fax from the Toad

My ex (the Toad) sent a fax to the psychiatrist who was evaluating M for purposes of persuading the school district to pay tuition at the upstate rehab. He declined to actually meet the psychiatrist because he figured he'd have to pay for the session. Faxing him a diatribe was cheaper. Here are a couple of quotes:

-----------

His mom's career has always been more important than her children....

It is my firm belief that just like the 15 years of Au Pairs his mom wants to again warehouse M so she may pursue her varied interests whether as an alleged recovered alcoholic or her career goals.

I also believe that if he had a structured home life, one that I and his brother have he would be able to become productive. M has been told that I do not love him and that he is hated by non stop psychological abuse by his mom and maybe by his mom's sister who is a retired Industrial Psychologist.

-----------

The psychiatrist found this fax to be very informative about the Toad and included in his report that M would benefit from being far away from his father's hostility. The Toad hasn't made any effort to contact M since early March, so perhaps that might indicate a lack of love on his part.

Anyway, my divorce lawyer says M should finish out the school year at the day program, if they'll have him, to give us time to go to court and see if the Toad can be obliged to help pay for the upstate rehab. I guess it's another one of those "more will be revealed" situations.

As for me, my sister is in town & will watch M all day Saturday, so I get to go off and have a coffee date with a prospective beau from EHarmony....wish me luck. Hope there's some chemistry.

the loving and concerned father

M has been using - alcohol, Dustoff and Xanex. I think he got the Xanex the last time he was at his father's house, but who really knows? I am embarking on a battle to get my EX to pay half of the expensive residential program upstate where I want to place M. I asked F to lock up dextromethorphan cough syrup, pills & alcohol when the boys were at the house unattended. He refused. He hasn't spoken to M or seen him for a month. (Unfortunately, M is home for an hour and a half unsupervised on weekdays before I get home from work)...

From the Ex's emails - random quotes:

if M f_cks around il throw him out

I cant control M's behavior and cant guarantee anything with him and I cant sit and watch him 24/7

I dont want two weeks in a row with M

If M steals from me I WILL HAVE HIM ARRESTED

i think he is brain damaged or retarded whatever

lets put him somewhere obviously he wants to be an a__hole so ill treat him like one.

send him away - if I have to go more on the house refinance i will to pay for some place maybe the jesuits have something out of state

He is not allowed here any longer... call your lawyer do what the hell you want I am not being held responsible for his theft and stealing etc. Ill let you know after I get some legal advice.

Regarding placing M in a residential program after testing positive for Xanex:
do what you think is necessary

The next day after I asked him to pay half:

1) how much? 2) If M is gone can you do more time with J?

(I replied that I would happily have J more nights a week)

His next reply:
I believe in the settlement agreement one kid is like 30,000 per year in costs excluding ancillary services i.e. medical supplies etc.Futhermore as M gets shipped off you have unfettered freedom wherein I do not.So if your thinking is to ship him off and have me subsidize your freedom I'm not really interested in paying for that.So all things being equal I may be interested in paying a share of your cost for M's school if you equalize the time and expense with J.

About the drug tests:
yea where are the tests showing positive for xanax i dont have them and by virtue of the fact that they wont return my calls just like you controlled the enironment at (the first treatment center) i dont believe a word of it
So the picture becomes clearer ship M off ,alienate J and you recapture your freedom.An interesting plan that will not see the light of day.

Last Friday (I told him I'm taking M for a psych evaluation) - his response to my request to work things out ourselves without going to the attorneys or court:
wanna take me to court do you? Go ahead I'm up for the fight
I don't want M harassing J and if your not competent to maintain peace for him let me know. Is the evaluation by the shrink for M a unilateral decision and self serving? Who is it anyway. I have a right to speak to the person also! I want to tell him that a fundamental factor of supervision is not happening and the drug treatment program may have failed because of your actions.
I read those drug tests where does it show he tested positive they all read "neg" what do you think I am a schmuck?

Its starting to look like some fraudulent shit is happening
If you have my moms cook books I want them back

from yesterday's letter from his lawyer:
F is giving consideration to taking M into his home with J where M will not be left unsupervised...
F is now quite disturbed that L (that's me) wants to "warehouse" M in a facility upstate - to say nothing of the costs.
F believes the problem is largely attributable to L's unwillingness to be a mother to her son.

Oy vey.

changing my thought patterns

I have been escaping reality lately, my favorite thing to do. I am trying not to shop, but have not been in control of that impulse this week. I yielded to the urge for online shopping (Ebay) - bought jewelry which I plan to re-sell...I guess it's better than compulsively shopping for sexy underwear, which was last week's obsession. That is to say, it looks sexy on the rack but then I bring it home and try it on in front of the mirror, anticipating some future sexual interlude in which someone would actually see me wearing this purple thong (highly questionable with my 50+year old ass), black lace bikini, garter belt, etc . Two things looked bearable to me and I ended up returning the other 25 pairs of underpants to the store. (This is not the way to make friends with the salesgirl at the return desk at A.J. Wright). Last night she called the sales manager over to remonstrate at the number of panties (with tags) that I was attempting to return. The manager told me that she would accept them back THIS TIME but never again, that she was going to throw the whole lot of them in the garbage, because really, would I ever want to buy underpants that another woman had tried on?

I wisely chose not to answer this question. I thought to myself, however, that this indicated a negative attitude toward our lovely female private parts.

So, anyway, back to escaping reality. I have been obsessing over this guy at work who has been admiring my DD cup cleavage. I know that this (married) guy is not going to make me a happy camper. I also know that I think about him a million times a day and I don't cross his mind nearly that often. So anyway, starting last night I have been doing this little mantra. Every time I think about him (which invariably causes me a twinge of pain and longing), I switch thoughts and say to myself, "I am finally DIVORCED and it's fabulous!" Hopefully this will help me to feel more POSITIVE and less craven. I have fought intensely for the last year to get free of one A__HOLE and then I immediately focused on the next ill-advised candidate.

Wish me luck in re-directing my thoughts....

D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D!!!

Got my final papers in the mail yesterday. I am divorced! No longer legally bound to the Brute. Of course, I am tied to him as the father of my children, but I'm NOT HIS WIFE. It took exactly one year as of this Saturday. Fabulous.

Off the Pity Pot (at last)

I called my lawyer yesterday and asked her if I have any recourse in this situation where I feel I have no time to myself and am doing a lot more child minding than the STBX husband. I said, "I feel like I have NO LIFE!" and I could hear my voice start to quiver. She said, "You have NO LIFE and that's the way it's going to be for the next few years, but not forever." She said that when she first went into legal practice in the firm, she gave up her life for 2 years. "Sometimes you just have to do that...Your kids need you because you're their only real parent. Their father is despicable." She also mentioned another client whose 3 daughters remained with their father. The father has systematically poisoned them against their mother. She said, "I bet she'd change places with you in a heartbeat!"

I have to admit that a number of people have been telling me to bite the bullet and just do the right thing as a mother, especially in the absence of any parenting on F's part. But no, I have to call my lawyer and pay her to tell me what everyone else has been telling me for free. At my Sat. night AA meeting, the speaker told me that his own mother had to deal with her alcoholic husband and alcoholic son (himself) and waited up every night until 4am until he came home from his night of drinking and then made him a hot meal. Talk about enabling behavior. But he also said that he would have died if not for her ministrations - he was sober for the last 15 years of her life, and devoted himself to caring for her as she slid into senility.

There is a lesson, here, I'm sure.

Last night I sat for several hours and made jewelry. I felt a million times better. It always restores my sanity. Tonight my younger son wants to spend the night at the apartment (an extra night) so that's really a blessing, that he wants to be with me and has, for the moment, let go of some of his anger. I am grateful.

outsmarted - again

I always considered myself smarter than my STB Ex. F has an animal cunning, though, and I am not his match in that regard. There were many times during our 18 year marriage that I was washing dishes and scrubbing the floor while F snored and farted on the couch - the TV blaring - when I had to ask myself - "who is the smarter one? The one who's working like a skivvy or the one who's comatose on the sofa for hours at a stretch?"

Before my latest issues with F (the fact that he leaves drugs & alcohol around his house, enabling M to relapse), I agreed to take J on Easter from 10 - 2 so that F could go to a brunch. J had already said to me that he felt hurt that his father didn't care enough about him to stay home on Easter. So of course I wasn't going to tell J that he couldn't come. But now that M cannot go to his father's house on "F's" weekends because of the availability of drugs, I feel cheated of having any private life. M is not allowed to associate with his old friends, so for the last couple of months when he wasn't at the rehab, he was at home (on the couch in front of the TV). I do let him go and walk around town, hoping that he isn't out there scoring drugs.

Finally, he's made one or two friendships at the rehab, which is encouraged, if the kids will help each other to stay clean rather than take each other down. So yesterday M had a rehab friend over...they spent the afternoon at a local mall (not one where there are a lot of teens hanging out). They ate pizza and went to the multiplex. I called about 5 times trying to ascertain that they were both where they said they were. So I was kind of alone but still brooding and resentful and anxious that the boys should stay clean on "my watch."

This morning F dropped off J at 10am on the dot. For the first few hours, the boys were unusually unpleasant to me and to each other. Huge battle about asking them to clean up the breakfast dishes - slamming doors and cursing - a half hour of drama for 5 minutes of work. Luckily I had a bag of chocolate Easter eggs that I refused to give them until they did the work. Took them to Dave & Buster's and sat at the bar drinking diet coke and playing Scrabble on my Palm.

J told me last Thursday that he didn't know if his dad wanted him to live with him because he loved him or because F doesn't want to pay me for child support. I asked him "well, what does it FEEL like?" He said, "It feels like he just wants me there so that he doesn't have to pay you. But I can't live with you 'cause I can't bring the dog and you don't have a PC for games (note: I have a Mac) and I don't want to have to go to another school."

After today's vicious arguments, though, I am relieved that J doesn't live with me, but I think the kid is deteriorating quickly - gaining weight every week and flunking all of his academic classes because he never does homework and plays video games for 90% of the time he is at home with dad.

Dropped J off at home at 4pm - of course his father wasn't at home yet. When I called at 6 he still hadn't returned.

Lately life is teaching me about the limits of my power. I'm feeling sorry for myself, having to do the right thing as a parent.

I guess I'll going to go and string some beads, my meditation.

Feelin' Good on Good Friday

I feel really happy - don't know why...maybe just 'cause it's Friday. It's also because I had both boys overnight at the apartment, and they got along fairly well - it felt normal and safe - just them and me, safe and nobody was screaming or cursing. Hopefully the venomous relationship they've been having is getting less hostile.

Had my family meeting at the rehab last night - M's father didn't go, but then I really didn't expect him to. I like M's counselor a lot - she's very attractive and outgoing - talks about her own drug using past & 18 years of clean time. She got M to sign a contract saying that if he uses again, he will go into a second residential program. It's a relief to have someone else setting out the rules. (Am I copping out of being the authority figure?)

M is having another kid from his rehab over for the weekend. I actually look forward to it. His counselor talked about how it's necessary to be able to sit alone in your own skin (true, of course), but I think he really needs a social life with another kid who's clean. Problem is that this kid has really been struggling and has had a number of slips, himself. I hope they boost each other up, rather than bringing each other down. Time will tell. Anyway, I've always liked the idea of having a house full of kids, especially if they're not fighting with each other - I want my apartment to be a welcoming environment (secretly fantasize about having a family around the table like the opening of Roseanne, gesturing and laughing and eating. I see M and his brother J spending all their free time watching tv, playing J's XBox and compulsively eating. I want to scream at them - "Get off your asses and DO SOMETHING!" Maybe injecting another kid into the mix will get M to put down the remote and do something physically or mentally active.

Brought both M & J into the city with me today on the commuter train - gave them a bus & subway map and all-day metro passes, and my cell phone. So hopefully they will use their freedom wisely. I'm waiting for a new cell phone for M which tracks his whereabouts using a GPS system (if the phone is left on). Hopefully this will give me some ability to monitor his travels...