Hi there -

It's been a while, but that's because I've transferred this blog to the wonderful wikivorce community site. You can find me there, I go under the username of TryingMyBest.

The continuation of this blog is here

Be back at some point.

A Loving Dad

Petty Lies - just to cause trouble.

Here's a funny situation. I do the shopping online and arrange to have it delivered at 7pm today. I write the arrangements on the fridge chart, through which we arrange who takes the kids to school and picks them up. It's Monday, and FXW's picking up the kids, so I assume she's with them at home around bedtime. I was at the university where I teach (an 75 minute drive away), and just to be helpful indicate I'd probably be there until 5pm. I also write the shopping will be delivered at 7pm or thereabouts.

I'm working late at the university. It's 6.45pm. I didn't think to call because I knew she had the kids at home and there was no need. Then I get this text message from her, and the following text interchange ensues:-

****************************
From her:
23.06.2008 18:45:06
R u home 4 delivery at 7?

From me:
23.06.2008 18:46:22
Afraid not. Is it a problem?

From her:
23.06.2008 18:48:03
Im out-didnt know til i saw on fridge+u didnt ask me 2 b there. I cn try make it bk bt cnt garnt.

From me:
23.06.2008 18:50:44
Sorry. I'll call them now and see if i can delay for an hour or so. Presume you'll be back within the hour?

From her:
23.06.2008 18:53:19
Yes. U had u wld b bk at 5 on fridge.When u really bk?

From me:
23.06.2008 18:54:53
I'm ages away. Stuck doing something. Do you want to go out?

From her:
23.06.2008 19:01:44
No, jst planned my work load on u being bk at 5. U need 2 let me know if the schedule changes.

From me:
23.06.2008 19:02:38
Sorry.

From me:
23.06.2008 19:04:59
Strange though. Because if you're out i would have been back in an empty house.

From her:
23.06.2008 19:08:28
Dnt worry, i didnt expect any different. It wld actually b a surprise if u stuck 2 what u hd on the schedule.

From me:
23.06.2008 19:11:42
I was waiting for the accusation. What a pity.

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What she doesn't realise is that early on in all this I've dialed the home number (withholding my number) and she's picked up. Immediately. Sitting at home, near the phone!

She wasn't out at all. Not when she said she was. She was just trying to make trouble and score points.

I got home at around 8.05. The kids were in the bath. The shopping had been delivered and unpacked.

E's mouth was bleeding. She had left one of her razors by the bath, and he had cut himself on it. ouch. Of course I didn't make a fuss. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps I should have said: "Don't leave your used razors by the bath. Concentrate on protecting the kids from harm rather than accusing their dad of things he hasn't done." But I didn't say any of that. Instead I took over the bathing and had some nice playful time with the kids and our bath toy characters - each of which I have a silly voice for.

Just as more proof. During the bath J proudly told me that he had done really well on the Nintendo Wii 400meter hurdles. Hmm. They had time to come home, play on the Wii, get ready for the bath etc etc. All in the space of an hour? The Wii has a calendar on it which shows that they had been playing for 35 minutes. Let's see. 10 minutes to get the kids inside, but their bikes away, settle them down, switch on the Wii. 35 minutes playing on the Wii. 10 minutes getting them out of their clothes and into the bath. And they'd already been in the bath for 5 minutes. That's an hour minimum. With no time between. And the shopping was all put away neatly too, and it was a lot of shopping.

So all in all it's very unlikely that she was out at 18:48:03 when she said she was. As I said, she was just trying to make trouble. And if she was out, which I doubt, why the fuss about me not being back at 5pm? To make trouble. That's why. What a silly silly woman. All this shenanigans, just to make trouble for her kids dad. Sad sad sad.

A Catalogue of Misdemeanour and Maliciousness

It's got to that point where she is blatantly using the children as pawns in a battle of her own making; a battle with an unwilling opponent; a battle that no-one will win and everyone will lose.

Inlaw invasion
So two weeks ago or thereabouts. It was Thursday afternoon. My 5 year old son lets me know that his uncle and aunt and two cousins will be arriving in the house tomorrow to stay for the weekend. Yep - FXW had arranged for the inlaws to come and stay without even mentioning it to me - I found out from my little boy. Astonishing. I don't mind that much, but the amount of lies she has been feeding them about me means that they are pretty frosty towards me. Evenso, I was still booked in for babysitting their two kids for one of the evenings so they could all go out on the lash.

Nanny's Needs
Then there is the ridiculousness of putting the childcarers needs before the needs of the children. She needs more time so that she can earn more money. But I take one or two days off a week to be with my kids. So that's that. But FXW says that this is wrong because it's not fair to the nanny.

Open Insults
FXW frequently criticises, contradicts and insults me in front of the kids. I refuse to answer back. I just walk away. My 5 year old confessed to me one evening: 'I don't like it when mummy speaks badly to you.' Another quote from him: 'Why is mummy cross with you?' I don't really have an anwer except mummy and daddy both love you very much. He's too smart to be satisfied with that one though.

'Confusing' the Kids
So I arrange to pick them up from school. But FXW has arranged for the childcare to pick them up. Simple - Daddy's picking you up today. Hooray, say the kids. FXW leans down and talks very emphatically at them: 'It's very confusing isn't it children, when R's supposed to pick you up and then Daddy decides to pick you up instead... very confusing... ' I protest mildly. FXW continues... 'See they are confused - I am just making it clear because when mummy and daddy haven't decided who's picking them up they are c-o-n-f-u-s-e-d' Both the kids throw her a confused look. 'See they are confused'.

The next day the kids announce that they are confused as to who is going to pick them up.

Anger Munition
Big news: I'm not perfect - I make mistakes. Last weekend the kids got a bit sunburnt on a camping trip I took them on. The sunscreen said it was waterproof. It wasn't. So when I get back I have never seen anyone make such a fuss out of a touch of sunburn - and it made the kids feel worse being told how badly burnt they were. Pathetic.

Sabotaging a visit to grandad
I was going to take the kids to see my father on Saturday. He adores them, and there was also a chance for them to see their uncle - my brother - who was going to be down there to help my father with some DIY. I got up to get them ready to go and the J(5) announced he doesn't want to go down to K's because 'my mum said she would take me for a bike ride in the park'. I said OK - disappointed because I'd planned a nice day for the two of them. Then I asked him if he was sure he didn't want to go, because we would be taking the train and it would be fun. He said no he wanted to go to the park with mummy instead. The littler one said that he'd like to go, but didn't seem that pushed either. I left it. Then a little while later I asked him if he wanted to go tomorrow instead.

In bursts FXW who has been listening to all this surreptitiously. 'Stop nagging him to go down - he doesn't want to' she says. And I've got plans for them tomorrow so you can't take them then' Again I can't respond because I don't want to escalate an argument. But I can see what's happened. Anything I want to do with them she tries to sabotage. Who loses out? The kids mostly.

Cash Starve and Greed
So now she has admitted - by text message - that she is deliberately underpaying the mortgage and bills, to prove some kind of point. I'm struggling to find enough money each month while she buys herslef expensive shoes and sunglasses. Meanwhile I buy all the kids stuff.

Throwing away the note
So this morning I got up really early and had to go and retrieve the car from the garage mechanic - an unsuccessful attempt to avoid congestion charge. Because the kids hadn't seen me the night before, I left a note on my bedroom door saying where I had gone. When I came the kids were thrilled to see me, but asked me where I had been. I asked them whether mummy had read them the note on the door, but they said no. Sure enough the note wasn't on the door - I found it in the bin, screwed up into a little ball of paper. She must have seen the note, torn it down and threw it away. Why? I suppose she wanted the kids to feel that their dad sometimes isn't there and doesn't tell them where he is. Makes me feel pretty sick, that sort of vitriol.

Shadowing and Hovering
Of all the things that FXW does this is probably the most trying - even though it seems the most trivial. Whenever I'm getting the kids ready for school or anything, she hovers, shadows, corrects, contradicts. I put a shirt on the youngest - soon after she'll swap it for another. I choose some trousers - she puts it into their head that they are uncomfortable. Whenever she's dressing the kids I just leave her to it. But she seems set on undermining me and if she doesn't directly intervene will shadow and hover like some kind of bad smell. Drives me nuts. But again I can't stop her because she will use it to escalate an argument in front of the kids. So I kind of put up with it, and wait until she has to leave for work or get involved in something else - which fortunately, inevitably happens. As long as I don't display annoyance, she'll leave me alone. Because it seems, that's the primary motive.

Unfortunately the kids are suffering because of this - they are losing opportunities for precious simple interaction with their dad, and the younger one, is now playing up and having trouble in nursery.

Call it a day
The sooner all this ends the better. I no longer think it's good to stay in the same house. FXW is now psychopathic, and will do anything to vindicate and excuse her adulterous ways. Even when it badly affects her own kids. Amazingly, she seems completely unaware of her actions. Probably her saving grace - if she knew what she was doing she would be no less than evil. At least all she really can be accused of for the moment is selfishness and stupidity.

Finances

I used to handle all of FXW's work finances through my own company. I hated doing this because it always led to arguments. I begged to get her own thing setup and showed her how to do it. Eventually the guys she was working for needed the 'contractor' to sign a contract which included a clauses about competitive work and all sorts of other things. It also insisted that the contractor was a director of the company that was doing the invoicing, which she wasn't. So thankfully it had to end. She was forced to set up her own company and invoice everything through that. Hooray.

Meanwhile I had handled all her VAT and tax liabilities through my own company, and deduct from what she was earning. I would also deduct a contribution to the mortgage and bills, all of which I pay out of my own account (we never set up a joint one). The only thing she paid from her account was the childminder (and quite often I would pay for that myself). I would work out the amount she was 'owed', taking into account what she supposedly paid the childcare.

At the end of each year all her tax would be taken care of, which usually left me with a hefty tax bill, and she would never produce any expenses to offset against it.

Anyway, since she's been handling it herself, she drastically reduced the amount of contribution to the mortgage and bills, and in 3 of the 6 months she hasn't made any contribution at all. Consequently I'm pretty strapped. Someone told me I should keep a record of this, so I thought here would be as good a place as any.

Torrent of Abuse

So here's the pattern. FXW is told in no uncertain terms by a third party that she is behaving unreasonably and it needs to change. She takes it on board initially. Then she feels crushed, ends up in tears. Then she takes it out on me by being very rude and nasty for the next two days. Then she goes away, talks to someone else about it who doesn't know the full story, reinterprets it all, and then orchestrates a semi-formal conversation with me where she hurls forth her reinterpretation, and usually throws in a string of abuse and vitriol at the same time.

I'd forgotten about this pattern. But the fallout of the previous mediation session was exactly this. Yesterday evening she had spent out at dinner with her parents, and just before that around at her friend's house. She announced that the children would be taken out by her parents to the cinema this morning and that during this time she wanted to sit down with me and talk.

During mediation, they'd said do it for real, not just in theory, and see how it works. So she asked me to print out some blank monthly calendars and said right, we need to talk about how this is going to work. I said fine. I'd been thinking that maybe she would be happier with the idea that we basically alternate weeks and weekends but the kids stay one night a week with the parent they're not with. I drew this out for her. She said that's all theory, let's look at what will exactly happen. So she embarked on a schedule of who would drop off the children who would pick them up and on what days, like we do anyway. So no change. I said that we have to look seriously at where they are going to be staying, not who does the school runs - that bit's easy (usually me). Then the abuse started, almost out of nowhere, but it spewed forth like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released.

She said I would be a sad old man who would end up lonely and homeless, she used the word 'arsehole' about eight times in a row, she said I was selfish and always had been, and a million other nasty nasty things which formed a a tirade of abuse of psychotic proportions. I tried to stop her, but to no avail. She even brought my dead mother into it, recruiting her to her point of view. The woman is completely deluded. While all this was going on there was a strange far away look in her eye, and anything I said about the situation would be greeted with mock jocularity and contrived gesture. I tried to say nothing, but just to say something I pointed out that everything she was doing - the weight loss, the personal trainer (who comes into the house), the frequent trips to hair-dresser and beautician, the vast spend on clothes, was classic mid-life crisis. I suggested that she was so deluded it was difficult to even have a conversation, let along come to any kind of constructive agreement. This probably didn't help, but I certainly didn't hurl any insults.

Oh boy.

When I pointed out that the only way she could move her agenda forward was to acknowledge me as an equal parent and agree to the kind of schedule I was proposing. She then grandiosely tore up the calendar I had drawn up - that's what she thought of that, she declared.

What she wants is for the 14 days to be split up so that she has the kids 8 nights and I have them six. She says it's so they have 'continuity during the school week', but this is not the case even with her schedule. Fact is she wants more time, because that confirms her perceived status as the primary parent, it exonerates her insistence on breaking up the family, of having an ex marital affair, of two years of faith healing, of abusing me and making the kids lives less than perfect. It's all about perceived victory.

I'm now convinced she is in need of some kind of help. For the sake of my kids, she needs to realise what it that's driving her, and just be honest about it. Whenever someone questions or challenges her, she completely reinterprets it, and hurls the abuse at me - either tacitly or literally.

I only stopped the abuse when I asked her what she wanted me to do to prevent her thinking these things about me, and therefore to be able to move forward to some kind of sensible way of communicating with each other. You need counseling, she declared, the irony completely excaping her. OK I said, I'll go to counseling, would you like me to go to your faith-healer? Or someone else? That shut her up momentarily. 'Ah but not because I'm asking you to do it, because you decided to do it yourself', came the response. OK. What else? Silence. Then, 'I can't tell you you just need to be a completely different person.' But this isn't about saving the marriage, this is about learning to communicate, and finding a way that you don't feel the need to hurl all that verbal abuse at me. 'It's just what I feel', she says. OK so how can I make you not feel it? No answer.

I don't know how it ended, but I suggested that we needed to find a way of dealing with each other which didn't involve so much hatred. Because if she tries to take this whole thing to court, we're going to be in the same house for another year - it will take that long. Reminding her of that thought seemed to put a stop to the abuse. Thank goodness.

Mediation

FXW and I are undergoing 'mediation'. We still live in the same house, and there's no divorce in place or anything, but she insisted we need mediation rather than some kind of guidance at how to communicate with each other. Given her aggressive insistence, I tried to find an organisation which would undertake this which wasn't some kind of solicitor's scam making money out of people's misery, and I came across the Institute of Family Therapy. These are the people who apparently help train and advise on family mediation services across the country. They are supposed to exhibit 'best practice'.

We started going and the process was pretty predictable. FXW slinging unfounded accusations and insults whenever she could, me attempting to hold my ground that I was not going to agree to anything unless I was seen by everyone as an equal parent, which meant shared residence between two homes for the kids and an equal division of care. 50/50. FXW wants to have them mainly living with her, and for me to see them every other weekend and occasionally during the school week. The lady who tried to mediate struggled really and kept on making the mistake of searching for some kind of rationality in FXW's argument. She said that she was 'there for the children', who she'd never met. She kept on ascribing stereotypic assumptions about how they were coping or not, bolstering FXW's position, but not acknowledging the fundamental of this whole thing. That I'm their dad and as much of a parent to them as their mother is. After 5 sessions of getting pretty much nowhere, I suggested that she bring in another mediator, preferably male, preferably himself a dad. A change of scene. We all agreed.

So. We attended this session yesterday. The guy was actually very good. He listened, advised, and then laid it on the line. If FXW wanted so desperately to go through with the break up, then the only way it was going to happen consensually was if she agreed at least in the first instance - perhaps for the first three months - to have the kids time allocated equally to each parent. He suggested that these three months would be 'chaos' and 'horrendous' whatever way it was done, but the time had come to stop talking in hypotheses, either accept one of (my) preferred routes (i.e. gradual reconciliation or continuing to live in the same house as a separated couple), or make the move. He suggested that the number of days in whichever house would turn out to be pretty immaterial when it came down to practicalities and she needs to see how it works in practice. And because the dad (i.e. me), quite understandably, wants to be unequivocally seen as an equal parent, and the only way this could happen was through an equal parenting arrangement, he 'challenged' her to go through with it. Her alternatives were go through the courts to 'subcontract the decision' which was an unpredictable process, and one which would take 6 months minimum, more likely a year or more. When she mentioned that she may try to take the kids away without my consent, she was told that that would be effectively a kind of kidnap, in which case she would most likely to be subject to a prohibitive steps order or an injunction which could force her to return the children to their home, put her in a very bad light in the eyes of the court and increase the chances of their dad retaining full residence, let alone shared residence.

I knew the day would come when someone would put it to her straight (other than me), and I'd always dreaded the consequences. Three things were made very clear: (1) actually separating was going to be dire for the kids at least at first; (2) she would be very foolish not to do this 'consensually'; and (3) the only way it could happen was to do it at least in the first instance under terms I would agree to i.e 50/50 shared residence. It finally hit her. She's devastated at the truth, what she's putting the kids through, and how it's unlikely to move forward in the way that will in any way exonerate her.

Her mother has been over here for the past few days, things had been frosty but ok, but now she came home and just wept. I had gone home a different way, via the office, and because I knew she would be crushed, bought her and her mum flowers - ridiculous I know, but I just thought some kind of gesture was needed. She chucked the flowers down on the kitchen table, angrily. He mother is not strong enough to do any different, so rather embarrassedly put hers aside too. Later on I discreetly place the two bouquets in a vase. Pity to waste them.

Since yesterday, FXW has been really nasty. Rude, sarcastic, interfering with the kids when I'm with them. I can't react, I won't rise to it. I know she feels at a dead end, but none of this is my choice. I'd like to talk to her parents, particularly her dad who just arrived, but FXW insisted I didn't speak to them about stuff. She doesn't want them to see my side of things, or have anything which might contradict the bunch of lies she's probably been feeding them. Her dad actually raised it with me briefly, and sympathetically. I said that FXW didn't want me to talk to them about stuff, but personally I would welcome a conversation. I'm not sure we'll have a chance this time round, but we will at some point I'm sure.

Problem is much of FXW's problem stems from her perception of her own parent's relationship, which she always felt was dysfunctional. They stuck it out anyway. She feels her mum should have left her dad (even though apparently her and her sister used to prey together as 11 year olds that their parents wouldn't split). You don't need a PhD in psychology or even a phony diploma in 'psychic studies' to see what's going on here. She want to exorcise those demons and split up with me to fulfill what she thinks her mum should have done to her dad. Disregarding the damage that two children will suffer as a consequence. If this isn't psychosis, then my name's Sigmund Freud.

Mother's Day

Funny old day, Mothering Sunday. My own mother isn't with us any more, sadly, so the focus in this family is on the mother of my kids. I've decided that FXW is actually someone who is in a bit of a strange phase in her life, and although that's affected me and the children horribly, that the best course of action - if at all possible - is kindness. Kindness in the face of adversity. So that's what I'm trying. Kind of.

The day started with bringing her breakfast in bed, which the kids enjoyed preparing and delivering. FXW seemed to like this. I made sure that the kids got all the credit for it. Then as she'd arranged to have some hair pulled out from some part of her body for an hour, the kids and I skipped off to the park and to a local cafe for a run/ride/play/drink combination. A favourite sunday morning activity, and gets me my cup of strong coffee out of the house.

Then we return and I'd arranged that we all head out to the Southbank and the excellent Giraffe for lunch. A family outing - wow that's ambitious. It seemed to go ok. The backchat and dig-factor was present but minimal - I took the kids' skateboard which I've been getting them to practice on for a while now and they had a ball checking out what the skater dudes on the southbank showed them. FXW of course lambasted my skate training technique of all things, but I just let that pass. Lunch was a tasty success - minor digs here and there for example when I gave the kids some water to drink out of a bottle (puh-lease!), but I'm so practiced at ignoring these things that it made no difference.

Later we returned home and I got to do homework with J. Always fun, and often an interesting challenge. E had fallen asleep, so there was nothing to distract FXW, so she tended to keep poking her head in to get in on the action. Best to remain polite, and just get on with it. 'I like to do homework with J too', she announces, somewhat aggressively. OK I say, do you want to finish it with him? No you started it, - but I'm doing it next week. Typical example of the petty parenting competition that tends to go on round here. In the end I got J to go and solicit help from her - I don't want her to feel left out as I know how horrible that feels when she does it to me.

Anyway, I'm just going to try my best to be kind. But at the same time, I'm not going to acquiesce to things I know are just wrong for the kids. It's a way forward. I hope I can keep it up.