Greetings, again.
It's been a while since posting and there's a darn good reason:I've been spending more time offline in order to try and sort some personal things out.
When I first started blogging, it was on the advice of my good friend Dave, and up 'til now, I've shied away from the very reason I began:dealing with my divorce.
In terms of blogging, he said I should watch what I say on here for fear of repercussions, which makes total sense. But in my quest for topics, I seemed to come right back to what I've been steering away from. As a result, coming up with other topics just seemed to hard a task as I'm not a writer by hobby anyway.
But now, in terms of my own therapeutic resolve, I just felt it was time to at least put my thoughts down once and for all in the hopes that I will be able to move on completely.
In essence, this is my story.
I met a girl back in '93. I'd heard stories dealing with her alleged 'character', but ignored them due to my having not dated for a while.
Essentially, we had our first son in '95 and our second in the latter part of '96.
In the middle months of '99, we decided to wed, feeling it would somehow 'solidify' our new family. Unbeknownst to me, she had been having an affair with a man she'd met online for a few months before wed.
A few months after we wed, I found out she'd been carrying on this affair with him, who I found out was twice her age. Eww.
For the following few months, she went back and forth between, "I want to stay" and "I am going to go". Christmas Eve of 1999, she wanted time to think.
January of 2000 came, and I was staying with her brother. Against his advice, I called her to try and reconcile. After a heated conversation, she said "I love him and after our divorce, I'm moving WITH the children to be closer TO him". Did I mention he lived 10 hours away from us?
Needless to say, I went ballistic and subsequently spent 60 days in the "gray-bar-hotel". She was not hurt, but scared.
In the middle of '00, while I was in jail, she packed up with the children and moved those ten hours away. By the time we got to court to deal with our divorce, been living there two months and the judge could do nothing to make her move back.
As a result of her moving, and my wishes not to have two young boys on the road 20 hours every other week, I accepted being allowed to see them every third weekend started at 5 on Friday, ending at 7p on Sunday. But as a result of her moving before papers were even served, she had to drive 8 hours, with me picking up the last few.
She was pissed.
All of a sudden, it became MY fault that our children would miss one if not two days of school. It was MY fault she'd been in near accidents due to her fatigue.
Fast forward five years when her new hubbies, (yep. she married the old guy), ex wife got remarried and moved HIS two children ten hours away from where they were living,stating her new husbands job would keep them there for at least five years.
My ex decided she wanted to move back to our town to be closer to her family.
After discussing it with her, and her not agreeing to share placement (we'd already been awarded shared custody, but, how can that work ten hours away??), I took her back into court to amend our decree.
I went in feeling confident that no judge in their right mind would deny this request.
I mean, come on! My children were going to be living mere minutes away now, giving us more time together, and me more opportunity to help raise them. (btw:my relation with my children seemed to become stronger due to the move. THEY did not like being away from their daddy).
In a nutshell, I got a sexist judge who thinks it's the mothers job to raise the children and a fathers to provide support. My shared placement hearing was turned into, by the judge, a custody hearing. Which is odd if you take into consideration we already HAD a shared custody in place.
One comment made by the judge was that "(she) should not be penalized for wanting to move closer to her family". To hell with what the kids want, I guess.
Oh, on a side note:just a mere three months after my ex moved back to town, her husbands ex moved HIS family BACK to the same town they'd moved from. Of course, my ex said "yea, she really screwed US".
Wait a minute, didn't you screw your children when you moved THEM ten hours away from their father?
So there you have it. The story that's been gnawing it's way to come out and be released from the bowels that have kept it somewhat dormant for way too long.
Some might say that I've been holding on too long. But in my defense, you just can't get over something like that. At least not very easily.
I've become somewhat of a recluse, not really doing much in the social world.
I've also gained some rather odd views on the whole dating situation, not to mention "step-children" which I may share someday.
So for now, I sign off again, hopefully for not as long a time period this time.
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