4/12/2005

My youngest decided it would be fun to get up at 7am this morning and once again he decided to wake me up by climbing in to bed and giving me kisses while saying "downstairs papa." How could I refuse him when he is being so cute?

My ex-wife called me last night and said something very interesting to me. She reminded me that "Should I grow tired of having my oldest here she would always be glad to take him back." What? I do not think so, but at the same time it confirms something my wife and I were talking about the other day. We believe my oldest is acting up and out the way he is due to her provoking him possibly believing that if he acts bad enough, long enough we might send him back to live with her. It might seem far fetched but you really have to know my ex-wife to understand.

Brief background on her and I. We met and were married while I was on active duty in the Army. She knew what my job was and that it kept me from home for long periods at a time but as soon as we were married all of the sudden it was a big problem. While we were married she manipulate people like her grandmother and my father. She would call them and tell them that I had gone to the field for 3 weeks and left her with no money. They would both without knowing the other was doing so, send her money. Of course her mother lived only 2 hours away and she never tried that with her mother...
She then started her journey of being unfaithful, taking on multiple boyfriends whom would also spend money on her.

Now I probably could have been a bit better at being a husband but it was increasingly difficult when I found out she was screwing around (I did not know about the money until later). She refused to go to any kind of counseling and as such I left the service, moved home and filed for divorce. It was then that I found out about the money from my father. Boy was he pissed when he found out she had been lying. Worse is that she tried to deny it all but got caught in the lie. When I moved home the military packed and shipped all my goods. A diary she kept (that I did not know about) made it into one of the boxes and in it she ratted herself out. The judge was laughing when it was entered in to evidence.

She married one of the boyfriends, had a child with him and then got caught screwing around again. Divorce #2 for her and I got custody of my son from her. While I did not care for the guy she was married to he was at least a good guy. He had a great job and they lived in a modest house in the suburbs of Houston TX. He took good care of my son and made sure he had what ever he needed. When he found out what she had been up to he called and he and I had a long talk. He filed for divorce and booted her.

She started living with the kid (he was 19) that she had been cheating on her husband with and while she denies it, we believe she was married to him. When my son would go for his summer visits he would call home crying about how mean the guy was to him. He would lock him in closets as well my son said some rather disturbing things that I will not repeat here but of course his mother denied it all. Thankfully though as bad as the treatment was there was no sexual abuse as I had feared one time. It was while she was with this guy that I got a judge to modify my custody agreement. There is no longer a set visitation time and it is all up to me. I can stop a visit for any valid reason without a judge now but I have not had to do that yet.

Why she left that guy I do not know but she met and married another guy, husband #4 by our count and they have a child (3 kids all different dads). They had some problems and moved to Colorado. I am not sure what is going on but she has changed a bit since marrying this guy. It is not worse but not better if that makes sense. Anyway, since she has been married to this guy which is about 3 years now, everytime she talks to my son we have problems with him for a bit afterwards. Thankfully she only calls about once every 6 weeks. We thought at first it was because he missed her but as time went by it got worse and worse and we finally came to the conclusion that she is doing this on purpose. She apparently believes that if he is bad enough that I will get fed up and send him back to live with his mother.

Now as I said before, some people would think this is far fetched but I have some proof. The grandmother that she used to lie to about money, still keeps in contact with my son. She calls once or twice a week, she always sends him care packages, toys, presents for birthdays and Christmas as well she also does the same for my youngest with whom she has no blood relation. She is a very nice woman who has been taken advantage of for far to long. My ex-wife has apparently told her about some of what she has been doing, not knowing that I talk to her grandmother quite often. Uh-oh!!!

Add to all of this last summers fiasco. I refuse to allow my son to fly by himself. Not because he cannot take care of himself or that he might go missing but more because if something happens on the plane I would never forgive myself for not being there when my child needed me the most. My ex-wife fully understands this and agreed to abide by my request.

She told me that during my sons visit to her in Colorado he would be going to California to see her mom for a week. She told me that she had made arrangements and her mother was going to drive to Colorado to pick him up and when the trip ended her brother and some friends would drive him back. It was all a lie. She allowed him to fly both legs of the trip by himself and then made the lie up. The only way we found out is when my son came home from his summer visit all his bags had airline tickets attached to them, you know the luggage ones they make you fill out and attach to bags. When we asked him who flew he started to cry. The more we asked about it the worse he got. It turns out she told him to lie to us and say that she had used his bags. That if we found out he had flown we would ground him and then yell at her. I was livid and was ready to drag her in to court and remove all parental rights. What the hell does she think she was doing? You do not ask your kid to lie for you, especially to their other parent.

She is screwed in the head, I am thoroughly convinced of that and will do anything to try and get her son to go back to live with her. Including having him get bad grades in purpose, act out in defiance of us and all the other crap she has done in the last 7 years. Arrrgh!

What she has not realized though is that I am a pigheaded Irishmen. There is no way on God's green earth I would allow him to go back to live with her. She is in serious need of some mental health counseling, the 4 marriages should be indicative of her mental state.

She is literally a Jerry Springer episode all by herself. Sadly she has a little girl who is going to be just as bad if no worse then her.

Oh yes, we cannot forget to add that for the first 6 years she failed to pay her child support. Now when I was paying her child support, which was almost 25% of my wages, I made sure it was on time. She never paid a dime and when I would ask her about it she would make some lame excuse. We also had an arrangement that she would have him for a tax credit in odd numbered years provided she was current on her child support. That did not stop her one bit, in fact she claimed him every year which caused me many headaches with the IRS trying to sort it all out.

I finally got tired of her BS and got the state to go after her. Right after I got hurt and could no longer work we had the boys on Medicare through the state. Since we were "receiving" aid from the state they were too happy to oblige. It was funny when I was talking to the lady from SRS about the case. She told me it would be 4-6 months most likely as they would need to track her down and then find out where she worked and all that jazz. When I told her I knew all that she was elated. Apparently most of the deadbeats they go after try to hide and when they are found they switch jobs or move to another state and then the whole process starts over again. Since I had all that info for her I got my first check in about 3 weeks.

Did I mention her child support was a paltry $100 a month?

5 comments:

Saija said...

YIKES, this reads like a soap opera ... so sorry for your past troubles ... WOW ... at least your first born was something good that came out of your first marriage ...

opforsoldier said...

I have always said the same exact thing. Someone once asked me if I could change it all would I? All I could say was not a chance. While there was more trouble through that marriage then anyone should have to deal with and while my son is going through his rebellious phase he is a great kid, I would do it all over again just for him.

Everything that happened has certainly made me stronger. While filing for a divorce was tough, and not tough from a personal but rather a religious view, it was a good decision. The lessons I learned from that time have certainly made my marriage now much stronger. Obviously my wife and I have been through a lot in the last 8 years and where many people would have thrown in the towel those lessons from back then have helped keep it strong.

Jammie J. said...

I hope your son is able to work through some of the issues she has laid on him. I wonder if a good child therapist might be in order? My mom certainly wishes she had put my brother and I in therapy after she left my dad. It has affected us in ways she never could have predicted.

I'm really concerned about your son.

opforsoldier said...

We are concerned too and are working with the insurance company to get him to someone. In the meantime we are trying to get him to spend as much time as possible with my sister who has her PhD in early childhood development and human behavior. She has really helped in the past and my son seems more willing to open up to her then some "stranger" as well there isn't the stigma of seeing a "shrink" that might be associated with a therapist. Right now our insurance company does not have anyone they work with that is within 1.5 hours of us and we cannot afford the out of network costs for the people in our area.

We tried to go through some of the local programs but we end up either making to much (yea, right) or they want to bill our insurance which puts us back in the out of network thing again.

Jammie J. said...

Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you for sharing that. I really do appreciate it.

Insurance companies sure do make things difficult, don't they?