Running with Scissors

My husband and I have a new nickname for his ex-wife,  "Runs with Scissors".  If you ever see the movie "Running with Scissors"  you will understand our life a little better.

Narcissist or Bipolar?

God, I pray she is Bipolar and we have hope. Because if she is Narcissistic we have no hope. After tonight I am just not sure.

I owe our cuss jar quite a few quarters tonight for the 4 letter words that have escaped my mouth directed at my husband's ex.  Saying I am angry would be an understatement.  My husband and step-son had an agreement that he would call my step-son tonight.  I had a sick feeling this would go south when my husband came home on Monday from dropping him off and said that he and my step-son had talked about this.  I have hoped for the best since Monday though. We even emailed letting her know the call was coming in weekly report we send her every Monday.  My husband called a little before 6 and had to leave voice-mail.  At a little before 8 she texted him saying that my step-son did not want to talk to him.  (Amazing how her texting suddenly worked, when my step-son was in ER for 4 hours and she called only afterwards, only because she didn't have the money for the medication, she claimed she didn't have texting)  I should have just gone and grabbed the cuss jar when  I read the text from her as the words just came flying "THAT MANIPULATIVE B*&%!"

 

My husband and I took a moment to calm down, then my husband called and asked to speak with my step-son. This is where I really get pissed.  She told my husband he couldn't speak with his son that his son did not want to speak with him.  My husband told her to just put him on the phone that he needed to speak with him.  She then had her boyfriend act like a child in the back ground saying "I don't want to speak with my daddy. Don't make me speak to my daddy."  My step son NEVER says "daddy."  I have known my husband for more than 3 years and my step-son has never called him "daddy" it is ALWAYS dad.  My husband said that the voice didn't even sound right, that it even sounded like his ex's boyfriend.  Any kudos the boyfriend had obtained and worked to get over the last few months with us were just lost.

My husband is furious.

I am about to finally be working again.  With that comes health insurance for the whole family.  I think counseling is a must. If she doesn't want to participate that will be on her.  

My patients is worn.

I am frustrated and tired.

I am an introvert that needs their time alone and doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel where I will get it.

I am looking for jobs today, decided to expand my search to , oh, anywhere in the world.  I am doing it because I want away from my home today.  Having a place to go and work 10+ hours a day feels safe and away from my home. 

Fear

Is she just really scared?  I am going through a free co-parenting course online.  It is one that was suggested for my husband’s ex-wife, as she has stated she can’t afford to go to a co-parenting class.  I have learned a lot.  It has been a good experience for me.  In it, it talks a lot about fear, and all the emotions that it can manifest itself through, such as Anger.  (She has been ordered to Anger management too, which is probably a good idea since she requested a restraining order against herself.)  We go to court on July 23^rd for a custody hearing; we are supposed to get custody if she has not signed up for both anger management and co-parenting.

Today we got the first e-mail from her in seven months that did not directly berate my husband.  Still, it feels full of Anger to me; to be frank it feels like her attempt to create Drama.  She usually creates quite a stir just before a hearing, and usually at the exchange.  Our exchanges are now supervised, so for her to do it there is going to be reported to the judge.  The email was to be an update e-mail regarding my step-son’s week.  She added a concern at the end about a nightmare she says step-son had.  In reading it though, I wonder if, reading between the lines, she is the one that is scared.  She is the one who feels like she is in a nightmare.  Are these perhaps her bad dreams?  She knows that next week could change everything if she has not been cooperating and following the order.  Is this a plea from her: (names have been deleted for obvious reasons)

Our son told me yesterday morning that he had a nightmare the night before where he was at your house (his dad’s) and you wouldn’t let him go with me for a very long time…. that I kept coming back and you continued to not let him go. He said that you made him stay in his room on his bed and he didn’t know why but his brother (your other son, from your other marriage) was on the bed with him too. He said that you called the police on me because I wouldn’t stop coming back to try to get him.

Then last night he was VERY scared to go to sleep without me.  He begged me to stay and sleep with him. I tried to let him know that everything was ok… that I wasn’t going anywhere and I was going to still be here in the morning… however this didn’t ease his concern. This morning he was very clingy… wanting hugs and kept kissing my arm, hand cheek….

This is all very sad because what he had and called a nightmare is really reality… what really happened only a few weeks ago. This means that what happened had a HUGH impact on him and causing undue stress. My hopes are that we can get on a better path for his sake …as what has been happening between us within the exchanges is clearly not healthy for him.

Please take note of this.. of what is going on with our child and have some empathy for him and his feelings about the situation while he is at your house this week… now knowing his fears as I have explained them to you… and pay attention to the fact that he is having …what he called “nightmares”… about it.

In a sense she is right, this did happen a few weeks ago, just before the last hearing.  The order at the time explicitly stated that pickups during non-school days were to happen at each other’s homes and that whoever was picking up was to stay at the car and whoever home it was, was to stay in their home and the child was to go between the house and car with no one else.  This order was made the day she requested a restraining order against herself, hence the very good reason to have a no contact exchange order.  She came to the door.  She called the cops.  My husband gave the cop the order.  The cop told her that she needed to obey it.  She asked the cop how he knew it was a real order.  He asked her for evidence of a more recent one (this one had just been stamped the week before from the court).  She threw a fit.  The cop said “stop acting like a preschooler and go to your car”. 

Part of me wonders if she has been telling my step-son that we are trying to take him away.  Let’s be frank, we don’t want to take him away from his mom.  We do however want him to be safe and unobstructed from us.  I think though she thinks we are taking him away.  Is this a plea to us?  one that says – now I am behaving a little, just a week before the hearing, I don’t want to do Anger Management, that means I have to accept that I am not my anger, but my anger is an emotion, for me though it is my identity, I can’t let it go.  Please, please don’t make me do this to keep my son.  – 

Phone Messages

Drama Mama, some days I just want her to go away.  My husband’s X can’t seem to not have drama in her life.  If my husband won’t give it to her, she will go to other family members, of ours.   We have court again in a little over two weeks.  We received the mediation report the day of our last hears, so other than the court to demand there be supervised exchanges, due to mama drama and the cops being called to the last two exchanges before the last hearing, we had the hearing extended for almost 5 more weeks.  So, as is predictable just before a hearing, she creates drama.  She called my husband’s mom regarding my stepson’s rash that had been on his neck.  My mother-in-law was out of town for the holiday weekend, so we didn’t get any information until this morning, our exchange was Friday.  OK, be it we are intelligent individuals and figured out pretty fast that he had a rash; we had no information on if she had been using medication and if so what that medication was and if it would react w/ anything we would use.  We simply waited a day to apply any medication we had on it. 

I think through this trying to decide why in the world she would want to do this.  There are two things that come to mind, first she MUST have drama and since my husband won’t give it to her by pushing his buttons directly, she is going to find a new way. Second, we have used almost every email and phone call from her since January against her for our court hearings.  It was appropriate for us to do so, she berates my husband and makes calls leading her son to tell his dad that he doesn’t want to spend time with him

. 

It’s amazing to me though, she (I repeat SHE) requested at mediation that we not contact each other’s families unless it is an emergency.  It is the one and only thing on the mediation report that is spelled out as agreed to. 

On another note, I am SO thankful that the exchanges are supervised.  It has dramatically lowered the drama at exchanges and for every 15 minuets she is late she pays them $20.  

Is it ok to be Angry?

I think I am slowly learning that it is ok to be Angry.  In fact I think I am learning that it is only a normal emotion that is right to feel.  It is what I allow myself to be angry with that is important.

Last Friday my husband and I were informed that my younger Step-son’s mom was moving in with her boyfriend, who we will call Meff.  Meff is a shortened name for Meth-head.  Meff has every appearance of being a meth addict, one that has been for quite some time.  To some degree this does not come as a surprise, at least to me.  At my Step-son’s kindergarten graduation we got to meet Meff for the first time, when he came up to my husband and gave him notice of a civil-law-suite for my husband’s Ex, who I will now call Ms. Meff.  When he gave the civil law suit to my husband he tried to say it was a restraining order and then took his hand and crushed it as hard as he could.  Meff and Ms Meff then left.  Later that day we both agreed that, at best case scenario, this guy just got out of rehab.  Later that same day my husband had Mediation.  He said when he came home that at mediation Ms Meff was very confused, for example she could not remember the name of her counselor that she has been seeing weekly for 4 years. . . . hmmm.

I realized last night when I fell in to tears though that the straw that has broken the camel’s back happened the following Friday from Graduation (last Friday).  Ms Meff was, for the first time, going to pick her son up at our house (we have always picked him up at her house or school and dropped him off, if she was supposed to come to us she relinquished her time with him.)  I took my other step-son to the park, pre-seeing a scene he did not need to be a part of.   When she was at the ½ hour late point, my husband texted for us to come home and he would call her to have her come at another time to pick her son up.  As we walked home we saw her vehicle come flying by and make a SUDDEN stop at the stop sign at the corner we were at, as Meff did not recognize myself or my step-son, he went screeching on (Meff was driving, Ms Meff wont for any kind of real distance) as Ms Meff recognized my step-son and waived.  I texted my husband and let him know they were on their way, and that we would take a long rout home to avoid the situation.  As we doddled along we got another text from my husband that said it might be a while and we might want to go somewhere as Ms Meff was calling the cops.  – ah yes, the predicted scene -  so I told my step-son too much.  I am not happy with myself, but out of anger I did it.  I told him that Ms Meff was there and that she was making a scene, so we were going to go to one of his favorite video game stores.   I must confess to we discussed it for a short period of time, I told my step-son I felt sorry for his brother, but I also felt sorry for Ms Meff that she felt she needed to live this life.  My step-son said he felt sorry for his brother.  I continued to be distracted and not a very good step mom at all.  I kind of ½ listened to what my step son was saying as we walked as my mind was pre-occupied with my husband and other step-son.  How unfair is that.  When my husband and I got some time alone I was informed of what happened.  My husband said that Ms Meff showed up and decided to not follow the court order, which explicitly details that she is to wait at the car and call while my husband waits at the door to say good bye.  She came to the door and pounded on it saying she wanted her son.  My husband told her she was to go to her car and he would let their son go between the front door and the car. (probably a good thing to note that we received several threats from Ms Meff directly after our last hearing in April saying she was going to beat my husband up, one in the court room in front of the judge.)  Ms Meff said she wasn’t moving and that she was calling the cops.  My husband than told her to go ahead.  A few min later a cop showed up at the door and asked my husband what was going  on, my husband explained the court order and gave it to him.  The cop told Ms Meff that there was a court order and requested she follow it, after her arguing that it wasn’t a real court order and the cop telling her to stop acting like a preschooler and follow the order she went to her car.  Their son came to the door then and my husband said his good-byes.  Their son then urinated himself as he walked from the house to her car.  Ms Meff then screamed at the police officer that my husband was neglecting their son.  Their son then went back in to the house and changed his pants and returned to his mother.

Am I angry?

Yes.

Am I angry at her?

Yes

What I am desperately trying to learn how to do is separate her actions (sins) from she-herslef.

I am still learning what in the world that means.

I am starting by recognizing this is an individual with and addiction, while I do not know how far her oxycontin addiction has gone (ie. meth, heroin?) What we do know is that she is an addict. We know she has never gone for treatment for her addiction, although she and her mom will say she “is not an addict any more” (that statement, in and of itself, is proof that she has received no treatment, once an addict, always an addict)  Many, if not all at this point, of her actions are driven by that addiction.

 Is she selfish?  yes. So am I.

Now I need to learn to 1) love her as Christ loves her and 2) hate, and be angry with her actions, addictions – but not at her.

God help me. 

Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity,

Or should I say selfishness, selfishness, all is selfishness. . . . . eye for an eye . . . . . taking all of this out of context of course, but I feel like running with it.  I want to be justified in my hate right now.  My husband and I, after fighting with his ex and Child Support Services for quite some time, finally received notification by phone today that YES his ex has been paid  through his Social Security since 2007.  Then to top it off we found out that the amount has been $336 a month MORE than what she is allotted in child support by court.  That part isn’t actually what bothers me, it is that she hasn’t claimed receiving it and has had them take the allotted child support out of my husband’s disability checks!  To be quite frank it pisses me off.  I have the right to be mad too, and the right to express it.  I need to express it, that is only healthy!  What is wrong is that I want her to suffer.  She is very likely to lose custody of her son in the next couple of months to us, it is even possible that she will only get supervised visits.  IF that is what happens it is going to sting for her, she will be losing a GREAT deal of the income she has become dependent on that she is not entitled to.  She may even have to move back in with dear old mommy.   In the end I know that vengeance only hurts me in the long run, but it is a HUGE struggle to not be vengeful. 

The Strange thoughts I have

My husband’s ex is playing a power trip right now regarding getting her son in to counseling.  She is making sure he follows the court order down to the T and plus some, i.e. she has requested more counselor options than what was required by the court order.  She is only allowing this process to happen because we are less than a month from the next court hearing and she knows she is in deep trouble, she for the 5^th time (I know because My husband and I had to go plowing through court orders for her last night and along the way counted, yes wrong to count but when you are angry you don’t always do what is right) not doing court ordered anger management or co-parenting.  It’s rather pathetic.  However there is a point where you pick your battles, trying to show her what a jerk she is right now is not a battle we need to do when we finally have leverage and the possibility of getting my step-son in to some much needed therapy.  When it really comes down to it these lying emails from her mean very little,  If she really cared about her son and getting him in to therapy, which has been in almost every court order since 2006, she would have released him for the therapy the many times we have gone down this road before.  We have gone as far as agreeing on a counselor in the past and she refused to sign the release paper work needed at the counselor’s office, this did not go over very well in court last time, hopefully she remembers that.  My hope is this time we can move fast enough and push this enough to get him in to the counseling he needs.

That though isn’t the real reason I am writing.  It is this process that got me to thinking about my step-sons schedule with us.  My step son is with us from Friday through Monday every week. (We pick him up at school on Friday afternoon and drop him back off on Monday morning.)  We actually get more face to face time with him than she does because he is in school most of the week, so I actually like this schedule, in a way I know it is limiting her influence on his life.  However through digging through almost 4 years of court paper work (fyi we average 5 times in court a year, so this is no small pile) I was thinking there really are some other benefits.  Primary benefit is that if she was to OD and die it wouldn’t be a whole weekend before anyone found out.  I keep trying to decide if this is a really bad thought, like unkind thought.  My husband wants to have his son living with us through the school week and at his mom’s on the weekend, primarily for schooling reasons. 1) He will know his son is actually getting to school and on time, not hours late with the excuse of illness, asthma etc.  2) He will have more control of My step-son’s learning and will know he is actually learning through the week, completing homework etc. 3) His pride, I think most married women and probably all step-mom’s can relate.  I don’t know, I have a feeling that we will end up with full custody at some point of my step-son, she will either die from and over dose or she will end up in jail.

Court is in 3 weeks.

I am curious what will happen, will all of her last minute attempts to manipulate the judge in to thinking that she is working at this work? Maybe.  Will they finally put their foot down? Unlikely.

Where is God in all of this? – I mean with me.  I realize she isn’t a Christian, but how do I fight this anger, how do I move forward in a way that reflects Gods? I feel blinded by the Anger at times, but I also feel justified in my anger.  Who would ever put their own pride ahead of their child so much that they would hurt him as badly as she hurts her own flesh and blood?

I struggle with Gods approach to this all. I keep praying for wisdom. James 1:19-27

Caught in the middle.

Do you ever just not know what to do?

I feel like these custody battles are this constant trying to figure out what the court would want you to do and say rather than truly being interested in the child’s best interests.  My husband received an email from his ex regarding the mental state of his youngest son.  In his response, which we took several days to create in hopes to not be too on the defensive with our answer, we were preparing it for what we felt the judge in April will want to see. 

His mental state is fragile. 

In a sense it is everyone’s fault.

It is the ex’s fault, indeed, and I could go on for hours about how drug addiction and being arrested multiple times are OFCOURSE going to affect a child.

It is our fault too though.  No we don’t beat my stepson, but we definitely feel the stress this co-parenting conflict.  We try not to let it interfere with his life, but I know it does.

I think some of my stepson’s issues are a reaction coming out after the fact, like he can finally start putting his guard down too.  We no longer see my husband’s ex at the exchange at all; we have figured a way out to make it so neither of us have to see each other.  I think this has really helped to stabilize life for my stepson, and he is feeling ok to not have to be the emotional adult finally.  I think in some ways his reactions are good, not that he is feeling that way but for a child to go through as many changes and stressful things as he has and be reacting in life as a normal healthy child is just not right.  I think he’s been holding this all in. His older brother has been acting a lot of things out, and through all of them I remind myself that this is normal for someone living the life he is.   So wouldn’t it be normal for the younger one to act it out too?  He isn’t immune to it just because he is younger. 

We offered counseling again.

I doubt she will take it; she hasn’t done anger management or co-parenting.

Through this my stepson continues to be caught in the middle.  Both sides DO love him. But he has what they both seem to want, his love, his health, his best interest; and he is getting squeezed by it.

A short update

My husband’s ex never showed for her co-parenting classes, so my husband will be doing co-parenting alone for the third time.  I wonder how many times we will have to do this before they realize she doesn’t care and start taking some of her rights away.  This is a good sign she never went to anger management.

On an interesting front my husband’s ex has also deiced to start using his last name again??  Really??? Why???

We have been painting my step sons room the last two weeks (as we have had time.) I think he told his mom about it, as apparently she is painting her whole house.  I asked my husband if he thinks she asked her landlord, he said if she did it would be a first.  There are just days where you just have to go huh??.  This is one for me. 

Satisfaction?

The week after next is the start of what we call the CP class to the boys.  It is a Co-Parenting class that my Husband and his ex-wife have been court ordered to go through.  This will be the 3^rd time my husband has completed a co-parenting course; we are hoping she will show up for the first time. 

Or are we? 

Part of me prays she will show up for the benefit of us all.  For garsh sakes we are ALL sick of the constant fight to just get the smallest things done, like get told when there is a doctor’s appointment.  WE pay the fricken bill when it comes in and she doesn’t, why shouldn’t we go to the appointments.  At the very least be told they are coming. 

After being told all year you’re a bad parent and step-parent by the ex, truth be told, sometimes it is nice to go to court to have the court tell the ex they are screwing up.  So I won’t lie, there is definitely an evil part of me that says: “Don’t show, please don’t show again.  You are on such thin ice with the judge as it is.”  (The judge knows my husband’s ex by name, this is a judge that sees a good 5 cases an hour over an average 8 hour day, I don’t think she realizes that isn’t a good thing that he knows her by name.)  There is a part of me that see’s that if she doesn’t go this time to her anger management and co-parenting that she won’t have many more chances before we are given more of the legal rights and she loses some.  .  . . . . I know, that is SO wrong, what happened to wanting what is best for the kids.  There is a part of me, and luckily it is still the larger part of me, that hopes that she does go this time.  That this time WILL be different and we will start on a more positive path with the parenting of her son.  But there is this sweet satisfaction in the court room to see the judge get pissed with her and her excuses.  Just his face and eye rolls are so satisfying to see.  It makes me feel justified in being pissed myself.

 So Wednesday, March 3rd is a telling night, as they are supposed to go together to the class. 

Am I really me.

Before I met my husband I had a lot of dreams.  I knew who I was. I love my husband, but I am struggling with what I gave up to be with him.  I was free. I had dreams he wanted no part of. Being with him now means those dreams I release.  Did I give up me to be with him?  Without those dreams I don’t know if I am me anymore, aren’t we our dreams and making those dreams happen, is that who we are?  It hurts.   I miss my dreams. I wonder if I am missing me.  

DMV Confessions

I just had a “not so best” moment in my life at the DMV yesterday.  I just moved to the state I am living in and was unaware they would make me take a written test when I went to get my new states drivers license.  I have moved to other states and just received a new license when I went to the DMV.  . . . Unfortunately I did not pass the test.  Some of the questions I missed were ones I should have gotten too.  The person  who graded my test was probably thinking  “I do NOT want this person on the road!”  I wouldn’t blame them.  It wasn’t that I didn’t know the right answer, but I’ve never been good at tests!  In school I ALWAYS did horrible on pop quizzes, even if I knew everything, the anxiety would make my mind a big blur. To give me a test without knowing I was going to have to take, killed my chances of passing. I walked out of the little test room they had with big eyes and my heart pounding.  My sweet husband came along with me to be a support, poor man had no clue what he had gotten himself in to.  I was terrified.  I just knew I didn’t do well.  I tried to remember each of the many questions there were and go over my answers with him.  I remember three, and there were a lot more than 3.  Needless to say I failed.

I won’t lie; I do not like the sate I am living in.  The state and city I left was my idea of paradise.  There wasn’t a lot about it that wasn’t me.  I just fit in.  Where I live now is the opposite of everything that was.  I am trying not to complain to my husband, especially since where we live is not exactly where he wants to live, but he needs to be near his kids at all times, he does not trust his ex-wife with her history of drug abuse and potentially mental illness.  How can I be mad at him for that?  I am not.  I do hate living HERE though.

When we got the test back he patiently started go over the answers I got wrong, like the state specific fine for drinking and driving.  I kept thinking, why would I care about the drinking fine!  I don’t even drink!!  I was so humiliated for failing this test. I was getting more and more humiliated as my husband is reading my STUPIDE answers out loud, for everyone to hear how dumb I was.  I was already feeling pretty dumb. 

So here is where I confess, and stop setting you up to try to feel sorry for me . . . .kind of.

On about question 5, where the answer was VERY obvious and I still got it wrong, I was no longer nice wife, but truly the wicked witch wife/step-mom.

“I HATE YOUR F#&$!%* STATE, HATE IT”

I said this very loudly

In the ear shot of children. (not his)

I stomped out of the DMV.

Today I am humiliated, and very thankful my husband loves me in-spite of myself sometimes.

What a lack of control.

For anyone in that DMV that day – I am very sorry, please forgive me. 

Praying for the Ex

I pray for my husband’s ex-wife and her mother every day.  Sounds silly I suppose, but I do.  They do not want Christ to be a part of their lives, but this is the mother of one of the most incredible little boys on this earth.  So, I suppose it is more for the sake of my step–son than it is for them that I pray. 

My husband’s ex was on meth when they split and the choices she made during that time make it hard for him to pray for her.  He does though, in spite of how hard it is.  It is a simple prayer right now, one of just save her Lord.  I though find myself spending sometimes 5 minutes or more of my prayer time every morning in prayer for her, begging God to give her every chance possible, open every door imaginable, bringing many people in to her life that love her and God.  I beg God to not give up on her.  I pray that he does whatever it takes for her to fall before him praising him as her Lord and Savior.   I just don’t know that she will make that choice.

It is strange, one day on the bus on my way to work I found myself praying for the person that was behind me.  They were having a very loud conversation on the bus that made it evident they wanted nothing to do with God.  In praying for him I received this deep peace that I just knew he was going to chose God someday.  I don’t have that peace with my husband’s ex, but I want it. 

For now I will just pray. 

The Thoughts of a Step-Mom - Intro

I suppose there are a lot of us out there doing this, I don't for see there being a lot of followers to my blog, but one of the suggestions I have received is to put my thoughts, frustrations and successes down. I am starting to see this is great advice, more because my poor mom gets dumped on about once a week, if I don't start doing this I may make my mom think I live the most bitter angry life, but you can't dump a lot of these thoughts out in to the family - we are all adjusting.

Being a step-mom IS a struggle, if you are a mom and think you have the most thankless job out there I really think that us step-mom's can top you. For those of us who are step-moms and have no children of our own, it can be a frustrating trip of raising children that you care very deeply for, raising them, working hard to make sure you are trying to do what is best for them . . . . . but you are somewhere on the bottom of the totem poll below the crossing-guard at their school when it comes to recognition.

For this blog, to protect the innocent (and the guilty) I will either not use names or use false names.

I suppose we will see where this goes from here.