My husband Matthew's ex is a woman of drama. She is large, loud and hearty. With her friends, she has a ready laugh, she's a bit coarse but a lot of fun. "Rough around the edges", I called her, with an affectionate smile.

I was a friend once, you see, until I experienced the darker side to that larger-than-life personality, the rage that, until she screamed at me on the street on day, loud and long, I hadn't realized was also part of her character. Insults, slurs on my character, confidences I had shared with her, twisted into weapons... all this poured out on a public street at maximum volume.

I didn't scream back. I am not a screamer. I'm not sure what provocation could make me scream on the street, beyond someone's imminent demise. "LOOK OUT FOR THE CAR!!" Certainly not a misunderstanding about when we were supposed to meet.

I didn't scream back, I didn't even talk back, but I did walk away, and I never walked back. Had any of her subsequent communications with me carried the faintest hint of an apology, I might have considered, but what I received were explanations of why I had made her behave that way.

I was married to an abusive man, once. A man who was always convinced that I had "made him" do whatever nasty thing had just happened. Righteously convinced. That's an abusive pattern, and I was not about to continue a friendship with someone who, I had just discovered, was abusive.

It was karma, of a sort, when Matthew and I fell in love. We had both been in abusive marriages, we two quiet, bookish people who, when faced with conflict, share an urge to talk, talk, talk. No bricks hurled, just bridges built.

It's lovely.

Matthew's ex married not too long ago, but, as per the plan, she and her new husband are not living together, but will continue living in their own homes until the children have left home. This has always struck Matthew and me as odd: the children are growing up and leaving home; at this point, they would have three kids between the two of them. Given that Matthew and his ex produced five of their own, one would hardly think three kids too much to manage. Two of these three are within a year or two of moving out. Odd.

We didn't say anything to anyone else, of course, but we couldn't see the logic.

It was the youngest who let us know that the reason is the inability of the two 17-year-old girls to get along that is at issue. They each have one, and, apparently, they "scream at each other. All they do is scream. They just can't get along. And mom is depressed because she just wants to live with New Husband and be normal."

A loud, angry woman whose idea of conflict management is to scream long and loud has produced a loud, angry daughter whose idea of dealing with a step-sister is to scream long and loud. So bad is it that she and the new husband don't feel they can cohabit until at least one of the girls leaves home.

Now that's karma.

Heard on The Debaters this morning. Topic under discussion: "Newfoundlanders are the sexiest people in Canada".

On the Pro side, one Cathy Jones, a dyed-in-the-wool Newf. Among her gems: "Newfoundlander says, 'Wanna have sex?... No?... Wanna lie down while I do?' "

How about that? All these years later, I find out my first husband was from the Rock.

Twenty-two years ago. I was in the final trimester with our first child. We didn't know the sex, so we had to choose contingency names. The boy was easy. Adam. We were agreed on that. Simple, basic, masculine, virtually impossible to shorten to something stupid and/or cutesy. But the girl?

I wanted Zoe. He wanted Jennifer. Now, there's nothing wrong with "Jennifer". I didn't mind it. It's a perfectly nice name, and in fact, I rather liked the way "Jenny" felt in my mouth.

"Jenny, lovie, come here! Mummy wants you!" Jenny would have long, shoulder-length brown hair and bangs, an open face and a big smile. She would run to me through a field of daisies with the sun bouncing off her silken locks. (This was my first child, recall.) I could deal with Jennifer just fine -- except that his sister, who was due to give birth any second, had told us that was one of the names they were considering. She had told us this months prior, well before our nameless bump was conceived.

But he was determined. Our child would be Jennifer. His sister, he was sure, wouldn't mind. His sister, I was sure, would be pissed -- and I would completely agree with her! Big brothers can be so oblivious. Besides, these babies would be cousins who'd see a lot of each other. It was just silly. Two girls, the same name, born within weeks of each other. But I couldn't get him to see it my way reason, and ours was not the kind of relationship where I had anything like the last word. If he didn't change his mind, our baby would be Jennifer.

And I would be pissed, and his sister would be pissed. (Why didn't I just ask her? I'd been instructed by The Husband not to, and at that point, though I chafed, I was still young and In Love and attempting to live by some pretty farcical -- but very sincerely held -- notions of what constituted husband-wife relations. So I didn't. I look back at the woman I was then with no little mortification, I tell you that.)

Oh, well. Maybe we'd have a boy. Maybe they'd have a boy!

They had a girl. Jennifer.

And then, I was in labour. It was not easy, it was not gruelling. It was sixteen hours of textbook first-baby labour, at the end of which, they held my baby out to sweating and euphoric me.

"It's a girl!" crowed the doctor.
"What will you name her?" asked the midwife.

And, as they handed this wet, warm, wonderful baby, this whole other HUMAN BEING I had just expelled from my weary, disheveled, aching and blissful body, I gazed into her slate-gray eyes, then glowed at the room.

"Zoe! Her name is Zoe!"

That was that. Zoe she is.

And you all know I'm no longer married to her father ...

My first husband was a packrat. Stuff, stuff, stuff. He just liked owning stuff. I like my stuff, too, but I like it because it has some use, some emotional resonance, and/or some beauty. My stuff ia chosen carefully. If it doesn't meet those criteria, it doesn't get into the house. If it gets into the house, but hasn't any of those criteria six months later, it's out. I hate clutter. (Which is not to give you the impression that I live in a clutter-free home. But it is my Constant Goal.) He liked his stuff because... um... it Existed? Collected dust? Got underfoot? Owning things proved his significance?

I once suggested we get rid of five years worth of a photography magazine to which we no longer subscribed. Because he was no longer taking pictures. Though we still had the camera and all associated gear. In a box. Which was...he wasn't sure where.

I knew where it was. I did the housework. I was the one tripping over all his stuff in our two-bedroom apartment. A smallish two-bedroom apartment. The photography mags. were filling three good-sized (and outrageously heavy) boxes, and I wanted them OUT. Space and light. All my life I have craved space and light. As Anastasia Krupnik's mother says on the family's weekly cleaning day, "SURFACES! I want to see surfaces!"

I know exactly what she means.

NO, I could not throw them out! He NEEDED them. Not that he could remember the last time he'd needed them, nor what he might need them for. Not, for that matter, that he even knew where they were.

I knew that direct action would only serve to entrench him in that position. He'd probably start to read the damned things, just to spite me. I couldn't be direct, but I could be indirect. I could also be patient.

I moved those three heavy boxes to a less-obvious spot. Six months later, I moved them to an even less obvious one. Six months after that, I gave them to the library.

You're all waiting for me to say "The next day, he needed something from one of those boxes." Pfft! He never noticed.

But if he had, I had a strategy. I was going to wave my hand vaguely and say "they must be around somewhere". (Which, of course, they WERE. Not my job to tell him where.) And if he got persistent about it, I was going to get annoyed. "They're YOURS, not MINE, and..." - wait for it; I was very proud of this twist - "...if it were up to me, I'd have thrown them out years ago. YOU find them."

Not a word of a lie. Entirely factual. Very little actual truth in it, but utterly effective.

I am brilliant. Almost too bad I never had to use it...

I do not understand my husband's ex.

She's ultra-religious. To church twice on a Sunday, and in various church groups through the week. Most of her friends are church folk. Now, no faith-bashing, Christian-mocking here. I consider myself a Christian. I was even 'born again' as a teenager, though my beliefs have changed a helluva lot since then.

The ex-wife is what Andrew Sullivan terms a 'Christianist'. She doesn't have much in the way of a genuine, vibrant, giving faith; she seems to have no Christian principles at all, certainly not in her dealing with people she doesn't like. (I am counted among that number.)

What she does have are a lot of Rules. (Rules which only really count when someone whose opinion she values is watching, mind you. Which does not include her ex, and certainly not me. However, it seems not to God either, who, one would think, is always watching...)

So. The Rules say, "No sex before marriage."

Which had been no problem for the eight or nine or so years following her divorce, because there were no takers for Her Bitchiness. Meantime, her ex (my sweetie) and I were shacked up without the blessings of Holy Matrimony. The self-righteousness that came our way via the children and various comments and emails for the first year or so were sickening in their moral superiority.

And then - wonder of wonders! - she found herself a boyfriend.

After two or three years of steady dating, they are still not having sex! We know, because the children assure us of this fact. Their mother has told them so. They are not having sex. Even when they go away for weekends together. Even though they spent an entire week at his cottage last summer. Imagine the self-control! Even though mom's boyfriend not a Christianist, even though they each have their own home, even though they have every other weekend child-free -- the relationship is platonic.

We don't argue, obviously. One doesn't undermine a parent to the children, and there'd be no point in it, anyway. They wouldn't believe us.

However, the mother does believe that sex before marriage is wrong. (Which justifies lying about it to one's children, because of course, lying isn't a sin...)

So, when her children get to be sexually mature, ready for dating, she of course impresses upon them the importance of modesty, caution, self-restraint.

Well, no. Those are Principles, and this is the Rule Lady.

I must explain for those who've just popped in for this one post. I am not opposed to adolescent, pre-marital sex, providing it's respectful, loving, and they take appropriate precautions. It makes me a bit nervous, of course, because teens are young and make stupid mistakes. But I don't think it's a sin. I don't think it's a moral evil. It's just sex.

So, the Rule Lady tells her kids:

1. Pre-marital sex is wrong.
2. Don't ever come home telling me you're pregnant, or the girlfriend is.

That's about it. Useful guidance for a teen who's sure he/she has met the love of their life, but is under legal marrying age, don't you think?

I understand all that, though. Despite the hypcrisy of her position, it's consistent with a life lived guided by Rules and other's opinions rather than by principles and internal integrity. I've seen lots and lots of people like her.

But here's the part I don't understand.

Her just-turned-seventeen-year-old daughter has a boyfriend. They've been going out three weeks or so. He's nineteen, a university student. With his own apartment. When she was out with him earlier this weekend, she phoned an hour after she was expected home, asking if she could spend the night. We said no.

(We refused because:
- we had hardly seen her all weekend, and a sleepover means we wouldn't see her till early afternoon the next day.
- we have not had a serious sex talk with her, and have no idea where she is on the subject.)

We've talked about sex and birth control with all our teens, of course, his and mine, but it hasn't gotten personal with this one yet. It's all been theoretical information, and she's poo-pooh'ed the possibility. Her expressed intention was to "save it for marriage". (Just like her mother!!!) Naive girls who think they "aren't that kind" are thus unprepared for the eventuality are the ones who end up pregnant. Duh. So, before she's allowed an overnight at the boyfriend's, we need to know she's prepared for the eventuality.

In the ensuing conversation, we discovered:

1. The girl has no curfew on weekends at mom's house. (We're not stupid; we double-checked this claim with the girl's mother.) The girl has NO curfew.

2. The girl has already spent at least one night at the boyfriend's house during a weekend with her mother. (We double-checked this one, too.) She has indeed spent an entire night with him.

So, we have a mother who believes pre-marital sex is wrong, who would offer no support if a pregnancy occured, who has not provided sex education, but who allows her teenage daughter to spend the night at her boyfriend.

What the HELL is she thinking?

"You'll be surprised."

That's what people told me when I was going through my divorce. "You can hardly wait for this to be over, but when it's over and the dust has settled, you'll be surprised at what you'll miss."

These were well-meaning people, trying to prepare me for the post-divorce life that they were afraid would only let me down, not being the unmitigated, unceasing bliss I was anticipating.

They were well-meaning, so I didn't swear. I didn't laugh in their faces. I didn't even roll my eyes. I might have sneered, just a wee bit.

This was not a celebrity-style, marry-on-a-whim, divorce because you don't like the way he chews his Cheerios. We'd been together twelve years, we'd produced three kids. I was committed to the death-do-us-part, otherwise I would have left at least six years previous. Did the marriage counselling. Changed some habits.

But when the divorce finally - finally! - happened, what would I miss?

- running short of money, having to scrimp on groceries because the man spent $800, or a thousand, or $1200 that month on... what? (Not drugs. Gambling? His girlfriend? Buying rounds for the entire office? I never did find out.) Just gone, frittered away, vanished forever...

- the fact that my husband had a girlfriend? Who would phone him at our home whenever I was out. (How do I know? I bugged the phone. Heh. Rather exciting and nasty, that, except their conversations were booooorrrring. So very, very boring.)

- being sneered at whenever I spoke, or have him simply walk out of the room mid-sentence?

- being thumped around? the black eyes? the bruises in less conspicuous spots?

- waking with a start of fear when he came in at 3 in the morning. Would he slip quietly into bed? Would he be in a foul mood and wake me to start a fight? Would he (and this would be the least attractive option) want sex?

Or maybe I'd miss the dirty socks left laying about the bedroom, the toilet seat left up, the newspapers strewn all over the living room and the used kleenex on every seat in the house? Or his terrible driving and the weekly speeding and/or parking tickets? His barking at the children?

Yes. So much to miss. How can people say such drivel? It's been 12 or so years, and all I feel when I consider the marriage that was, is relief.

Heady with relief, I am.

Conversations, Then and Now

Fifteen years ago, first husband.

Me: The doctor discovery an anomaly when I had my last physical. He wants to do a laparoscopy.

Him: What's that mean?

Me: He's going to make a small incision just below the navel, under general anaesthetic, inflate the abdomen with gas, insert an optic probe, and have a look around.

Him: So, can you get yourself home from the hospital? This is a really bad time for me at work right now.

Three weeks ago, current partner.

Me (on phone to partner, who is at work): Hey, sweetie. I just slipped and fell, and my head hit the floor really hard. I'm okay, but I just want to talk to someone for a few minutes, until I'm not quite so shaky.

Him: I'm on my way.

Even after ten years with this man, every now and then I am hit anew with the realization: My GOD, have I traded UP.

Phew.

The child support saga continues...

So I trot down to the bank Friday, to try, once again, to cash my support cheque for September. It wouldn't clear on the first. You'll remember that I got no support in May, a cheque in June, not in July, yes for August. So, every other month since May.

I present it to the teller, having been careful to choose the kindly, chatty woman who is consistently the most sympathetic. She knows me - I'm in there every month, aren't I? I play nice, telling her that I'm hoping that it's only disorganization on his part, not deliberate. I figure if I come across as an angry harridan, I'll be less successful in my mission, which is to prise some information from her. Like, for example, has he put a fucking hold on it again?

She takes the cheque, scans it, and then her eyes dart around her computer screen. "No, no I can't cash it for you." She lowers her voice. "It's not even close."

"Oh, dear." says me. "I hope he hasn't put a hold on it like before."

"No," she says, a bit distracted as she points and clicks. "No, I'd see that if it were. Let me just..." I don't think, in her distraction, she's even noticed she just told me something she shouldn't. More pointing and clicking. Her eyes widen. "Oh! Oh, my." She looks at me, uncertain, obviously wanting to say something, but prohibited by Bank Policy from doing so. I sit and widen my eyes, trying to project the appearance of a woman who's alarmed, trying to be brave, and sweetly hopeful. 'Help me', my big brown eyes plead. I daren't ask directly, and provoke the Policy Response. I'm close to a disclosure, I know it, and I don't want to frighten her off.

I wait.

"Well. I can say that it will be quite a while before you get any money out of him."

I widen my eyes still further, aiming for tremulous pathos.

"Oh, I wish I could tell you."

I wait.

She glances left, then right, leans towards me and lowers her voice. "HE can't even get his money. He's in Big Trouble." She sits back.

"Well, I can't say that surprises me," I say, with stoicism (this quite sincere). "He's always been terrible with money."

We had a little more general conversation thereafter, then I gathered up the kids and left. Shameful to have manipulated such a nice woman so deliberately, but I needed to know, and now I do. He's had his assets frozen.

I called up Zoe (my eldest, away at university, to whom I send a monthly cheque for her share of the child support) to explain to her that she can cash September's cheque, because I have the money in the bank, but that after that she might not be able to. She came to the exact conclusion I did: Revenue Canada. Who else can freeze assets? He hasn't paid his taxes properly, and they've gone for their money. Zoe says he's been getting letters from them for months which he leaves lying unopened on the hall table. Because if you ignore things you don't want to deal with, they'll just go away right? Especially the Tax Man. The taxman is known for going away if you ignore him.

What is he thinking?

Which leaves me precisely where? One more thing to chat about with my lawyer. If he's renegging on his obligations, if he's about to go bankrupt, if there's a line of creditors, child support is normally way at the top of the list. I need to make sure I'm AT the top of the list - if there is documentation that needs to be filed somewhere, I'd better get at it...

How many ways can one man screw up his life? It boggles the mind.

Final installment in this series of four, and largely an anti-climax.

Having moved themselves and their most necessary gear from their dad's house, the girls realize there's a lot more still there. A discussion determines that it would be a very bad idea for me to help them move. Nothing would inflame things between their dad and I, possible for years, like having me show up to move the kids out of his house.

Zoe rents a small moving van. She's twenty, she has a credit card and a driver's license. She rents it for a day when dad is going to be out of town.

Meantime, Daniel has decided that he, too, will move his stuff out. (!)

"There is no point in me going over there," he explains. "I only ever see dad a couple of hours on a weekend. I can see him that much one evening during the week. I don't need to keep moving between houses for a couple of hours a week."

"You'll let daddy know?"

"Uh-huh."

So the day of the U-Haul comes, the kids move their gear, and settle in to my home. I think to ask Daniel about his dad's reaction to his decision to move out, and Daniel says, "I haven't told him yet."

WHAT????

Great. The man - the volatile, already humiliated man - is going to come home from a week away to discover that his son, with whom as far as he is aware, he has had no issues at all -- has moved out! He'll be completely blindsided. If there's anything better designed to ensure I have a raging, storming, violent, irrational man on my doorstep in three days when he returns, I don't know what it is. My adrenaline spikes through the roof.

"Go and email him NOW."

He goes. I don't know where exactly dad is this week but I do know that dad never goes ANYWHERE without his Blackberry.

For three days, the girls and I are back to anxiety mode: jumping when a car slows down in the street, peering out the window when a car door slams. All doors kept locked at all times. The day dad is scheduled to return to town, the anxiety in the house is palpable.

For some reason, Zoe thinks to ask Daniel about his email.

"Oh, dad answered that," he announces. "Said he was disappointed, and he couldn't agree with my decision, but that I'm old enough to make the decision."

Zoe just about fainted on the spot with exasperation. "When did you hear THAT? And you didn't tell us? We've been freaking out for DAYS! Didn't you NOTICE?!?!?"

He got it the day after he sent his message. Some days, I swear, that boy is too like his father. No idea. Not one emotional clue. Sigh...

That was a week and a half ago. All three kids are moved in. And none of them has heard a whisper from their father since.

"Hey, mum!" Zoe crowed yesterday. "I stepped on the scale just now, and I've lost NINE pounds! Yay, stress!" Seems she's recovering nicely. :-)

The End. I hope.
Phew.

Penultimate installment.

Having driven her younger sister to my home in the middle of Saturday night, Zoe headed back to her dad's. She was to be back at university in three weeks; though she was not enjoying living there any more, it was, she decided, more trouble than it was worth to move out.

So on Sunday, back she goes, tells her dad where young sister is. He storms off again with the girlfriend. Monday, he returns, livid. Storms to Zoe, commences to screaming.

"I'm sick of you and your attitude! I'm sick of you turning the other two against me! You either change your attitude, young lady, or you can leave."

Zoe stood her ground. "I have nothing to apologize for, dad. I didn't do anything wrong." She moves past him, up the stairs to her room, to pack.

Grampa, who lives in a basement apartment, tries to intervene. "Come downstairs, and we'll talk," he coaxes, trying to calm his out-of-control son, who objects.

"If you're going to try to tell me I'm not doing right by my children, we have nothing to talk about!" Still, he does descend the stairs, and Zoe starts packing. Daniel is in his room, keeping his head down, hiding, no doubt, behind a computer game.

After packing for some time, Zoe decides to call me, let me know she'll be on her way, but her phone is downstairs and she doesn't want to enrage her father further by walking past him again. She goes to her brother's room, asks if she can borrow his phone.

She has barely returned to her room again, before dad is upstairs, still screaming - this time at Daniel! Daniel, who has had nothing to do with the furor. Daniel, who is a master at staying under the radar. Once again, it is grampa who steers screaming son away from his children. Daniel is now a little shakey, too. Zoe asks if he wants to come with her, but he says he'll just go to a friend's house until he returns to my home later that day. He doesn't want to do anything that will direct dad's rage at him.

The screaming continues, escalates. Zoe is now alarmed. She's seen her dad angry before, but not for this long, and when he came up to attack Daniel he had, in Zoe's mind, crossed from rational to irrational. What will happen when she's packed and ready to leave? She realizes she's too scared to leave her room.

She calls the police.

The dispatcher keeps her on the phone, dad screaming in the background the whole while, until Zoe is told, "The officers are at the door. Can you let them in?" Bolstered by the thought of big calm men waiting at the door, she braves the dining room in which her father still raves. There are THREE officers at the door. Two men, who go to the dining room to talk to raving father; the third, a woman, comes upstairs with Zoe as she finishes up her packing, gets the story from her.

A few minutes later, Zoe is finished and able to go downstairs. Grampa is now gone. Officers ask Zoe to step into the room. Zoe stands back against the farthest wall.

Officer: "Sir, do you know why your 20-year-old daughter is afraid of you?"

"I DON'T KNOW! SHE HAS NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF!! ALL SHE HAS TO DO IS IMPROVE HER ATTITUDE!"

"Can you tell me why your daughter is crying, sir?"

"NO! SHE'S THE ONE WHO'S BEEN TURNING THE OTHERS AGAINST ME!!"

A few more exchanges like this make it evident there is no calm and rational discussion to be had from this man. Zoe, who has no car, suddenly realizes she doesn't know how she's going to get her stuff to my house. She goes in search of grampa, not sure if loyalty to his son will allow him to help her, but what are her options? I can't come: my husband is out of town with our car. Can she use a police car as a moving van??

Grampa is not in his apartment, though. He's not in the main part of the house. He's not out front.

Grampa is out on the back porch, crying.

That was the most heart-breaking part of this whole affair. Grampa is such a nice man, a kindly, good-humoured, family-focussed, public service kind of man. The only mistake he ever made with his son is being too nice. He doesn't deserve this.

Grampa agrees to drive her. The screaming inside has finally stopped. The boxes and bags are shifted to the car. Ten minutes later, she's at my house.

Summary: two kids now live with me, the second achieved with much melodrama. What of the third? That can be the next, blessedly short, and final installment in this dreary tale.

They did go back. I'm not sure why, frankly, but they did.

The oldest has been living there this summer. The other two spend most weekends there. (For those of you who have dived in from the ether somewhere, "they" are my three kids and "there" is their dad's house.)

The weekend after their disappointment, they went back. When it comes to conflicts with their father, as far as is humanly possible, I don't interfere. If they come to me for input, if they ask me questions, I try very hard to do the counsellor thing, and help them, through listening and open-ended questions, to discover what it is they want to do. I try very hard not to say "I think you should..." I am not objective. I simply can't be sure that my input won't be shaded by my loathing for the man - the man who is, after all, their father, and who has contributed half their DNA. Sneer at him, and I'm deriding part of them. A mother has to be careful.

So back they go the following Saturday morning. Saturday night/Sunday morning, just shy of 1 a.m., I am woken by a pounding on my door. The girls are on the front step. Becca has left dad's house. "I'm never going back!" she declares.

What happened? Something relatively mild, really, and yet not so insignificant. Despite his promises of "family time" made only two weeks prior, dad spent Saturday with his girlfriend, returning with her shortly after midnight. They'd been to a party, and were drunk. Loud, too, enough to wake Becca, who was sleeping. She came out to the landing as asked them to tone it down.

"Go to sleep!" her dad barks.
"I was asleeep. You woke me up."
"Go to sleep!"

She figured she did go to sleep, because a little while later, she was woken again, this time by the sounds of loud and boisterous sex coming through the wall which adjoins her bedroom to her dad's. She was livid, absolutely sure that this was her dad's way of giving her the finger, letting her know she didn't get to tell him what to do in his house.

She pulled on her jeans, grabbed her purse with her cell phone, and left the house. Tried to call me, but I didn't have the phone in my room and didn't hear her call. That was okay, though, because big sister Zoe was bringing brother Daniel home from a friend's house. She waited in the drive a few minutes till they appeared, and prevailed upon big sister to drive her to my house. Zoe didn't know what had happened, really, until the next morning. (Brother opted to stay at dad's because he had a friend coming over the next morning to take him to his family's cottage.)

The girls spend the day with me. Zoe went back at dinner that night. She told dad that Becca was at my place, that she'd been very upset by what happened last night and had asked to be taken to mom's.

Dad's response? Did he ask any questions? Did he want to know why she was upset? (I suspect he may have been too drunk to remember.) Did he, oh perchance, offer an apology? None of the above. "I've just about had it with the lot of you!" he bellowed, turned on his heel and stormed out with the girlfriend. Girlfriend called apologies over her shoulder.

Summary so far:

One child living with me. Dad furious. Oldest child still living with dad. Son still going between houses.

Next installment: explosion number two, this time with police!

I'm exhausted.

Not because of anything that I've been doing, physically, but because of the tension. Oh, the tension.

I've written previously about my tussles with the ex over the child support. He didn't pay May's, paid up in June, but put a stop on July's cheque. I've seen my lawyer and a response is forthcoming. Meantime I managed to cash August's cheque. I'm positive he'll be most annoyed by this. Stopping the July cheque was his attempt to force me into face-to-face discussions with him; I'm quite sure the only reason August's cheque cleared is that he didn't think past that initial goal.

So the shit will hit the fan when he gets back from holiday and sees his bank balance.

But that's far from the most pressing of my concerns. His small hissy fit when he discovers "Hey! She cashed the child support cheque that I didn't write in good faith!!" doesn't have me too worried. No, it's all the Other Stuff.

Other Stuff which involves the children, and will take far too much time to tell in one post. So here's the first installment.

When we divorced, back when, I was a SAHM (stay at home mom), and he was a workaholic dad. To work before they woke, home from work long after they were in bed, the kids would go days without seeing him. Imagine my surprise when he said he wanted access from Saturday morning through Monday evening! My initial, entirely personal response, was "Fuck that! You've had virtually nothing to do with them for their entire lives, and now you're going to be Daddy of the Year??" Then rationality prevailed, and I thought, "Well, he's done poorly thus far, for sure, but hey, maybe he does want a relationship with them, and I don't want to be the one to stand in the way of them getting to know their dad."

So I agreed.

From day one, my youngest hated it. I remember pulling her by her ankles from under the dining room table on a Saturday morning, and propelling her out the door. She was only three. How could I do that to my baby? Well, the oldest, then eleven, assured me that once she got there, she was just fine, her usual happy self. I chalked it up to transitional pains for the little one. Hard to leave mummy, but fine once the transition was made. So I gritted my teeth, and I forced her to go. I hated it, but I trusted my oldest child's reports, and it's good for kids to have a relationship with both their parents.

And in fact, there was a period when things were stable. They may still have preferred mum's house, but dad's was all right. Starting five or six years ago, though, it all started to fall apart. He'd just split up with a girlfriend of two years, and suddenly he was on a hunt for Ms. Right. The girlfriends came in (and went out) with increasing speed. He lost his job. (How can a partner in a firm get fired? I don't know, but it happened.) He got another that was perfectly suited to his skills, but dreadfully unsuited to his weaknesses. I saw more disaster on that horizon.

My concern with his new job was financial. The kids didn't care about that, but the new job exploited his workaholic tendencies. When daddy wasn't out with the girlfriend du jour, he was inaccessible behind a computer. They were getting restive, particularly the girls.

Once the eldest went off to university, the youngest daughter began to make more and more excuses for not going. She was now 11, this situation had been devolving for years. I was far past forcing her to go. The son went, but increasingly he was just making his own plans, independent of his father. He would go, sleep in the bed there, and be out with his friends the rest of the time. No family unit over there at all.

Which brings us to this summer, when eldest returned from university. She decided to live with dad, as she did two summers ago. Within a couple of weeks, I started to hear the complaints:
"He's never there."
"Did you know he has a different girlfriend, again?"
"I don't care about his private life. I just wish he didn't want us all to play Happy Families with a woman he's been dating two weeks!"
"There's no food in the house again. He's always eating out with the girlfriend, so he doesn't buy groceries. And he won't give me grocery money!"

It was a seething cauldron over there. I could see an explosion coming.

The kids did try. They sat their dad down and told him they wanted to see more of him on the weekends. At the end of the conversation, it was agreed that dad would have a 2 - 3 hour "family time" each weekend. It didn't have to be fancy. Playing board games in the dining room would be just fine, but for that period, they wanted his attention.

A couple of hours over a weekend was all they asked for.

The next weekend, they got it!!! They were all very happy. (Rather jaded mum did NOT point out that they COULD have asked that he keep his girlfriend time to two hours, and given them the rest. She could have said that, but she didn't.)

The next weekend? The next weekend, the two younger kids arrived Saturday morning to discover that he was at the girlfriend's home. Had been there since the night before. He made a brief appearance Saturday afternoon to pick something up, then vanished. He did not return until Sunday at suppertime, when he and the girlfriend took them out to dinner and a movie. This was their "family time".

The youngest made her excuses and was dropped off at my house after the movie. "I am not going back for tomorrow!! He won't even be there! Dinner and a movie was all we get!!"

They all look at me. "Why do we have to go, when he's never there?"

Well, that would be the question, wouldn't it?

Next installment: the first explosion.

"I win, I win!" she cried jubilantly. And, it appears, prematurely.

I've been popping into the bank every couple of days since the first of July, trying to ensure the child support cheque my ex so reluctantly provided would clear. You can do that, you know: show the cheque to the teller and ask if there are funds in the account to cover the cheque. They can't tell you the balance, of course, but they can either proceed to deposit, or hand it back.

They kept handing it back. "Sorry, I can't do that for you today."

Yesterday, however, the nice teller looked genuinely remorseful as she said, "I won't be able to do that. You'll have to talk to Mr. Arsehole."

I considered the implications of this. "No one's said that to me before. Has he put a stop on this cheque?"

"I can't tell you that." (Why not, I wonder? Surely, as that affects me directly, I have a right to know?) "You just need to talk to Mr. Arsehole."

He's put a stop on the damned cheque!

I know why, too. He wanted to "discuss" this in May, and I forced the cheques out of him. I was able to cash June's, but since then he's stewed about it. He wanted a "discussion", and damnit, he's going to have that discussion. He puts a stop on the cheque to try to force me to talk to him. There is no point to that. We've been down that road, he and I: last time we "talked" about child support, after six months - six months - of mediation, he still hadn't tabled a figure! After six months - because no one can accuse me of impatience here - I hired a lawyer. The matter was settled inside three weeks. Six months and holding vs. under three weeks.

Ridiculous. Lesson learned. There will be no further "discussion" of this sort with this man.

I got home from the bank, and I called my lawyer.

Arsehole. He is such an arsehole.

Victory is mine!!

A couple of weeks ago, my two daughters, who I thought were with their dad for the weekend, show up at my door. In tears. Zoe, the eldest, was taking her younger sister shopping for some necessary summer clothes. At almost-thirteen, Becca has grown phenomonally in the past year. So, the girls asked their dad for forty dollars to go to Value Village. Value Village, cheapest of the cheap.

They ask their dad for the funds, and dad "went ballistic"! Said he paid child support to me, I should provide their clothes. Which of course I do. For my home. Plus I buy their outerwear and footwear, their sports equipment, their uniforms for bands, etc, etc, etc. The girls wanted to buy some shorts and t-shirts for weekend wear. That's all.

But no, it's my responsibility. Since when? We've been divorced eleven years, and, having sent a goodly start-up supply of clothes, (bedding, toys, etc.) when he found his first apartment, I've never provided clothes for his household. This is just bizarre.

The next thing I know, I get an email, saying he wants to revisit the support agreement.

You have to understand that he was abusive. Conflict with him was scarey, and often dangerous. Years after being safe from him, I still have to force myself to stand up to him. But this time? For some reason, this time I'm up for this fight. I seem to be totally fearless. Do you know what a complete breakthrough this is for me?

I responded with an email that said, basically: Yes, we could do reopen the agreement. You could cite the eldest's residency (because she's living with him this summer). You could do that. For my part, I could cite the fact that you're only paying 75% of the table amount (my suggestion, BTW). I could suggest you're underemployed and ask that the judge impute income. I could do a bunch of stuff. But, bottom line, I think you'd have a hard time convincing anyone you're so hard done by. In the end, I think you'd be wise to leave well enough alone.

That is TOUGH TALK for this woman, with this man. You have no idea.

He responded with, "I was starting a discussion, and instead I get a vicious personal attack. Can we not discuss this like civilized people? We can meet to talk, we can use a mediator. I do not want to involve lawyers." (I bet. Last time we involved lawyers, after six months of lawyer-free mediation which made no progress at all, our issue was resolved in three weeks. In my favour. Because I'm rational and he isn't.)

Strange, I thought I was being civilized. He mightn't have liked what I said, but it wasn't vicious, and it wasn't personal. If he wanted to discuss this, he could have responded to my email civilly. But no. Indignation and ire.

So I send an email, reminding him that he's a month late with his support cheques. (An unfortunate coincidence, we were recalibrating the amount for next year's supply of post-dates, so of course he's going to withhold them until he gets his way. Of course.) I request that they be handed over by such-and-such a time.

The time slips by, and - no cheques. Big surprise.

So another email, this one saying "You are a month late. Please have the cheques to me, the whole year's worth in the amount stipulated by 7 p.m. on May 31, or I'll consult my lawyer."

Another email from him, fuming.

I send another email to him. Well, actually, I send the same email as before. Exact same one. Deadline for cheques, or I see my lawyer.

This afternoon, a knock at my door. A friend of his, with - A YEAR'S POST-DATES!!!

I win, I win, I win.

HA!

My son, who is seventeen, is going through a crisis. Yes, I'm quite aware that to a teen, much of their adolescence is one crisis after another, self-aggrandizing and lacking the big picture as they are.

This, however, is a genuine crisis. My boy messed around (by which, I gather, he did some necking and mid-range petting) with not-his-girlfriend. "How did your girlfriend find out?" I asked. He looks at me in some surprise. "I told her, of course." He looked at me in greater surprise when I winced and said, "Why did you do that?"

Let me back up a bit here. His father, to whom I am no longer married for many more reasons than mere infidelity, messed around on me with several different women. Each and every time, he confessed. Thus, I have some experience being the recipient of such news, and I will tell you, it makes the tellor feel a whole lot better than it does the tellee.

I tried to convey to Daniel(my son) that honesty has gray areas, spoke of the balance beween honesty and kindness. I asked him if he wanted to get together with this other girl again - "absolutely not". I asked if he regretted it instantly - "yes". In that situation, I just don't see what is gained by knee-jerk honesty. If he wanted to keep seeing the other girl, adn/or if he'd messed around more than the once, then yes, the girlfriend deserves the truth. But a one-off? Once, and never again, with anyone? I absolutely cannot see what is gained by such honesty.

In fact, this kind of "honesty" often masks a greater dishonesty, I think, because the confessor doesn't tend to understand their motivations. They grasp at the moral high ground: "At least I'm being honest." As if for some reason the other party should be less hurt, less angry. As if they should somehow be grateful for the hurt, on top of the injury.

Confession is good for the soul, they say. Perhaps it is, for the confessor's soul. I say, if you want to confess a one-time fling, do it to a friend, do it to a priest, do it to your mother, I don't care, but don't tell the injured party - and then expect her to comfort YOU! To forgive you, because you're so fucking honest. Puh-leeze.

Anyway. I didn't give my boy all this emotional heaviness. Only a calm pointing out that simplistic spill-the-facts honesty isn't always so clearly the best or right thing in these situations. He didn't say much at the time. About a week later, I found myself overhearing him in conversation with a friend. (Not intentionally, but, I confess, once I realised what I'd stumbled into, yes, I wanted to know what he was thinking. It's opportunistic, but not too morally bankrupt.)

Turns out I offended him horribly. I know, I know. Teen morality is very black-and-white, and I was introducing him to an area of gray that is probably beyond his capabilities, particularly his male capabilities. Apparently, he’s entering into a new era of "honesty and openness", despite the advice of his mother, who “favours lies and deceit. My MOTHER for fuck’s sake.” Yes, well.

That’s not what I said, of course, but he’s evidently not ready to hear it. I don’t know whether I’ll bother taking another run at it, because, probably just like last time, that much-vaunted “honesty” he’s supposedly all about won’t extend to telling his mother what he thinks about what she says, or, for that matter, giving her any feedback whatsoever. Besides, I'm his "MOTHER, for fuck's sake". Mothers are supposed to be proponents of all that's pure and repressed. Mothers are not supposed to suggest that moral gray areas exist, and that perhaps honesty isn't always the best policy, that, moreover, "facts" are a shallow imitation of "truth", and may have very little to do with "honesty", anyway. All far beyond him.

Does it not occur to him that I have some experience - far more than his ex-girlfriend - with being cheated on? That my perspective is not the self-justification of the one in the wrong, but the clear sight of the one first wronged, then further punished by being expected to be comforting, reassuring, healing to the wounder?

Of course it doesn’t. He’s seventeen, and everything is black and white, reality is what he feels. Sigh.