I am back...

Ok...so I took a little break...and now I am back..

New issue at hand..My husband's relationship with his ex.. Ok, this is SO not a new issue, but you know what I mean...I am not sure where to start.

They had only dated for a few months when she got pregnant. They broke up by the time she was 3 months along. Joe was there from Day ONE. Never missed a visit, never missed a child support payment, and was always asking for extra time. Yet, she treated him like a stranger that had no claims or rights to his own child. She acted as if he were a dead beat dad, and even had Little Man calling her Boyfriend Daddy, but he called my husband, JOE. We began to feel that LM was being treated like a piece of property, a claim she had staked, "because she is the mom". My husband got zero consideration in the day to day life of his own flesh and blood. He and I got together when Little Man was 2, so for 5 years now, this has been a battlefield.

It became a constant struggle to do "what is right", and to do what was best for Little Man. Non-stop threats of court, calling the police, and even once the DHS, really wore on our family. We got constant calls every single Monday with questions about every single mark on his body, or complaints of something bad he had either said or done, and it was blamed on my daughters. Non Stop demands of how to parent in our house and how to spend time with him on OUR time and even where he should sleep and what days he should bathe. I started to build up a lot of resentment. I didn't even want to be in the same room as him on the weekends he was here.

Nasty emails and phone calls exchanged, the pick up and drop offs were excruciating because neither would get out of their cars to speak to each other. We started seeing Little Man faking illness and injury to the point he went to the ER with a "Phantom" illness, just to get attention from all four parents that rushed to be by his side. Joe and I started to realize how badly he was being affected by all that went on around him, when he said he faked tummy aches because it made him feel happy when everyone stopped fighting. Ugh, that was a huge parental FAIL on our parts.

LM's Mom showed all the classic signs of dishing out "severe alienation " on the PSA scale. We printed off copies and highlighted suggestions we could ALL do to help the situation. She threw them out the window and let them scatter in the wind, laughing the whole time. It felt as though there would be NO end in sight and we had the rest of our lives to deal with the misery.

Finally my friend suggested inviting her to a concert. I did, thinking, She will never say YES, I am sure! UH OH...she said YES...I had a panic attack for a second thinking I was going to have a miserable night and she would 3rd degree me to get some info out of me that she could use against us in court...Then I smacked myself mentally, and decided that only I controlled how I let her affect me. If I wanted to have a good time, I would have a good time. So, we went, and had a great time. We talked, and figured out that she and Joe just do not know each other, and they both are stubborn, so they assume the other is out to get them and neither is going to blink first. It is a vicious cycle that LM is put in the middle of.

The following Friday, she invited us to her house with all the kids to a pizza party. It was a little uneasy at first, then we relaxed and everyone started to laugh and just enjoy it. There is still that part of me that is waiting for the other shoe to fall and I wonder what will happen the next time she asks a favor and we say No, or if Joe asks for extra time and she will not allow it, but I can't continue to live that way, I need to be open minded and continue to hope for the best. I am sure she is just as leery as we are, and I HOPE she is just as hopeful as we are that we can repair and move on for the sake of LM.

Maybe I live in a fantasy world, but I really do believe that if you were close enough with someone at one point to make a child with them, they can't be all bad (in most cases) and if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have these amazing little creatures that hold our hearts so tight. So we should be thankful for the gift they gave us, and work to get along. It will only mean happiness for our children.