A story that ran too long

My girls… what to say about the current situation with the girls? I don’t really even know where to begin, so stick with me while I try to muddle through the status.

If you know me, you know that I am re-married and have two teenage girls from my previous marriage. At the time I divorced I was traveling quite a bit, and was filled with quite a bit of guilt for giving up on my marriage. I wanted the girls to be happy – to have as normal of a life as possible. And I wanted out of that house. It was cancerous, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in a dead, dead, DEAD marriage and there was no love left. None to give, none to receive. We had not been married for all practical purposes for a long time.

While married – I met my current husband. Yes – I know I should have been divorced FIRST. Yes, I should have done things differently. But the time to make those decisions and act on them has long come and gone…so lets not go there, m’kay? Lets flash forward to the divorce part… My ex husband and I agreed on everything. We shared a lawyer. We were joint-custodians of the girls, having equal rights in raising them, however I agreed to let him be the primary residence, with the agreement that we would always be flexible and let the girls have a choice as to when they wanted to see me or him. I agreed to pay him a certain amount of money to make sure their lifestyle didn’t change – that they could take vacation, keep the house, all of the things that made their lives stay the same. And we accepted the standard custody agreement by the State of Texas – with an understanding that we would only really need to refer to it if we were not getting along.

For a few years, things were fine. He was a great father, he was flexible for the most part. And the girls were happy. Then he met his current wife and everything changed. He became a little mean and completely un-flexible in the girls schedule. He wouldn’t let them see me even if he wasn’t going to be home – and they would just be there with his wife and their step-brothers… which didn’t make much sense to me. I was told that I couldn’t stop by and see them, or drop anything off for them. And – he took away the cell phones I had purchased for them when he was angry with them – as a form of punishment. These were phones I gave them so they could call me.

Nothing improved much from there. I wanted to go to a lawyer and fight for full custody but the girls didn’t want me to do it. They didn’t want to make their dad angry. So – I did nothing. I have done nothing for over 2 years. I have just watch the girls get more and more upset and watched their dad turn into more of an idiot than I ever thought possible.

Examples of his idiocy:

1. One of my daughters now drives. She has a car that her dad has ‘given’ her to drive to school. She left school early because she started her period and didn’t have anything there to change into. She tried to reach me, her stepdad, her stepmom, and her dad and none of us were available, so she went home to change and waited for someone to call her back. When her stepmom found out, she accused my daughter of skipping for ‘no good reason’ and yelled and screamed at her. Her dad also yelled and then took the car away. After he made these decisions – without consulting me – he told me that I would have to pick her up from school and take her to school. (Prior to this, my daughter drove herself to school, which made a big difference as I have the boys to take care of in the morning, plus my other daughter to take to school – not to mention a full time job) I was not happy with his decision because I didn’t think she had done anything wrong, and he had not asked me my opinion first – but decided it was ok to inconvenience me anyway. I refused to take her to school and instead took her to her dad’s house – letting him take her to school. It was his dumb punishment – he could deal with the fallout. Do you know what he did? He decided that she is not allowed to EVER drive to my house. Not even to babysit for our neighbors. So now, I have to go get her every day after she drives home if she is coming over here.
2. We were supposed to have the girls for all of June. 4 days early my ex husband decided to take them on vacation with him – booking tickets and telling them about it, while neglecting to ask my permission to take them early. I could not tell the girls “no” because they would have been hurt by not being able to go – so I gave in and let them go – with the understanding that we would get 4 days with them prior to them going back to school. Not only did we NOT get those days back, but he then picked them up on a day they were supposed to be with me – for an eye doctor appointment. He was supposed to bring them back after, but decided not to – as it just wouldn’t be a good idea because they had stuff to do to get ready for school. Turns out they had nothing to do – he was just being an ass.
3. He and his wife told the girls to write down their feelings about all of this stuff going on – that it would help them to get it out. They did write down how they felt. And then do you know what happened? He and his wife snuck around and found what they wrote and then my girls got in trouble for it. Amazing. They wrote that they were unhappy at his house and didn’t want to live with him anymore – and he got mad at them for it.
4. The other night when I told my ex husband that I would no longer going to any deviation from the custody agreement – because I only get screwed out of time with the girls – he slammed the phone down and apparently screamed at the girls that they “have a lying, cheating whore of a mother” and if it was up to him, he “wouldn’t let them ever see me again”. He said this to them!!!! What is wrong with him?

So – now my daughters have asked me to hire a lawyer so that they can go to the judge and ask to live with me. I just hope they go through with it… my heart cannot take much more of this.