A Mother's Musings and Mumblings

Thing 1 is really gone now. She’s been in Norway for weeks but has been checking in by phone pretty much daily. But now she and WF are on a boat on their way to Svalbard. Look it up. It’s half way to the North Pole. Needless to say, I think the prospects of a phone call are pretty much nil until they get back to Oslo and are ready to board the plane home.

Thing 1 is loving the trip. Her vacation responder reads:

Hello, i am very sorry that i cannot reply to your messages seeing that i am in Norway, today i will be at the hotel and MIGHT be able to get access to the hotel computer but until then I cannot respond. Also the next 2 weeks I will be in Svalbard (look it up it is a really cool place.) and i will not have access to a computer, but i will reply as soon as i return…assuming i am not eaten by ice bears (they are so cute!!) well i shall try to respond a.s.a.p. bye bye (also look up the Besseggen, a hike i did, the ridge was really hard)
–
\~/   My NORWEGIAN glass looks half full to me!

She’s having a blast. But back home, not so much.

Thing 2 has developed several sudden, unexplained fears of things that go bump that cause her to turn to flypaper and cling to me. I’ve tried talking to her about why this might be the case, but she shuts down.

My best guess? She’s feeding off of me again. Because I’m stressed.

The original plan was for WF and Thing 1 to do some hiking by themselves for a week. That lasted a day. They had to scale back because the weather wasn’t cooperating and the hiking was longer and harder than they anticipated. This tells me a couple of things. First is that WF is being reasonable and not pushing too hard. This is a good thing. Second is that there is the potential for more trouble ahead. The temperature in Svalbard is going to be at least as cold as what they bailed out on so they have to face that weather eventually. But what about the hiking?

The last phone call was from the boat so Thing 1 had already met up with the group they’d be hiking with and had survived their first hike together. It was a short hike but with some fairly steep vertical and Thing 1 was the youngest member of the 15 person team by at least a decade. She hiked right up front with the leader – on purpose – to prove herself. That’s my girl! But when I asked where her father was I was informed that he was bringing up the rear.

He confirmed that, as well as informed me that he was using medication for motion sickness and had been paying attention to his medication. He’s been very good about my overt intrusions into his privacy recently regarding medical matters. In fact, he’s called me promptly every time he’s received his PSA results this year. He gets that checked every month. And yet, I haven’t heard a test result since summer started.

I know I’ve been traveling and that I tend toward “borrowing” trouble. But with my eldest above the Arctic Circle out of contact for over a week, it’s easy to think of things that might go wrong under the best of circumstances. And these are NOT the best of circumstances. Throw in a bit of uncertainty about who I’m most worried about and there’s plenty of trouble to borrow.

So if Thing 2 has random fears of things that go bump I guess I have to accept that she may have come by this naturally. I seem to share those fears.

Flypaper it is.

I’ve told this story before, generally when speaking to people about the trials and tribulations of co-parenting. Recent events have prompted a desire to tell it here in writing for all to see. Like all things that turn up on my blog, I don’t question why, I just write.

My parents didn’t have custody of me when I was growing up. I won’t get into the whys or hows (what if you held a custody hearing and no one showed up?) but my grandparents had custody while my parents each had visitation. Four days a month with no overnights.

By the time I was six, taking visitation was too burdensome for my Momster and she stopped showing up consistently. She’d drop by when it worked for her and leave me when there was something better to do. For the better part of a year the only time I had visitation with her is when she could take me to work with her (as a waitress at a truck stop) because it didn’t impact on her other plans. This post is not about her. I have other plans.

My Dad faithfully took his visitation. Every single week. Without fail. But as I grew up, things changed. I had friends, I had plans, I had a life. Stopping what I was doing every week to spend a day with my Dad was a drag and, like all tweens/teens, I didn’t want to do things that weren’t fun, interesting and of my own choosing. So I began to complain.

I was 12 at the time. My grandparents decided that 12 was old enough to make the choice of where I wanted to spend my time. My Dad decided that he didn’t want to force a kid to spend time with him if I didn’t want to. So at the mature age of 12, I got my weekends back.

When I was 15 I had the year from Hell. Seriously. I’m still hard pressed to think of other things that could have gone wrong that year. Among the highlights was finding myself essentially unwanted/unwelcome at Momster’s house after my Grandma had decided that she should raise me. Grandpa was dead. And where was my Dad? He’d moved out of town. Because I wasn’t spending time with him anyway so why would he stay?

When I was 21 my Dad died. Now, it’s never easy when a parent dies. My Grandpa died when I was 15 and I remember how hard that was. But the feeling that overwhelmed me when my Dad died was Guilt. Pure, unadulterated Guilt. Guilt for rejecting him. Guilt for choosing to watch stupid movies that I couldn’t even remember with friends I no longer saw rather than to spend the day with him. Guilt for telling him that of all the things in my life, sleeping in was more important than seeing him.

Another therapist sent her child to private school with the fees from that!

But what did I learn from all of this? One thing I learned is that teens/tweens are inherently selfish creatures. That’s just the developmental stage that they are in – their zone of proximal development. I also learned that this episode was as much a failure in parenting as it was a failure of my own – maybe more-so. The adults in my life, by virtue of being parents, had an obligation to teach me how to be a good person. They taught me not to lie or cheat or steal. Why couldn’t they also have taken the time to teach me (better) how to treat people?

It isn’t that my grandparents didn’t treat people well, just that they didn’t like my Dad. So they allowed me to treat him poorly. The result was I suffered – not just him.

This is a lesson I carry with me as I parent the Witchlets. I don’t allow them to beg me to skip family time at either house in favor of friends. I won’t allow them to incur that kind of Karmic debt. And yet I see it happen time and time again – other parents who think that their children know best where they want to spend their time. Parents who allow kids to make the decision to cut out their other parent. Because the so-called adult doesn’t value the other parent and doesn’t see why their child should either.

I’m sure there are plenty of therapists who need the income.

Two weeks of vacation flew by as fast as an airplane over the north Atlantic. I’m home and have been for a couple of days now. No, I haven’t forgotten to update y’all on the trip – that entry is being drafted/crafted slowly. But there’s something else on my mind today that needs to get out of my head.

When traveling, Pagan Queens and others should remember to take their medications as directed. A six hour time shift really messes with that and when you’re dealing with a drug that causes fatigue when the dose is adjusted then it can be tricky. The end result of this exercise in mental mathematics is that I’m off on my Diamox dose and have been for at least a week. My head is KILLING me. Throw in some jet lag, a little PMS and eye of newt and I don’t think my current mood requires much explanation. So take that as the backdrop for the little drama that unfolds in the rest of this post.

I’m still getting settled into the routine of being home. Thing 1 leaves this week for a month so I have her for less than a week – and that’s after not having seen her for a month. She’s grown. Seriously. And I hate that I missed it. Thing 2 has oral surgery tomorrow. My baby has four teeth that will be coming out including one that is impacted. I’m scared for her and I keep acting like this is no big deal just so that she’ll not freak out. We’re going shopping today for mushy foods and ice cream. I don’t know which one of us is going to feel worse!

Of course, drama started before we ever got home. We were in the airport still when we found out that Iggy’s girls weren’t sure they wanted to be here for all of their scheduled visitation.¬† So Iggy’s mood isn’t all that great either. The difference between how he’s taking it and how I’m taking it is that I blame Stepford for this. She didn’t want Iggy to have this much time with his daughters to begin with and so here we are with the girls telling him that they don’t think they can stand to be away from Stepford that long. Coincidence?

We’ve now put the scenery on the stage. Let’s add the action.

There’s a family wedding in Iggy’s family next weekend that we’re supposed to attend. “We” in this case being defined as Iggy and his girls, me and Thing 2. We’re driving 16 hours up and 16 hours back and going to the wedding on the day in between. Why might this be less than fun?

1. It’s a wedding. Weddings and I have a long history given that I’ve had a few. The trouble is that in recent years my feelings toward weddings has become rather, well, fractured. On the one hand, I look at the happy couple and want to scream “RUN” at the top of my lungs. On the other hand, I look at the happy couple and see two people who are happy and content and will have the kind of life that I will never have. The kind of life that I apparently don’t deserve. So I cry at weddings.
2. This isn’t just any wedding. The wedding will have me dealing with Iggy’s family. They’re a good bunch – big, close Midwestern family. With pictures of Stepford up all over the place. Iggy and Stepford’s wedding, Iggy and Stepford dating, Stepford all decked out for a night out. The photos of Stepford and their girls I understand. But the others, I don’t get for so many reasons. Why has Iggy never had a problem with these? If my family had photos of WF and I up, I’d have asked them to take them down before I was even dating again. But Iggy doesn’t care. His love life with Stepford is documented on the walls for all to see and he’s fine with that.
3. They’re a Midwestern Family. Some of you know that I’m from one of those. One that is within an hour of Iggy’s family. I’ve asked Iggy before for details of the wedding weekend and haven’t gotten them. I’ve asked Iggy for details of when his girls are here this summer and haven’t gotten those either. This makes it hard for me to plan anything that I’d like to do – say, see my sister after a 16 hours drive.

But at the end of it all, what had me crying myself to sleep is something my mother said years ago when I was divorcing Chuckles. She pointed out that he “doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t beat you” so she didn’t understand the need for a divorce. At the time, that seemed silly. Death threats aside, I was young and wanted to believe that there was more to life and relationships that not being beaten by a sober guy with clean breath.

Times have changed. I’m 42 years old. I’m not getting any younger. Or prettier. Insert a refrain from “That Girl” and you’ve got my mood. I’m not the girl that anyone has ever looked at and said “I see forever in your eyes” – at least not and still meant it the next morning. At this point in my life, no one is ever going to have my wedding pictures hanging in their home to remind them of how happy their son had been. I have no realistic chance of ever being first in anyone’s life other than my own. So when looking for a partner, maybe the bar I’ve set is a bit too high. And maybe, just maybe, I’m holding myself to a higher standard than I need to as well.

Or maybe this is all just a really bad headache with overtones of PMS and I just need a little TLC once in a while.

WF and Thing 1 get back from their trip this weekend. That means that my two-week block with Thing 2 is coming to an end. We’re having a really fantastic time but I have to confess that I’m looking forward to WF having the girls for a little while so that I can get caught up a bit at work. I’ve fallen into this routine of working late when WF has the girls and not doing that for two weeks has taken a toll on my to do list.

Which brings me to today’s topic.

WF won’t always be around to take the girls half the time. I guess in some ways I’ve known that for a while. Five years sounds about right – that’s how long it’s been since he was diagnosed and the prognosis then was 5-8 years. It wasn’t exactly higher math to figure out that his cancer meant that the girls most likely wouldn’t have him there for their high school graduation. Still, four years of the subject being off limits gave me ample opportunity to build up a buffer of denial. Soft, fluffy, comfie denial. I can see why it’s so popular.

Three months ago WF told me that his cancer was back – had been back for 18 months in fact – and was gaining momentum. It had found a way around every treatment they’d thrown at it so far and they were down to the last two options. Not only was the prognosis bad enough that he needed to tell the girls, he needed to tell me. I’m not sure which he thought was worse.

Needless to say, the girls are processing each in their own way. I can see if even when he can’t – even when they can’t. Thing 1 throws me subtle messages here and there that let me know she’s got some part of her psyche devoted to the concept. Thing 2 is doing her best to take over the nest of denial that I build. She likes it there but comes screaming out of it once in a while and hits me from left field with something so seemingly innocent that I could almost forget to ask her why she was thinking about that. Almost.

All of this is very predictable. And y’all know how much I like to be predictable. But what is the expected way to react? In the end it doesn’t matter because I’m just a bundle of mixed emotions anyway – all over the map in a million places at once. It’s not that I don’t know how to feel, it’s that I don’t know how not to feel. I’m not sure what part of this I’m supposed to filter out.

I won’t have to coparent with him. That’s a blessing, right? I mean, coparenting is so hard that it keeps lawyers, counselors and mediators in business by the score. And I’m going to be one of the “lucky” moms who won’t ever have to worry about Dad saying yes behind my back. Or blasting me for saying yes. Or, or, or. At least that’s what I heard this week from someone who was speaking without thinking. It’s a “Blessing” to be the only living parent. And I’ll be blessed to not have to coparent with WF.

But that also means that I won’t have him to co-parent with. Not only will I have to figure everything out by myself but I’ll be figuring it out for a couple of girls in pain. Pain from losing their father and reacting to that in ways that will make them different from the girls that I parent now. They will, at whatever tender age this happens, have lived through something that many of my peers have not. And I’ll be there to watch them suffer.

I’ll have to parent differently just by virtue of solo parenting. Years of dealing with WF has allowed us to settle into our respective roles. We have a “dance” if you will. He heads toward one extreme, I pull back toward the other. We each fight for our side and then compromise in the middle. It works. But it won’t work with just me pulling to one extreme. I’m going to have to find middle on my own, without WF pulling me in that direction. And I’ll have to find that middle through a cloud of any guilt that I have. Guilt I will forever carry for the ill thoughts I had toward him during all the darkest days of the divorce. Guilt for any time that I failed to protect my children from pain. Guilt for any benefit I gain by WF not being there for them.

And just to round out the mix of emotion, let me really cloud things. I have known WF for 21 years now. In that time I have been his student, colleague, girlfriend, wife, enemy combatant and coparent. Throughout most of that time I have been his friend. I don’t hate him (see: student, enemy combatant) nor do I love him (see: girlfriend, wife). In many ways, what is in my children’s best interest is also what is in his. And of course, the fundamental truth of coparenting is that the better we get along the easier it is – our little “dance” from the last paragraph could easily look more like a duel if we didn’t. So the question I find myself wondering about is: If we didn’t have children together, would I miss him?

The answer, unlike anything else in this situation, is simple. We have children together, so the point is moot. I will miss him because we have children together. The children are the only Blessings in this situation. Anyone who says otherwise needs to take a closer look at my girls and tell me how Blessed they would be to tell the Witchlets that their father is dead.

For over a decade my hair has been long and straight. My entire life it has been painfully straight – to the point of driving my mother nuts. She used weapons-grade chemicals to give me a perm once. It lasted three days. No matter how hard I fought or anyone else fought on my behalf my hair hung absolutely straight down. Finally I quit fighting it and grew it long. If it was going to hang straight down, it could hang down long and at least look intentionally straight. Truth be told it was a good style and it suited me. Good thing, too. I kept it far, far too long.

Flattening irons are the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. When I first heard of them I thought it was a joke. Here I’d spent time, money and effort to get my hair to hold a curl longer than I could hold my breath only to find out there was a market for products to help people flatten their hair! But it wasn’t a joke. I’ve seen these things in action and people really do use them. People who complain about the curl in their hair.

I realize that just about now y’all are wondering if I’m totally off my rocker. No post in months and now I’m talking about hair styles. Fear not, it’s still me.

Flattening irons and my hot rollers have something in common – they are both torture devices designed to torment people who want what they don’t by nature have. I can use hot rollers, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have curly hair and never will. Really the thing that made me happiest with my hair wasn’t a new curling iron or better hot rollers but just giving up the fight. Because Goddess knows I am TIRED of fighting. Looking in the mirror and saying: “I have straight hair and nothing will change that. If I quit fighting that FACT I’ll be happier.”

So I did. And I was. Yet somehow I continued to not apply that lesson to the rest of my life. WF thinks of himself first (and last. and twice in between). No amount of therapy or browbeating from me will change that. If I quit fighting that FACT I’ll be happier. There are things about Iggy that are equally true – I just need to quit fighting the FACTS and live in reality.

Still with me? Because this last weekend the analogy just got interesting.

I got a hair cut. Short. Well, most would say medium length but I think it’s short. The most interesting thing about this? With the shorter hair and the layers it holds a curl. I’m back to using my hot rollers in the morning and it looks good. And it isn’t flat or straight.

Where does this leave our example? Am I back to fighting the FACTs? Or have I sidestepped into a new reality – teleportation via shears? And what would that mean for the situations in my life I’m tired of fighting? Is there really a way to change them or am I truely better off just accepting the way things are and where I stand with people?

I’ve been working on an entry for a while now and finally decided to split it in two and put this part up first. The reasons I’ve hung onto them rather than just posting is because they’re both a bit on the rant/vent side of things and they both have potential to alienate some folk. So, diving right into vent #1, here’s today’s quiz from Blogthings:

You Are Bisexual

Girls or guys? You’ll take either. Or both. You can’t make up your mind. And why should you?

And that, dear reader, should serve as a cheat-sheet for the pop quiz that follows:

1. What do you call someone who “decides” to be gay?
2. What do you call someone who “decides” to be straight?

Those are trick questions because the answer is the same: Bisexual. Simply put, if you’re in a position to “decide” then you have the option of being either. And that means that you’re really bi. Sorry to break that to anyone reading who made the “decision” and thought it was more cut and dried than that.

Now I’m not saying that bisexual folks don’t make that “decision” everyday. They may not intend to, but they do. Because as a bi individual you have two options: pick a side or be promiscuous. And picking a side puts you back in the closet and/or in the position of supporting this widely held misconception that you “chose” to be one or the other. And the latter still puts you in the closet as a bisexual.

Case in point, and the inspiration for this post: I have a friend (more than one but we’ll focus on one) who was married for years and has a child. The marriage failed, as over half of marriages today do, and both parties moved on. My friend moved on to a same-sex relationship and now is widely regarded in the community as having “decided” to be gay. And, of course, that “decision” is why the marriage broke up. Truth be damned. Because, clearly, any story that either party to the marriage tells about why they really broke up is just a smoke screen designed to protect this outlandish “decision” to be gay. At least that’s what word is on the street. 

In short, my friend is now defined as “gay” based on the nature of their primary relationship. Just as I am defined as straight by the nature of Iggy’s plumbing and the nature of my relationship with him. Sure, I could change that. I could be “gay” if I chose a woman as a partner. But the only way to be “bi” would be to have multiple, more-or-less simultaneous partners of both genders and to be open enough about it that everyone knew. And then folks wouldn’t call me “bi”, they’d call me something worse. Rhymes with “store“. Or “hut”. Depending on the particular tone desired.

So the other day I was discussing this topic with someone who insisted that orientation was a choice. You know, “choice” like “tampons or pads” kind of choice. Deeply personal, influenced by upbringing but not by biology. Her “proof” was a woman she knew who was raped and then “decided” to be gay. In the mind of my partner in conversation, it was reasonable to “choose” to be gay. Or bi. And she defended this stance by saying that she’d support her own children’s’ “decision” regardless of what it was. Her “open mindedness” on the subject was offered as “proof” that her position was correct.

Now, her heart appears to be more-or-less in the right place – maybe a bit further to the right than Netter puts it but still functioning. So why do I take issue with this?

Because if you can just “choose” to be gay then what’s the big deal with limiting rights to gay people? They chose it knowing what the situation was, they can just “choose” to be straight if they don’t like it. You know, like the bisexuals can.

Which brings us to the other reason why bi-folk live deep in closets. It isn’t uncommon, in my experience, to not fit in well with the gay community. After all, we do have a choice that they don’t. We can “opt out”, they can’t. And we certainly don’t fit in with the straight community. Same-sex friends get nervous that we might be attracted to them (or might not – and they’re not sure which is worse). Opposite-sex partners seem to get more paranoid about infidelity because there are “twice as many people for you to cheat with.” Or worse, if you’re a bi-femme, are the guys who want to know if you have a “friend”. Serious ick factor on that.

So here I sit. Happy in my closet, sipping a glass of Chianti and watching my friends in the community having fun navigating the waters of the world. I suppose we all live with our “choices” – some of us just get to make more choices than others.

Stay tuned for Part II.

Somehow the date yesterday caught my eye. September 17th. I got to thinking and told Iggy that it was a year ago the 15th that Guido hit me and that’s why the date caught my attention.

I was wrong.

That alone is interesting to me. Interesting because here I am, one year later, and the events of that week are so distant to who and where I am now as to have been bumped out of memory. I actually had to check the calendar this morning to see if I had the date right. Turns out that September 15th was the day that Guido moved out. The 8th was the day he hit me. The 12th was the day my friends turned up to help.

What a year it has been. Early on, the drama was still thick as we saw our counselor a couple more times and Guido continued to lie to me while I continued to listen. He started dating and telling me he wasn’t. Then he tried to tell me that I had to take him back. And that was the last time I saw him in person. Telling him that I’d call security may have had something to do with that, but I could be wrong.

So what’s happened in a year? 369 days if you need to be exact (leap year, remember?).

1. Guido is gone and the divorce is final. There is no more reason for me to have contact with him. Ever.

2. Witchlets appear to have “gotten over” Guido leaving. For Thing 1 that means no more sniper fire at either Guido or Spawn. For Thing 2 that means no more asking about them or telling me that she misses her step-sister.

3. I appear to have “gotten over” Guido. No anger about him or his actions, just gratitude that I got out and shame that I could make such a mistake. But for him? No emotion.

4. I’m making progress on processing the whole mess. I could write a novel on just that but suffice to say I think I’m starting to put some things together.

5. WF and Rat Terrier are separated. Who knows what will happen there but things are moving in a direction where the witchlets have less contact with that toxic woman.

6. I’ve met someone special and seem to have a better approach this time. Iggy is a good guy, we share many of the same cultural norms and communicate better than I have with anyone in a long time. The issues that have come up we’ve dealt with together as us against it rather than us against each other – this is a change from both Guido and WF. We’re moving our relationship along with our eyes open. And it feels pretty good.

7. I’m making progress on the job front. After years of laying groundwork it finally looks like maybe, possibly, hopefully something might shift. I’m not pulling out the streamers until I see something in writing but all indicators are happy ones.

8. I’m back on track in school. Taking classes and getting my program committee put together.

9. Thing 1 has started middle school. Four weeks in and I haven’t killed her yet. We’ll see what the update in another year looks like on that front.

So lots of shifting in life. Not as much maybe as the year when I had the air mask but it certainly does feel like I’ve come “unstuck” after a stretch of stagnation. So I’m starting to put some plans in place for the next stretch of time, being sure to hold space for mystery.

Please fasten your seat belts low and tight across your lap and return your tray tables to the upright and locked position for take-off. We’ll be on our way shortly.

Anyone who has ever witnessed first hand my losing my temper
knows that this isn’t a pretty sight. I‚Äôve been told that I ‚Äúscare‚Äù people when
I lose my temper – and that’s a good thing because I scare myself when I lose
it. But there’s a place just beyond losing my temper – a place where I’m not
mad, or angry or even livid. A place where I’m not yelling or screaming or throwing
things. It’s a white-hot place where “angry” is no longer the right descriptor
– rage-filled WMD (that’s Witch, MD for you newbies) would be the more accurate
description.

I‚Äôm there. 

It took nearly eight years to really get here, although I vaguely
remember visiting once before. This time, I’m thinking of building a summer
home. With a dungeon. I found a rack on E-bay.

And the proximate cause of this shift? Witchlets’ Father.
There. I said it. I know, I know. I’ve bitched about him before but most often
privately and well out of earshot of anyone who would ever feed it back to the
witchlets. I’ve tried my best to be good. He’s their father, you know. Half of
their DNA is his (well, we can argue about Thing 1 and my experiments on human
cloning but I still don’t know how the embryos would have gotten switched) so
anything I say about him reflects on them. And I love them too much to ever
hurt them. 

Unless it was war. And it is.

Thing 1 and I just got back from vacation. She helped me
plan it and she asked if Iggy could come with. She likes Iggy – they have a lot
in common and I swear she’s stolen him from me on at least one evening. I was
looking forward to this trip and so was she. 

Until HE started in. First, he called me before she even
arrived to yell about Iggy and how he’d had to hear about his coming on the
trip from Thing 1 – that I should have told him first. Yes, this is the same
man who moved the Rat Terrier into his house and let me find out three days
later from the neighbors. Yet, somehow, my plans and my life are his business.
He complained and yelled and bitched to the point where Thing 1 apologized to
me when she got here (“Dad gets too involved in things.”).

For an encore, he started in with how I “never” take the
girls on long trips like he does or travel with them alone each year. As in,
his recent three-week trip to Europe with Thing 1 or his
current two-week trip with Thing 2 or his upcoming one-week trip with them
both. Yup SIX weeks of vacation. And I suck as a parent because I don’t do
that. 

Let’s think about why I don’t do that, shall we? Before I
moved FOR him, I had a job where I could afford to take that kind of time and
had an income where I could afford to pay for those kinds of trips. HE wanted
to move so HE could have the job HE wanted. So I did. I cut my pay in half,
took a craptastic job where time off is looked down on and sucked it up so HE
could have HIS career success. And now I’m a bad parent for that.

Oh, there’s more. Apparently when I moved FOR HIM, I “gave
up” on the marriage. Yup. He said that. I “walked out” on the marriage five
years before we divorced according to him. This is based on whatever fantasy of
infidelity he has of me. As opposed to the reality of his uprooting me from
everyone and everything (career, friends and family) based on a lie. He made
good on exactly NONE of the things he promised me when we moved. But I’m the
one who gave up. 

Since the divorce, he’s done nothing but try to control me.
I’m beginning to realize that a fair amount of why I married Guido was to get
WF out of my hair. And now that Iggy is in the picture, WF is trying to set
conditions and terms on that relationship as well. Somewhere in the middle of
all that, my patience just snapped.

When I was married to WF, he had little or nothing to do
with me or the Witchlets. He ignored us all – to the point where most people
counted me among the single mothers. And yet when we divorced he was hell bent
on making sure that he had those children half of the time. Why? The same
reason why he took my suitcase, my backpack and all the silverware. He needed
to “win” – it was a competition to him and he wasn’t going to lose to me. So he
“won”, he got the kids half the time and I’ve spent all the time since then
telling everyone what a good thing that is. How the children need both parents
and that I‚Äôm glad he wants to be a parent to them. 

And I am glad for that. I’m glad that he’s finally decided
to be a parent even if it took him over a year after the separation to do it.
Even if it took the fear of “losing” to force him to figure out how to be a
parent. Whatever it was, I’m glad he did it.

But I refuse to go beyond that point any longer. I’m glad
he’s a parent and that he’s in their lives. I’m glad that we’re able to work
together as well as we’ve been able to. But I am no longer going to let him
treat me this way in the interest of “keeping the peace” or “fostering a
relationship‚Äù with the girls. 

At this point if he wants to run me into the ground with MY
children for not taking the summer off work to vacation in Europe
with them then I’ll let them know why I can’t do that. If he wants to tell me
who I can or cannot vacation with, I’ll explain to my children what the phrase
“control freak” means and how to use it in a sentence. And if he wants to
pretend that he’s always been the world’s greatest dad then I’ll quit editing
the stories of childhood that start with “Your father was at work and we were
hanging out alone like we did every weekend when……”

I’ve done my share to keep the peace and avoid a fight and
all it has gotten me is more and more hateful behavior from a man who started
our marriage by telling me that he had a “crush” on his lab assistant. I refuse
to live in or even accept his reality any longer. I don’t want to “win”, I just
want my reality back. Whether he likes my reality or not.

So a month has passed and my body is again reminding me of
what my brain is struggling to come to grips with. I’ve always wanted three
children. Always. When I was married to WF, that was the plan but we didn’t
make it long enough to see it happen. Guido came along and we also planned
for  another child. Well, I planned, he
lied about it – like so many other things in our relationship. He never wanted
another one but told me that he did until after the wedding. As my therapist
says, boys lie. 

Somewhere along the line I thought I’d come to grips with
the fact that I was only ever going to have two children. Two beautiful,
bright, loving, well-adjusted children. Why I would want more is beyond me.
Except that I do. But I’d made my peace, right?

Yeah. Made my peace in the same way that I’d made my peace with
my mother in the days before Thing 1 was born. Made my peace with her decisions
before something happened to open my eyes to the fact that she was little more
than an egg donor who’d turned her back on me the instant I was born and gone
on to make my life as miserable as demoniacally possible. (I can’t say humanly –
she was too ambitious for that and seems to have passed that ambition on to
me). When Thing 1 was born, I knew that the peace I’d made with my “mother”
was just an illusion. And the events of last month have shown me that the peace
I’d made with only ever having two children was just as much an illusion as
understanding my mother‚Äôs decisions and actions. 

So here I am. Stuck. My body is doing a reproductive death
spiral. My window of opportunity to have a third child is closing fast. I’ve
wasted four years with a man who told me we shared that goal and lied. I’m now
in a wonderful relationship with a man who also said that he always wanted
three children. But the relationship is new and he’s said plenty of other
things, too. Things like he already has two beautiful, healthy daughters and
why would he push it? Things like shouldn’t we have a more long-term
relationship before talking about such things?

He’s right, of course. But I know, all too well, that my
body isn’t going to just hang around and wait for that magic day to come when
we‚Äôre ‚Äúready‚Äù to take that step. And then the comparisons start. 

I can’t help it. My mind just goes there. It’s a hang up of
mine and always will be. That girl. Sick of hearing about it? Find another blog
to read. We’ve only been together six months. That’s nothing. Yet it’s two
months longer than I’d been with Guido when we got married. And two months less
than when Iggy married HER.

Yup. Her. She who shall remain nameless. Oh, I went to the
trouble of thinking of a name for her here but I’ve decided not to give her
that. Naming her would be to give her an identity, a space in my reality
greater than she deserves. This creature who Iggy chose to impregnate not once,
but twice, shares a bond with him that I’m realizing I will never, ever have.
Worse yet, he defends her right to be a hypocritical, selfish creature who is not worthy
of my respect. It went so far as me having to promise not to say anything bad
about her. I’m clearly having trouble with that. And if anyone ever asks me to
say something nice about her I’m afraid that they may be in for a surprise. I
learned at the knee of the master how to deliver a backhanded complement.

She moved across country to take Iggy’s children away from
him and continues to do everything she can to marginalize his existence in
their lives. All this while I have not only hamstrung my own career but sworn
to live within walking distance of WF so that he’ll have as much access to them
as he’d like. I would never treat Iggy the way she has and yet she was worthy
of bearing his children and I am not. And never will be. And he defends her. Look,
salt AND battery acid in the wound. It‚Äôs a twofer! 

Six months ago this didn’t bother me….well….it didn’t bother
me much. But in light of recent events I’m back to being disturbed. Not the
usual, eccentric pagan kind of disturbed but the bothered, crying and angry
kind of disturbed.  I‚Äôm reminded how much
I wanted something that I can’t have. Something no one else cares if I have or
not. What’s worse is that I don’t even feel like I can tell people what’s
happened for fear of judgment – judgment of my role in the events and, worse,
judgment of my feelings about the events.

The worst part of all of this is the impact it is having on
my relationship with Iggy. He doesn’t know what to do or say to me when this
subject comes up. And why should he? I’m the one who is more involved in the
situation. But it puts a wedge between us. A wedge that grows when I see his
beautiful face and know that he’s passed those features along to two children
already. And is happy to stop at that. A wedge that grows every time SHE does
something to marginalize his role in the lives of those children in a way that
I could and would never do. A wedge that I feel as painfully as the pressure in my brain
after the flight today and am just as powerless to mend

I’m having one of those days where I feel suspiciously like Agrajag muttering: “Oh, no. Not again.” Yes, I may be wrong. Heck, knowing me I must be wrong but I’m clinging to the theory that even a broken clock is right twice a day (perhaps it would be more accurate but less optimistic to say “Even the paranoid have enemies”) so I’m going to ramble.

Besides, it’s my blog and you can click on by anytime you’d like.

Let’s go back to Guido for a bit. He wasn’t my first experience with land mines but he was the more recent one and certainly about the most traumatic. Guido had two kids. Let’s refer to them as Emma and Spawn, shall we? Spawn ruled the house when he was here – in large part because anything Spawn wanted, Spawn knew how to get. If Guido wouldn’t give it to him, Spawn would call Mommy and Mommy would call Guido and Guido would cave. Why? Because “Mommy” knew what was best for her children and Guido had to keep her happy for the benefit of her children.

It wasn’t just Spawn, either. This behavior extended to Trixie, too (sorry, I can’t keep calling her “Mommy” and y’all wouldn’t like the other name I have for her). Anything she wanted, Guido would provide for her because, as mother of his children, it was his job to keep her happy. Money, a shoulder to cry on, inspiration to get though the rough times, last minute schedule shifts, someone to yell at, whatever she needed, whenever she needed it. There’s a phrase for that behavior……let me see if I can remember it…….

For me, it was like living in a mine field. If I expressed displeasure at Trixie, Guido may or may not come to her defense over mine. If I tried to set limits, it was seen as a direct attack on Spawn (Guido never really considered Emma). Trixie, on the other hand, could say or do anything she wanted about anyone she wanted (read: me) and the pat answer was always “I can’t control what she does, she’s my ex.”  Does that sound a bit selective to anyone else?

Of course my first experience with this was JD and Annie. JD would drop anything, anytime if Annie needed something and it never set well with me. But in the end, Annie was more afraid of me than hateful and she always encouraged their children to like me. Up to and including being ok (outwardly at least) with me seeing their oldest off to prom and helping with some last minute sewing repairs on THE dress. Add all of that to the fact that my kids were never around their kids and the situation wasn’t too painful.

Still, when Guido and I imploded I said that I would never date another man with kids. And along came Iggy. Now, putting a new name in here deserves a moment of introduction. Why? Because I don’t want the first thing written about Iggy to be negative. Iggy is a really great guy. My girls love him and he is genuinely fond of them. He treats me well and things appear to be going really well for us.

Which, I think, is why the few land mines come as such a shock.

Iggy has two children. Hello? McFly? Did you not say that you weren’t doing this again? Yeah, well. Here we go.

The two children are great. Really great kids who will never earn the title “Spawn”. But, implicit with the presence of two children comes…….(wait for it)……..the ex wife.

<!–pause for me to beat my head against desk>

The ex who still finds it acceptable to call Iggy when she needs emotional support. The ex who can write, with a straight face, that she knows Iggy better than anyone. The ex who can say anything about anyone in front of the kids. The ex who was given permission by Iggy to do what she’d like regarding his custody of his children – because it was best for her.

Now if there is one thing I learned from Guido it was that all this “Baby-momma drama” isn’t the fault of the “Baby-momma” but the fault of the “Man in the Middle”. With Guido I learned to place the responsibility squarely on HIS shoulders – Trixie didn’t owe me squat, Guido did.

But what about Iggy? I’m not his wife. What does one “owe” a girlfriend? My value structure would say you don’t owe a girlfriend squat. But that makes me feel relegated to the role of mistress – with Baby-momma squarely in the role of wife. And that, my friends, has a high Ick factor. Doubly high given that she’s getting married soon.

Iggy tells me that I should trust him. And I do trust him with nearly everything in life. But when it comes to men and their ex-wives I’m afraid experience has taught me that “trust” needs to be earned and not given blindly. Blindfolds just make it harder to find your way back out of the mine field with all your appendages intact.