The Dark Side

Although my last couple of posts have been light and fun one of the reasons for me to begin to blog was to be able to journal my thoughts and feelings.

Without going into a huge history of my life up until this point I will try to give a little back ground. Pregnant at 17, married at 17 (we will say pushed that way from my parents), married for 14 years, now divorced for about 4 1/2. Ex husband was/is an alcoholic, mentally abusive and in the end physically abusive.

My ex husband has not moved on. He has not dated in the last four years nor is he looking. I am the woman who few people know that my ex husband is a nut. I still get phone calls at 2am, 4am, etc telling me I am a whore, bitch, c*nt, etc. Currently there are 14 saved messages on my cell phone saved.

Yes I know I need an order of protection. I promise I am working on it. However, it has only been in the last year that I have been of the right enough mind to save those voice mails etc. You see he beat me down so much mentally that I thought I deserved to hear that stuff. Again it is a very long story.

The reason for this post -- I'm having a down day or maybe a down week. For the last week The Ex has been on his "bi-polar down swing" (what the kids and I call it). This is where he yells screams, etc. What makes this difficult is that I have been traveling and staying in hotels for the last three weeks with the training for my new job. He is so consumed with his feelings that I have not been able to talk to him about care for my 6 year old. It is awful. Monday & Tuesday I drove back home (a three hour drive) just so I could make sure my 6 year old was ok. I mean Laine can do fine, but she is 16 and this IS NOT her job. The guilt has consumed me this week. I took this job because it was an immediate 13k raise from my former job and it is commission so I know I will make more than the 13k in the near future. I took the job because it was a HUGE career opportunity. Although after training my overnight travel will be limited to three nights a month (one each week) right now I'm nuts. I have one more week of this left and I am so worried about next week as both Bright & Laine leave for their teen church camp Sunday which means the responsibility falls on The Ex.

Just an example -- last week I get a call from Laine -- her Dad had not come home from work and we both knew he had stopped at a bar. That night I had her take Evan to my grannies to stay, but her and Bright stayed at their Dad's. At 12:20 that night her Dad calls her. He wants her to come get him. He is at the police station as he had been pulled over for a DUI. WTF? he calls his 16 year old daughter to drive over an hour to a police station to pick him up at 12:20 at night? I was so enraged!!! This is just the tip of what I have documented in the last year. Yet the man calls me daily to tell me how everything is my fault and why don't I love him and why must I punish him etc.

The most difficult part of all of this is trying to make sure he is on track enough to arrange the child care and who is picking up our youngest from the sitter. I call to talk about that and all he wants to talk about is how awful I am.

Regardless of the details in the end I have to do what is best. I have put off going into court with an order of protection long enough. I must do this for not only me, but so that I may obtain full custody instead of joint and have some control with my children. It isn't that I want to take the kids away from him. That is not it at all. I need this to happen so that when I am out of town I can arrange for Garrett to stay with Rock Star or his Mother if I need to. This way I know he is safe and being loved on. Again I do not want to take time away from him (not that he would care since I have a page full of documentation where he went to the bar instead of spending time with his kids), but I need to be able to say to him regardless of how you feel about Rock Star Evan will be staying with him until I get back into town.

In the end this subject is deep and this will not be the last post on this subject. I continue to pray for God to help him, but after four years God still has not helped with it. As we all know we have to WANT to help ourselves.

Until next time....
L