I used to be all about drama.  I mean ALL about drama.

Any girl that went near my ex-husband was bait.  I didn’t want him, but I sure as hell did not want him to be with someone else.  I could…but he could not.  Selfish, yes.  Ridiculous, yes.  Irrational, yes.  Keep in mind, he was the reason our marriage ended-I was forced to make the choice I did..click here to start reading our story.

Fast forward to the present day, I recently loaned his live-in girlfriend my set of Twilight books.  This is no small prize friends.  I love those books.  They might be the only fiction, non classic literature books I truly do love.  But she’s enjoying them.  And it opened up a door to us texting casually.  Both about my daughters love of Pandora charms and about some more personal issues going on in her life.  My daughter loves that we’re chatting a bit more.  I love that I know this person who is present in my daughters life, if only a little bit better.  And I’m starting to wonder what on earth this girl is doing with my ex-husband?  We’ve come a long way baby, when I start feeling bad for the girlfriend.

BsDaddy is present in her life.  Physically.  Financially.  Not really emotionally and certainly not spiritually.  The first two being the least important of the four in my eyes.  But not necessarily in hers.  Not yet anyway.  I make sure she knows that although he isn’t buying her material items as often as Mommy does, he is giving money to Mommy which allows me that extra spending ability.  And for her to be in expensive sports and activities.  She knows we both contribute financially to her lifestyle.  And she’s grateful.  Yes, even at nine.  That’s just how my girl rolls.

So, although he isn’t what I want him to be in her life-he’s there.  It seems to be enough for her-for now.  And I’m not going to rock that boat.

Although he could have been a bit more excited about her choice yesterday to do this to her hair:

And, as I keep reiterating to NewHusband, we can’t control what goes on in the other parent’s household.  Just like we wouldn’t love if they tried telling US what to do.  (But that’s hard advice to swallow when B tells me she tried to call me Friday night because she couldn’t sleep and she was alone downstairs at Daddy’s house and she worked herself into such a frenzy she had to go be sick in the bathroom.  And I didn’t get the call because I was on the lake where service is in and out, and she didn’t leave a message.  Although now, she knows to next time-TEXT your momma silly girly!).

This is much easier now that she’s nine and understands things better, than it was when she was three.  I used to cry my eyes out when she left for her Daddy’s. 

This post reminds me of that quote:  ”Just because someone doesn’t love you like you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have”.  So maybe, he’s loving her the best he can.

So I have single mom radar.  When I ws ready to sell the house that I had with BsDaddy and kept for three years post-separation, I bought a house in the nearby “city”.  Then after a while, I found NewHusband and we eventually decided to move in together, and get married.  I got a realtor who was proven to be the best in the area, with a track record miles long and top sales awards to boot.  Well, she was a single mom!  We bonded over the transaction, and now I count her as a friend.  

Today, I had a meeting with a lawyer for the “fact-finding” court date, where child support is evaluated.  I’d like to get it all done automatically, as I had never done this (trying to be nice to the ex, always my downfall).  I’ve heard this lady plays hardball and I was tired of trying to defend myself when BsDaddy always gets an attorney and I never do.  We get chatting and lo and behold, she’s a formerly single mommy too!  Of 4!  Now happily married to a man she enjoys spending time with and her kids all turned out well, graduated college, all working towards second degrees.  She was an inspiration!  Even was apparently as strict (yet loving) as I am with B!  She’s excellent.  And although I walked in prepared to pay a retainer, she gave me the un-glossed over truth.  I didn’t need to bring a lawyer in to this fact finding meeting with the support magistrate.  She also told me who the magistrate was, the type of guy he was and exactly what I should do and say.  And then she said, if it starts to go south, just say you want an adjournment until your lawyer can be present.  But she really thought it wouldn’t.  So that’s good.  She said she could take my $1500 to do this, but I could definitely do a good job on my own.  So I’m going to try that first.  

When I came to work and mentioned how great it was to connect with these single moms, this co-worker who is the second wife of a man she has two kids with, and two stepkids that are his biological girls, said “it is it’s own culture isn’t it?”, in a semi-scathing way.  Yeah, my claws are out.  It’s a culture because of women like her who refuse to believe that we got here through anyone’s fault but our own.  I wasn’t a miserable wife, I wasn’t a nagging wife, I was honest and truthful, kept a clean house and even my ex will tell you I was an excellent wife.  He cheated through no fault of mine.  He’s just a liar and a cheat.  That’s something no one can change for him.  And I left because I want my daughter to be a powerful, independent thinker who does not rely on men (or anyone else) to make her happy or make her who she needs to be.  I would not have been true to myself, if I had stayed with a man I could not trust.  I want her to have conviction and to stand up for herself and what she believes in.  I believe in monogamy.  So I stood up.  And left.  If people have a problem with that, they can keep putting the blinders on to what their husbands are doing.  If that makes them happy, then so be it.  It didn’t work for me.  I know lots of marriages where the wives turn a blind eye to that behavior.  That wasn’t me.  And I’m not bitter or depressed or even angry.  I just knew I deserved better.  I deserved MORE.  So when I meet another single mom (or single dad) who feels the way I do and parents the way I do-well yes I do connect with them on a different level.  And if you want to refer to that as our “culture”-well so be it.

Besides just about anywhere with my girl-is on this lake. And rowing Sullivan off to the shore so he can do his business, getting this view on the way back: And especially when he wears the lifejacket he hates so much, yet looks so cute in (you can carry him like a purse!  It’s a riot!): Doesn’t he look mad at me? But do I ever miss this little girl…she’s on vacation with her Daddy.  She just called me at work…and all I do is cry the whole time she’s gone.  I seriously need to deal with this better.  How will I ever handle college? She’s my favorite person to be with and the most enjoyable person I know.  Yikes…maybe I should have married HER!  

I feel confused lately.  I try to teach my daughter that she’s perfect and beautiful just as she is.  Every day of her life, she has heard “You are a beautiful, amazing, creative girl, and your mommy loves you very much” (followed by three kisses and a huge hug and a sniff of her glorious scent and there you have B’s bedtime ritual-in a nutshell).  Yet, I took this beautiful child:

(at three years old)

(taking a photo of herself last Saturday-this is what happens when you let her take photos at a family event such as my Dad’s birthday)

About half an hour before going to the orthodontist on Monday.  Age 8.

And outside the orthodontists office, with palate expander and braces…headgear only for night.

My point is, every night, I have to turn the key on this thing:

(not hers, just a sample photo of the one similar to what she has)

…and I feel that I’m putting her through this pain and drama all so she can have “perfect” teeth.  Am I sending the girl mixed messages or what?  The orthodontist had me convinced that it was legitimate and would be better than doing it later in life.  And B actually wanted braces, so that was ok.  She likes the actual braces (and since the most common question is “what color did she get?”, I will answer that one now, she got pink, orange, dark purple and light purple).  The headgear is a pain at night, but she sleeps fine with it, so maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.  And supposedly the headgear is only for about 6 months with the palate expander.  Braces are about a year for this first phase.  Later on she could need another phase, but it will be shorter than the traditional teenage years.  

I adore this child.  I wish I didn’t have to sit here at work and worry so much that she might be in pain.  But hey, last night she ate mac and cheese and a few small bites of pizza and a yogurt!!!  And not all that much got stuck in the expander!

She’s going on vacation with her Dad and family this weekend for a week about eleven hours away and I’m so sad.  I’ll miss my girl.  Every other weekend, both kids are at their other parents and we plan all the stuff we need to get out of the way for those times.  Her Dad told her last night that he could “let her stay with Mommy” on Friday night since she’d be gone.  Um, sure wish he’d asked me.  We had made appointments and plans for the whole weekend and how can I possibly say that to B?  She’ll always choose to be with me. The funny part is, he’s home that night.  And live in girlfriend will already be headed to the vacation house.  Hmmm, wonder why he wants to be “free” that night?  Could it be he’s still the same guy he was when  our marriage fell apart?  The zebra can’t change his stripes and all that. The sad part?  B was so excited to possibly get to spend the night alone with him.  She wanted him to lay with her while she fell asleep and talk.  :(  Jerk.  My husband said, “she can come with us.  We’ll drop her off at the marina before we head to VT.”  And he’s right.  And I’m grateful he loves being around her as much as I do.  But it still makes me sad.  For my girl especially…we’ll see how it plays out.

This is what Mommy looks like!  I was supposed to be reading my current book, but hey sometimes you have to watch the practice, so you know what to help the munchkin out with later.  

This is our hectic week. The last week of May is always the culmination of a years worth of dance class, in the RECITAL.  It’s no fun for anyone but the dancers.  It’s in a piping hot auditorium, with lots of loud complaining people, none of whom want to watch anyone other than their own children.  I get it…I don’t really want to watch everyone else’s children.  Just mine and my girlfriends. But nevertheless, I’ll be there.  And guess what I’ll be missing-yes, the season finale of LOST.  Ugh.  Not good. 

I’ve got a question to ask my readers, which is where you come into play as my pseudo-counselors.  Remember how I mentioned that my ex-brother-in-law (whom I still like and who is good to B) bought a house just down the road in my development.  A little too close for comfort, even if you LIKE the ex-family member.  Nothing to do now but deal with it.  But it’s rather irritating to see them move in, and completely tear apart the house they just bought, like it’s not worth anything as is.  It’s like HGTV just came into our development and is ripping out every last shred of the house that was once there.  Why not just bulldoze it?  We aren’t talking about a house that needed the overhaul either.  This is a really upscale area and was a nice home.  It could have been worked on during the course of living there.  However, they’ve got both sides of the family, parents, aunts, friends, doing slave labor from morning til night, looking like they’ve been put through the mill when they leave, to get it “ready” to move in.  Seriously, they even are painting spare bedrooms.  I know, I’m being irritable, but it’s just so not me to tear everything apart like that.  I’m wasteful environmentally sometimes, don’t get me wrong, but this just seems like a showy, extravagant…ummm, waste.  Ok, I’m done.  And just for the record, I do like the brother-in-law.  Why is this so annoying to me (and to several others in our development)?  

So I will skip over the fact that we had many, many, many discussions about what went down with him and this Jen girl.  We talked about it even more than it needed to be talked about.  I wanted out.  He begged.  I ended up letting him stay, or at least agreeing to it until the baby was born in a month or so.  So we went on.  And I felt like an idiot.  But I was busy getting ready for the princess.  She was overdue, I expected this, as I didn’t want to share her.  I gained 28 pounds by the time she was born, and about a week later, all of it was gone except for eight pounds…and that stayed until she was about a year old and stopped nursing.  I went into labor the day I was due to be induced.  Everything went well, and my eight pound, two ounce, 21 inch long baby diva arrived.  And she was gorgeous.  And by the way, that’s a big baby for someone my frame.  ;)  I was then so busy with the munchkin and all that I didn’t really deal with the marriage.  Just trudged and plodded along.  He stayed home with her during the day, then I came home around 3 and the he went to work and I stayed alone with her until about 9 or 10 when he got home.  AND he kept playing in the band.  To save this marriage, he should have quit.  But I refused to ask him to.  I wasn’t going to be WHY that band fell apart…it had to be done on his own.  And it never was.  He offered…but never followed through.  So, for three years I endured and trudged through.  Baby went into the daycare at my work at a little over a year old and life went on as usual.  But I never felt the same.  I felt ill when I thought about it. And I had lost all respect and trust.  And periodically I’d get a phone call while I was home nursing the baby, that Jen had tried to talk to him at show or was chasing his car out of the parking lot.  And the major kicker…the week after this all went down and the big show-down, she sent letters and pictures to my work.  I went to the mail box, saw a huge yellow envelope with my name on it and knew…so I went and got a co-worker (the only one who knew really) and told her and she said “Let’s pray”.  Did I mention she’s born-again?  :)  We prayed.  And I opened.  And there were all these huggy, drunk pictures of them and letters on scraps of paper…intimate letters.  And typewritten letters.  Those I wasn’t sure of the authenticity of, and still am not.  But what was definitely legit, was the pictures and the little notes about how he missed her and loved her.  And how he loved how she smelled.  It sounded like he didn’t even have a wife.  It sounded like what he’d write to ME!  Weird.  This all from the guy who came home and begged me to stay with him and professed his love and grovelled…huh?  Well, still pregnant then, I called my family, called the husband…reached him and met him on my way home.  It just was a mess.  

So needless to say, staying for 3 years was nice.  But dumb.  When I finally told him that was it, that I couldn’t force it anymore…people thought I was mean to leave.  They had forgotten.  Something that took away the joy of the only pregnancy, the only child, the only birth I will ever experience…had been forgotten.  Man people suck sometimes.  I was the bad one.  And still am in the eyes of his “band”.  And some of his family…the rest were understanding.  His Mom has been great to me…always…and very much so to my B.

But he moved out and I kept our house for three more years alone…and never really moved forward until I got out of that house.  Once I did, then I really left him behind. He still lies, all the time, and I still cover for him somewhat with his daughter.  I want her to believe in the father that he sometimes is-rather, than who he actually is.  

So more to come, I’ve got to finish up some lab stuff.  

So..I can hear parts of their conversation from the window where I’m sitting in B’s nursery.  She asks what’s going on and he tells her that he’s home, that he told her already this is where he belongs.  It goes on like that for about ten minutes and my father-in-law is on the phone coaching me to go outside.  Finally, I get the courage to do so (nowadays, I would have marched right out there and thrown rocks at her car and punched her in the face…I’m a much fiestier wife now).  I start walking down towards the car and they are ending their chat.  She drives off and he walks up the hill and says “Let’s go inside and talk”.  I say “No.  Have you been seeing that girl?  Who is she?  Is that where you’ve been all those times?”.  He just says a simple “yes”.  I take the very heavy cordless phone and chuck it at his head.  Hard.  He picks it up and follows me inside.  I cry and continue to ask him what kind of a jerk he is, and what did he take me for?  (Gee, I don’t know, the naive idiot that I actually was?).  It goes on for a bit.  His Dad tells us to come up to his house (he called back, the phone is still operable apparently).  We go to his parents, I go inside and cry and he stays outside with his father, who dragged him out of the car and is seriously ripping into him.  Somehow it all winds down, we go home and I tell him that I’m going to his show tonight.  I want to see this girl in person.  Will she be there?  BsDaddy is a musician in a popular area band.  Hence how he met Jen.  She was a groupie who followed him around for awhile.  One day, according to him, he was in line at a local grocery store and she was behind him in line (a set up, she worked at the bank in the aforementioned grocery store)  and struck up a conversation.  He says that he’s had better days.  She says something about maybe he should swing by sometime and talk about it.  And there it begins.  They actually sat near each other at a local restaurant before a show.  People KNEW.  Friends knew.  Worst of all, some family and the band members I considered like family (and their wives), yeah they knew.  They all chose to stay out of it.  I mean seriously, that pregnant wife living in the middle of nowhere, she must have done SOMETHING to deserve it.  Right?  I kid you not, a few people said their husbands told them to stay out of it, because maybe I wasn’t as nice as everyone thought.  

Back to topic.  Headed to the outdoor restaurant/bar to stand on the back deck where the hubby was playing.  He came out during breaks and leaned on me, kissing me.  Told me when Jen showed up.  I walked up behind her and her group of friends and made some very nasty comments something like “THIS is her???  Seriously, couldn’t you have chosen better if you were going to jeopardize our marriage?  Honey, she’s bigger than me and I’m 8 months pregnant!”.  I know, catty.  But I wasn’t thinking straight.  And I wanted that little homewrecker to HURT.  I wasn’t yet mad enough at BsDaddy.  Just wait, that will come.

Eventually, we were standing, surrounded by about 20 friends on the back deck and she walks by.  I’m leaning against a rail, he’s leaning against me, his back to the little walkway.  She prances by and tickles his side.  For real.  I kid you not.  Now that was some serious courage.  Now here comes the part I remember really, really well.  I said “Get your hands off my husband you dirty whore”.  She turns around.  ”What did you say to me?  BsDaddy, did you hear that?”.  (He’s just standing there stunned).  ”I think you heard me.  Get away from us right now”.  She grins “He loves me.  He wants to be with ME.  Tell her where you were last night, tell her”.  I stare hard into her face.  ”If he wants to go with you, he’s free to go at any time.  Do you want to go BsDaddy?  I can get a ride home just fine.  All our friends are here anyway.”.  He says “No, seriously.  I love you.  I’m going home with you.”.  She says “WHAT?  Why are you saying that now?  He’s only with you because of this” and on “this” she points to, actually making physical contact with my pretty large belly in my oh-so-cute denim shirt.  Instinct, BsMommy mother-bear style, kicks in and I haul off and crack her hard in the face.  ”How dare you?  I could call the cops on you.  That’s assault”.  And I will forever pride myself on how I handled this.  Sometimes I’m nervous under pressure, but not this time.  ”Listen, my entire family is in law enforcement and we are surrounded by 20 of my close friends.  Who do you think they are going to believe?  The pregnant wife or the dirty tramp?  And for your information, THIS baby, he BEGGED me to have.  I didn’t even want children.  So you just might want to get your story a little straighter.  And if he wants you, he’s free to go at any time.  I however am leaving and I suggest you stay the f#$% away from me”.  With that, I walk away, out into the parking lot and sit on a stone wall by the lake.  My best girl Tammy (LOVE HER) stays there and talks to this girl and BsDaddy follows me and we talk outside.  We then leave and go home…and what follows is where it gets a little boring for awhile, so we’ll save that for the next one.  Tammy has the inside scoop on what the girl said during all that time.  But Tammy tells her “look if you have all this evidence you say you do, send it to her, leave them alone right now.  If he belongs with you, he’ll come back.  But leave them alone right now”.

And by the way that best girl, Tam, she had been tailing BsDaddy and found where he was parking and staying and this was all going to come out that weekend.  She was going to drive me over and let me walk in on it.  She wanted to be sure to have her facts right and not make a false accusation.  Remember she was a friend of both of us.  BsDaddys story is that they only kissed twice, never had sex and never was he planning on leaving me.  It was all an awful mistake.  This all gets a bit more clarified in the next chapter.  And we get to further prove him a liar.  

I’m so excited for you all to find the end.  Like present day end.  I actually saw this girl the other day, she lives right near Bs school.  The ending is kinda funny.  ;)  But we have a long way to go.  Again no proofreading when I do these reflections, so forgive me for run-ons and any errors.  

Given what I know now, I can’t believe how foolish I was.  And naive.  I defended my then-husband right down to the wire.  I covered up that he wasn’t living with me (and later found out everyone knew anyway).  I was furious with my obstetrician’s office, which wrote on my chart in pretty big letters “husband not living with her, high stress”.  It was embarrassing.  I felt like every time I went in for a check up there was a big pity party.  I often brought BsDaddy lunch at work (he worked evenings, so theoretically it was dinner) and then I would buy him a shirt or something and bring that too…I was nurturing HIM, when I should have been being nurtured.  I promised him we would get him feeling better.  Only my closest friends knew I was living alone in the height of my pregnancy with my little B.  Nights, I would lie in bed, reading aloud to my ever-expanding middle, feeling her move and talking to her.  I always told her “It may be just the two of us girly, but your Mommy will make sure you never go without.  You’ll have everything a little girl needs and your Mommy loves you more than anything ever”.  She started moving and seemed to love classical music and oddly enough, Rage Against the Machine.  What a mix.  She’s still like that.  Diverse in musical genre.  We bonded over those several months.  I worked on the nursery with my Mom, had a baby shower at work, and two others, one with the in-laws and one with my family.  It was all coming together, except for the marriage.  

One day, my parents were at my house and the husband stopped in and was stalking through the house, grabbing things left and right, all attitude and very weird.  He freaked out thinking we hid his shoes on him, so he couldn’t leave…and really he’d just forgotten where they were.  He threw out a McDonald’s bag in my garbage and stormed off in his truck.  My parents just sat there, completely stunned.  He was a totally different person.  Finally, I had him take an online test to diagnose depression and he scored severely depressed.  He went to the doctor and got medication.  Slowly he got a bit better.  Some nights, he would come and stay with me and rub my back, helping me to fall asleep, but would sneak out shortly thereafter and I would awake at three am, alone in my bed.  And there was never any sex during that time.  No way…despite my raging horomones.  I’m not THAT dumb.  I remember specifically one night when he left, I sat in the middle of my kitchen floor sobbing, trying to figure out how I was going to do all of this…pay for this house, take care of this baby, go through childbirth.  Sometimes I would call his parents house, where he was supposedly staying and he wouldn’t be there and they would say he was at his friends house.   A friend I knew…and when I called there he wouldn’t be there…or it would be too late to call.  (All before cell phones…it would be easier now to catch someone!).

One night, he came home, crawled into bed and when I awoke he said, “It’s all going to be ok, I’m back now”.  He was still there when I awoke the next morning.  This was May 1st, 1999.  I remember acting affectionate and him saying “It’s not all better, but I’m here…we’ll be ok, it just takes time”.  It was a sunny, gorgeous, beautiful morning and the birds were chirping.  I thought my life was coming together finally-the future I’d dreamed of.  I was so hopeful.  We went outside, to wash our cars and play with our dog…(we miss you Scout)-and a black Honda drove by ever so slowly.  I asked about it, and he hadn’t seen it.  Then…it came back.  And stopped, down by our front lawn, across from our mailbox.  The window was down and a blonde yelled “BsDaddy, what the hell are you doing here?”.  He quickly grabbed his shirt, put it on and walked down the lawn to the car, after telling me to just “hold on a minute”.  I heard his reply to her “I LIVE here.  This is my home.”.  And then, I went inside.  I grabbed the phone and called my in-laws house and described what was going on.  My father-in-law told me to get outside and stop it right then.  But I couldn’t breathe.  I sank to the floor in the nursery, was having false contractions and listened through the window.  What went down next shaped the rest of my life and the future of my little girl.  And I felt idiotic, it seemed what others had suggested might have been true-was he having an affair while he was gone???  How could it be since I’d given him every chance to get out?  And he claimed to love me, and want us to remain together always.  

Stay tuned…you’ll get to meet the blonde.  There was another girl in the car…but I still don’t know who that was.  She’s obviously irrelevant.  

P.S. If it’s kinda scattered, it’s because although I’ve always wanted to write all of this out…I never have.  And I’m just typing as I remember it all.  It’s a bit cathartic, so we’ll see how I feel at the end.

Sorry ladies, I was raking and doing yard work while the husband worked on building this .  So anyway, to continue (just a short one, I was planning on updating tomorrow, but got some emails on my Blackberry that people were wanting more  ).  

So, all is happy and well.  Throughout the winter, the excitement is so fabulous!  I want a boy and can’t wait until February to find out what we are having.  We choose a name, Grady Vaughn for the son we think we are having.  Before our sonogram, we both write on a slip of paper what we think we are having and put it in our pockets, to open after we find out the gender.  The doctor double checks to make sure that we want to know and we both look at each other…hesitant.  She tells us.  It’s a girl!!!  Isn’t that great?  I think we both sank.  No, actually rephrase that, I think I sank.  How funny that seems to me now, since I can’t possibly imagine a son, as B has redefined my femininity in countless ways.  And of course, both of our slips of paper, which we unfolded slowly and carefully said “boy”.  Well we adjusted our line of thinking and started “thinking pink”.  And kept getting excited.  Well, in March, I noticed a serious change in BsDaddy.  He was quiet and reserved, where he was once hyper and completely devoted to me.  It was bizarre.  I remember calling my parents when they were on vacation in Maine and they both said it was my hormones…I was exaggerating, and BsDaddy said that too.  I began to think I was nuts.  After about a month or so of his behavior which was very, very odd (remember, I’d been with him since I was 19, and I was now 25-I knew how he was, so I knew that this was off).   Finally one night, I would not let him go to bed and made him stay up until he came clean.  ”I don’t know what’s wrong.  I just can’t be here anymore”.  I was aghast “WHAT?  You get me pregnant and now you want to split up?”.  ”No” he said “I don’t want a divorce.  I just can’t be in this house right now”.  Ok, I admit.  I had no idea what the heck was going on.  I don’t remember what I said.  I called my Mom and told her I was a failure and that I was as bad as all those other women with no husband.  I got in my car and crying hysterically drove the 25 minutes to my parents.  My mom slept with me on the spare bed and rubbed my belly until I finally cried myself to sleep.  Yup.  She spooned me.  It was rather sweet, now, looking back.  Enough for now…he left.  When I got back home, he was staying at his parents and I have to admit, it all gets rather hazy now.  Isn’t it amazing how the human mind protects us?

Just hang on…I’ll get some more in tomorrow.  ;)