know it summer will be here and my kids will be in my home for six weeks, thus beginning another annual cycle.

56,800 Miles

What was it I was saying last time about sound and fury, signifying nothing? Well take that, put it in a six-page court order, and make it a double.

Well, the judge agrees with me...my ex-wife is guilty of (and I quote), "naivete, at best, and self-decption at worst," and "there is no doubt that [she] has not complied with the terms of the Judgment and, without tighter strictures, will continue to do so." Sounds good for me, right? Well, let's keep reading to see how the court intends to put "tighter strictures" on my ex:
"[The mother] shall allow no unsupervised contact between the children and [the boyfriend]...[The boyfriend] shall not consume alcohol, or be under the influence of alcohol, in the residence or in the presence of either or both of the children." Throw in a small victory of me now getting the kids for six consecutive, uninterrupted weeks in the summer, and that's the ballgame.

I suppose there is some lemonade to be made here. I do now have an official opinion from the State of Maine stating that my ex-wife is somewhere between naive and delusional and that her boyfriend is quite obviously not cured of his drinking problem. I do get the kids for six weeks straight starting next summer. I do, on the surface, have some restrictions on the lowlife who kidnapped my daughter and drove her home drunk. But what I don't have is any way to enforce those restrictions.

So the bum can't be alone with them, drink in the house, or be under the influence in their presence. That's good and well if I'm the guy from Rear Window sitting in a wheelchair all summer long and staring at him through my binoculars. But I live 1,100 miles away. Even if I lived 10 miles away, as I did a year ago, I still don't see how I would be able to indisputably prove that he had done any of these things. In fact, I already know that these things have happened in the week since the decision was rendered. My son told me on the phone that he and the bum went for a bike ride around the neighborhood, including down a busy, hilly street with mangled sidewalks. But I can't use the word of a 7 year old in a court of law, so it never "officially" happened.

Furthermore, let's say that I do miraculously obtain hard proof of the order being violated--the order contains no "then what." I was hoping that it would at least tell my ex that one screw up would result in the bum going or even her losing the kids. It seems that my only remedy would be to take her back to court again, and replay the whole tragi-comic-farce once more (and at great expense, of course). I am filing a motion to appeal the decision, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, in the end, I feel like she was convicted of her crimes, but given a very light sentence. Meanwhile the person at the heart of the matter, the drunk boyfriend, gets to stay put, living in the house that I bought with my money and pay for with my child support checks. He is allegedly going to school to become a medical assistant, but I can't possibly imagine any responsible medical office wanting to hire this clown, who looks like death, walks with an alcoholic's shuffle, chain smokes, and generally always seems to be drunk. And the person ultimately responsible--my ex-wife--gets to go on with her life as if she did nothing wrong, but she still is raging with anger at me for, as she put it, "ripping the kids away from me for the summer." Never mind that she gets them all year long, and I'm in the midst of going six weeks without seeing them right now (I'm going up over Columbus Day weekend).

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at my desk 1,100 miles away typing this. I'm at work, but my job is such that I basically get paid to do absolutely nothing. I'll save the details for a future post (or not), but the gist of it is that I was hired by a public agency to help get an ineffective lifer of a bureaucrat off the dime, but she is refusing to share any work with me and our mutual boss is too much of a wuss to do anything about it. Thus, I have been sitting here for three months now with literally nothing to do but surf the internet and feel like a complete ass for being so far from my kids for no other reason than to collect a paycheck.

If I were at least doing something good for the world, or at least something that occupied my mind all day, I'd feel a lot better. As it is, all this job is giving me is money and a serious case of depression. I've again begun to seek out something better closer to where my kids live, and this time my wife swears that she's coming along no matter what. The adventure continues...