When Enough is Enough
As I sit here in July with the children watching Cartoon Network, I keep thinking about the last few months in this house and let me tell you, it's been a crazy wild ride. My children have been living with my husband and I for about four and a half months now and I think I can fairly say to my ex-husband and his ex-wife that I expected more from the two of them. While I understand that there are certain aspects of all three of the kids' behavior that are mine and my husbands' responsibility, nothing could've prepared me for some of the curve balls life has thrown our direction these last months.
I want to say to my ex-husband, "I trusted you to raise our children responsibly and reasonably and you couldn't even accomplish the 'responsibly' part. What were you thinking?"
And to his ex-wife I want to say, "You may not care that your son hurts for your sake and you may not care that you'll always have a special place in his heart that's just for you, but you could at least act like you care he exists. What are you thinking?"
These are the kinds of things I'll never get to say to them because even should the opportunity arise, I seriously doubt there would be any interest at all in what I'm trying to say. In point of fact, both of the exes seem to make it a point to be obtuse, blind and ignorant and insofar as I know, neither of them tends to be that dull-witted. I guess that it's easier to stick your head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the things you both do and have done just for your own sake. Did the best interests of the children not even once enter your minds when you were making all your stupid mistakes? Then again, neither of you have to deal with the backlash that he and I have to handle so what do you care? I bet that if either of you had to confront these last few months the way he and I have, you'd have a lot more to say and you would doubtlessly be very vocally indignant.
Was the momentary power and control that you had worth the absolute psychological damage you've inflicted upon the one's who are supposed to be innocent in this? To my ex; did you think it was okay and you were going to get to go along indefinitely hurting everyone you've hurt? To his ex; do you think that if you ignore your child long enough, he'll go away and do you think you've got everybody fooled with your victim act? You've both been able to dodge the consequences of your actions and refuse to accept accountability but where does that leave your children?
My nine-year-old suffers his mothers' rejection everyday and there's nothing I can do to make it better and nothing I can do to penetrate the brick wall of his first education. My eleven and twelve year olds suffer from what they were never taught and the understanding everyday of the things that their father did and as all angry and distraught kids tend to do, all three of them translate their anger, hostility and hurt into poor and disrespectful behavior in the home and direct it at the most convenient targets; those who care for them right now and those who care about them the most. They are effectively biting the hand that feeds them and slapping away the hand that's reaching out.
For those of you out there who think these statements are inflammatory or unfair, consider this won't you? The two oldest children at eleven and twelve have been involved with the juvenile court system and the youngest at nine has been systematically tearing the living room apart. Is it really fair to my husband and I to have to pick up the pieces every time the kids tear something apart or ruin something when the root of the problem would have never happened in the first place with a little time, attention, understanding and love from their respectively absent other parent? I understand that my husband and I made the choice to take care of the children and that's not a choice that he or I regret making but all the same, would it have been unreasonable for us to ask that team parenting not be out of the question? The nine year olds mother hasn't seen him in almost two years or talked to him on the phone in about a year and a half not to mention the legal trouble though she managed to teach her son how to hate and distrust all women without prejudice. The eleven and twelve year olds father is taking an extended vacation in the Iron Bar Hotel but he managed all the same to do his gloriously effective level best to raise two kids that have no respect for authority and little or no understanding of the difference between right and wrong, a horribly skewed moral compass.
When did it become acceptable for one parent to use the kids to hurt the other parent or to run away with no real explanation that matters and no excuse I'll accept because in the end I don't really think any excuse applies. For what it's worth I have yet to see a truly amicable separation among couples in which the anger of the parents is set aside for the needs of the children. One of the adults in a separation situation invariably chooses to act selfish and childish and no, I don't direct this exclusively at the separating parents because with it being more and more common for grandparents to raise grandchildren also it is more and more common for grandparents to fall into the same idiotic traps as angry and bitter parents.
My mother fell into the trap when she had temporary custody of my kids. The ex-husband and I handled the custody case remarkably well though that's not to say that when the kids were living with him that he didn't screw up because he did. My mother had custody of the kids temporarily and though you would've thought that she would behave just like a big girl with her big girl pants on, she promptly waged a smear campaign against he and I that had the children's attorney absolutely furious and recommending that I get the kids out of my mother's care as soon as possible. I would've thought that I could expect some kind of growth and maturity out of a woman in her fifties though I wasn't surprised when she did exactly as I had expected. Having custody of my children was after all, the best way that she could sit around and collect money without having to work for it and be able to have power and control and hurt me. Some of the things she said to the kids about me were just cold and the things she did were cruel and in all honesty it wasn't the things she said or did that bother me on a very deep level because I already knew it was going to happen, it's that she lived down to my expectations. But I digress.
When did parenting become a contest to see who could prove they love the kids more and when did this become acceptable practice? Why did divorce and separation become a power play and a trap into which one parent invariably falls? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not holding my husband or I blameless in this because I know for a fact that he and I have made our fair share of mistakes and done our fair share of childish and stupid things. Granted, I also understand that he and I have always done our absolute best to keep the kids from suffering the consequences of our actions which rarely ever works perfectly for things invariably spill over but neither of us have used the kids as a means to hurt and spite the other parent. Every year, the more childish the other parents act it gets more difficult to hold ourselves to a higher standard and I'm just as human as the next person out there, I want to lash out. I want to tell the kids the whole ugly truth about the parent that isn't there, be it the nine year olds' mother or the eleven and twelve year olds' father, but I know in my heart that that's the easy way out and it'll only hurt the kids and that's never fair to them.
I wonder if it's ever going to cross my husband's ex-wife's mind that her son, who loves and hates her so much for running away, is not going to be able to help the anger and bitterness that he feels toward her ultimately bleeding over onto her daughter, his sister. The reason is simple because until his sister came along, he was his mother's only child and now, she raises her daughter and won't even call her son therefore I expect that it'll come to the point that he will eventually blame his sister for taking his mommy away and he'll hate and resent her for it. There is no other realistic thought process or outcome. It will happen; it's only a matter of time.
I wonder repeatedly if it has crossed my ex-husband's mind that when the kids are old enough to understand, they'll hate him for taking everything away from them. Think about it, they lost the house in which they lived, their family and some form of normalcy and all of a sudden everyone was fighting over them. Their security and stability were destroyed all in one fell swoop and eventually they're going to blame and hate him for it. They'll also blame their cousin and hate her because she had her own part to play in the whole fiasco because the way they'll look at it is that she helped take away everything they knew whether or not it's a logical thought process.
I wonder from time to time why my husband and I even bother trying to uphold a more positive image of the children's other parents because they never seemed to feel the compulsion to do the same and the phrase, "Turn about is fair play," keeps floating through my head. Then I look at the kids and consider that they are not the ones to blame in this and it's not really fair to tarnish their images of their mother or father for the sake of my gratification or his. It's for this reason and this reason alone that I keep myself quiet in front of the children, because I love them more than I resent the stupidity of their other parent and believe me, sometimes I walk away from conversations with the kids with a feeling not unlike thwarted anger. The kids speak highly of the other parents and I want so badly to enlighten them but it's not my place. I have to swallow my anger instead, reach down inside myself and find that inner place of peace and teach the kids how to face the truth and accept it so that when the time comes they can come to their own understanding about the people they love. They'll still hate my husband and I for not telling them the truth and they'll hate us simply for the realizations at which they arrive because we'll be the ones that are there and convenient, but they'll get over it and realize that we have done the best we could with what we had and I'm of the opinion that we've done a damn good job.
I have to say that the kids are worth all the trouble we go through and all the grief we get for them and from them as well. That and I figure that we only have to really put up with the nine year olds' mother and the eleven and twelve year olds' father until the kids turn eighteen which means that time is growing short for my husband and I to have to deal with the ignorance, at least with these three. Around every cloud there is a silver lining, I suppose. It's just that sometimes the silver lining gets brighter with every year that passes. It kind of makes me wonder if the lining is perhaps sterling silver instead. Ah well, only time will tell.
Related articlesAnger,guilt and frustation -The Mommyhood package (thevampirespeaks.wordpress.com)
Parenting Solutions: Teased (education.com)
What are the fathers' rights in a custody battle (wiki.answers.com)
Your Children's Ministry Doesn't Care (ministerioinfantilusa.com)
Motion again- we compiled a response... we do not plan to send it... was more simply a release to type. Seems a waste in a rigged case to send anything... (carvercountycorruption.wordpress.com)
Is it ever okay to argue in front of your kids? (kleenexmums.com.au)
'Non-Stop Arguing' Is Reason Given For J-Lo's Split! (wycd.radio.com)
The memories of my Mum (kleenexmums.com.au)
Over $100,000 on one page... Access Visitation program $ (AV grants) (carvercountycorruption.wordpress.com)
7 reviews of Mixed feelings (rateitall.com)
I want to say to my ex-husband, "I trusted you to raise our children responsibly and reasonably and you couldn't even accomplish the 'responsibly' part. What were you thinking?"
And to his ex-wife I want to say, "You may not care that your son hurts for your sake and you may not care that you'll always have a special place in his heart that's just for you, but you could at least act like you care he exists. What are you thinking?"
These are the kinds of things I'll never get to say to them because even should the opportunity arise, I seriously doubt there would be any interest at all in what I'm trying to say. In point of fact, both of the exes seem to make it a point to be obtuse, blind and ignorant and insofar as I know, neither of them tends to be that dull-witted. I guess that it's easier to stick your head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the things you both do and have done just for your own sake. Did the best interests of the children not even once enter your minds when you were making all your stupid mistakes? Then again, neither of you have to deal with the backlash that he and I have to handle so what do you care? I bet that if either of you had to confront these last few months the way he and I have, you'd have a lot more to say and you would doubtlessly be very vocally indignant.
Was the momentary power and control that you had worth the absolute psychological damage you've inflicted upon the one's who are supposed to be innocent in this? To my ex; did you think it was okay and you were going to get to go along indefinitely hurting everyone you've hurt? To his ex; do you think that if you ignore your child long enough, he'll go away and do you think you've got everybody fooled with your victim act? You've both been able to dodge the consequences of your actions and refuse to accept accountability but where does that leave your children?
My nine-year-old suffers his mothers' rejection everyday and there's nothing I can do to make it better and nothing I can do to penetrate the brick wall of his first education. My eleven and twelve year olds suffer from what they were never taught and the understanding everyday of the things that their father did and as all angry and distraught kids tend to do, all three of them translate their anger, hostility and hurt into poor and disrespectful behavior in the home and direct it at the most convenient targets; those who care for them right now and those who care about them the most. They are effectively biting the hand that feeds them and slapping away the hand that's reaching out.
For those of you out there who think these statements are inflammatory or unfair, consider this won't you? The two oldest children at eleven and twelve have been involved with the juvenile court system and the youngest at nine has been systematically tearing the living room apart. Is it really fair to my husband and I to have to pick up the pieces every time the kids tear something apart or ruin something when the root of the problem would have never happened in the first place with a little time, attention, understanding and love from their respectively absent other parent? I understand that my husband and I made the choice to take care of the children and that's not a choice that he or I regret making but all the same, would it have been unreasonable for us to ask that team parenting not be out of the question? The nine year olds mother hasn't seen him in almost two years or talked to him on the phone in about a year and a half not to mention the legal trouble though she managed to teach her son how to hate and distrust all women without prejudice. The eleven and twelve year olds father is taking an extended vacation in the Iron Bar Hotel but he managed all the same to do his gloriously effective level best to raise two kids that have no respect for authority and little or no understanding of the difference between right and wrong, a horribly skewed moral compass.
When did it become acceptable for one parent to use the kids to hurt the other parent or to run away with no real explanation that matters and no excuse I'll accept because in the end I don't really think any excuse applies. For what it's worth I have yet to see a truly amicable separation among couples in which the anger of the parents is set aside for the needs of the children. One of the adults in a separation situation invariably chooses to act selfish and childish and no, I don't direct this exclusively at the separating parents because with it being more and more common for grandparents to raise grandchildren also it is more and more common for grandparents to fall into the same idiotic traps as angry and bitter parents.
My mother fell into the trap when she had temporary custody of my kids. The ex-husband and I handled the custody case remarkably well though that's not to say that when the kids were living with him that he didn't screw up because he did. My mother had custody of the kids temporarily and though you would've thought that she would behave just like a big girl with her big girl pants on, she promptly waged a smear campaign against he and I that had the children's attorney absolutely furious and recommending that I get the kids out of my mother's care as soon as possible. I would've thought that I could expect some kind of growth and maturity out of a woman in her fifties though I wasn't surprised when she did exactly as I had expected. Having custody of my children was after all, the best way that she could sit around and collect money without having to work for it and be able to have power and control and hurt me. Some of the things she said to the kids about me were just cold and the things she did were cruel and in all honesty it wasn't the things she said or did that bother me on a very deep level because I already knew it was going to happen, it's that she lived down to my expectations. But I digress.
When did parenting become a contest to see who could prove they love the kids more and when did this become acceptable practice? Why did divorce and separation become a power play and a trap into which one parent invariably falls? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not holding my husband or I blameless in this because I know for a fact that he and I have made our fair share of mistakes and done our fair share of childish and stupid things. Granted, I also understand that he and I have always done our absolute best to keep the kids from suffering the consequences of our actions which rarely ever works perfectly for things invariably spill over but neither of us have used the kids as a means to hurt and spite the other parent. Every year, the more childish the other parents act it gets more difficult to hold ourselves to a higher standard and I'm just as human as the next person out there, I want to lash out. I want to tell the kids the whole ugly truth about the parent that isn't there, be it the nine year olds' mother or the eleven and twelve year olds' father, but I know in my heart that that's the easy way out and it'll only hurt the kids and that's never fair to them.
I wonder if it's ever going to cross my husband's ex-wife's mind that her son, who loves and hates her so much for running away, is not going to be able to help the anger and bitterness that he feels toward her ultimately bleeding over onto her daughter, his sister. The reason is simple because until his sister came along, he was his mother's only child and now, she raises her daughter and won't even call her son therefore I expect that it'll come to the point that he will eventually blame his sister for taking his mommy away and he'll hate and resent her for it. There is no other realistic thought process or outcome. It will happen; it's only a matter of time.
I wonder repeatedly if it has crossed my ex-husband's mind that when the kids are old enough to understand, they'll hate him for taking everything away from them. Think about it, they lost the house in which they lived, their family and some form of normalcy and all of a sudden everyone was fighting over them. Their security and stability were destroyed all in one fell swoop and eventually they're going to blame and hate him for it. They'll also blame their cousin and hate her because she had her own part to play in the whole fiasco because the way they'll look at it is that she helped take away everything they knew whether or not it's a logical thought process.
I wonder from time to time why my husband and I even bother trying to uphold a more positive image of the children's other parents because they never seemed to feel the compulsion to do the same and the phrase, "Turn about is fair play," keeps floating through my head. Then I look at the kids and consider that they are not the ones to blame in this and it's not really fair to tarnish their images of their mother or father for the sake of my gratification or his. It's for this reason and this reason alone that I keep myself quiet in front of the children, because I love them more than I resent the stupidity of their other parent and believe me, sometimes I walk away from conversations with the kids with a feeling not unlike thwarted anger. The kids speak highly of the other parents and I want so badly to enlighten them but it's not my place. I have to swallow my anger instead, reach down inside myself and find that inner place of peace and teach the kids how to face the truth and accept it so that when the time comes they can come to their own understanding about the people they love. They'll still hate my husband and I for not telling them the truth and they'll hate us simply for the realizations at which they arrive because we'll be the ones that are there and convenient, but they'll get over it and realize that we have done the best we could with what we had and I'm of the opinion that we've done a damn good job.
I have to say that the kids are worth all the trouble we go through and all the grief we get for them and from them as well. That and I figure that we only have to really put up with the nine year olds' mother and the eleven and twelve year olds' father until the kids turn eighteen which means that time is growing short for my husband and I to have to deal with the ignorance, at least with these three. Around every cloud there is a silver lining, I suppose. It's just that sometimes the silver lining gets brighter with every year that passes. It kind of makes me wonder if the lining is perhaps sterling silver instead. Ah well, only time will tell.
Related articlesAnger,guilt and frustation -The Mommyhood package (thevampirespeaks.wordpress.com)
Parenting Solutions: Teased (education.com)
What are the fathers' rights in a custody battle (wiki.answers.com)
Your Children's Ministry Doesn't Care (ministerioinfantilusa.com)
Motion again- we compiled a response... we do not plan to send it... was more simply a release to type. Seems a waste in a rigged case to send anything... (carvercountycorruption.wordpress.com)
Is it ever okay to argue in front of your kids? (kleenexmums.com.au)
'Non-Stop Arguing' Is Reason Given For J-Lo's Split! (wycd.radio.com)
The memories of my Mum (kleenexmums.com.au)
Over $100,000 on one page... Access Visitation program $ (AV grants) (carvercountycorruption.wordpress.com)
7 reviews of Mixed feelings (rateitall.com)
No comments have been added yet.
