I didn't grow up with sports people so I asked a lot of questions, trying to understand what was going on. At first he thought it was "cute". By the last year it was more of shut up and get out of my way. Oh well, at least I had the kids.
Divorce is a horrible thing. It can become a menacing monster if you let it become a power struggle. Bob and I got through our actual divorce with little difficulty. We both remarried quickly, to the people we should have each been married to all along, we shared custody of the kids, all was going well. I was pregnant with baby #5, it was a difficult pregnancy so I was home bound. Husband Dana had gone to Florida to work and, with Bob's blessing, the kids and I would follow after the baby was born. Then lightning struck. It seems that the woman we were renting our home from was pocketing our rent money and not making her house payments. Exactly 6 months after moving in, I, just over 8 months pregnant, answered my door to a woman who handed me a paper that said I had 24 hours to vacate my home! I had no idea what to do. If you could just take a moment to imagine the different emotions that ran through me in just a flicker of time. Panic. Anger. Fear. Confusion. Denial. I tried to talk to this lady, but she was just a messenger. I couldn't stop crying which in turn frightened the kids, so I had to pull myself together and try to figure something out. The lady left with sincere apologies, but I still had a royal mess on my hands. I called my church. I called my husband. I called Bob. The church couldn't help me. No one had room to take in a pregnant woman with 4 kids. I couldn't get to Florida without risking my life and the unborn baby, so Dana caught the first flight home to try to help us. Then there was Bob. Good old Bob. He'd be happy to help out. There was just one condition. Just one? What is it? I'm desperate here.
Don't they say lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Well they are wrong. So very, very wrong! They never met my wonderful EX-husband. Considering the position I was in, the one condition he asked of me was not only cruel, but inhuman. The condition was that I had to give him custody of our kids.
In my mind he was making me choose between my unborn baby and the four beautiful kids I already had. He knew I was between a rock and a hard place. I made the only choice that I thought God would allow. No mother should even have to make that choice, no one with any conscience would ever ask her to. Not only that, but the agency called The Friend of the Court broke the law when they allowed me to sign the papers "under duress", which was obvious by my inability to stop crying.(Not to mention the woman confessed it to my attorney when she refused to testify for me because she would lose her job.)
He took my kids......and I let him. I rationalized it any number of ways, just so I could live with myself. At this time in my life we had a clue that I had problems with depression, but no idea just how seriously ill I was. I directed all of the blame and all of my anger at the woman we rented the house from.
Dana and I had out new baby girl, and we drove down to Maryland when she was 3 weeks old and the kids got to see their new baby sister. I believe it was about Easter time when Bob brought the kids up to Michigan, that they asked me a question that totally stunned me and began the horrible two year war. They asked "Why don't you want us mommy?".
And with that I will have to say to be continued, because I can't read what I'm typing
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