I had built my general world outlook on one simple principle. At heart, people are good, and if given the chance, they can be trusted. *warning- you are in dangerous proximity to an emotion fueled rant about my ex.
It's been a year since I've read over my divorce decree. At the time it was all taking place, I had made some foolish decisions which led to my underemployment. I had no money. With help of her family she had hired a lawyer, ostracized me from my children and home, and found a technicality which allowed her to move to northern Ohio with our children.
At the time I felt helpless. I couldn't afford representation. Even if I could I refused, money spent on lawyers was better spent on our children I surmised. So when restraining orders, support orders, notifications of relocation, modified custody orders reducing standard visitation, support modifications and the like poured in, all I could do was grin and bear it.
Now, with time passed, I'm realizing that I'm dealing with someone who has no capacity for compromise. Someone who is incapable of admitting wrongs. Someone who has been told she is right for so long, that she has lost all construct for seeing otherwise.
I wronged this woman. I did. Rather than break it off years earlier than I did, I stuck around. I let my frustration build and watched our love die and pretended it was all ok. When it came to a head, she was surprised and hurt. While I feel I had adequate reason to be just as hurt, I know I hurt her, and we should have had a knock down drag out fight about it. About each other. About how poor our relationship really was. But that fight never happened.
She lawyered up. Instead of calling me names and smacking me in the face, she hit me where she knew it would hurt: my children. Suddenly words like "visitation" were in conversations. Then conversations couldn't even happen without lawyers present. She did well, she struck blows that cut me to the core even to this day. She is an artful assassin.
But her ways are blunt, crude, unrefined. It's the Hiroshima approach. While her retaliation caused me maximum devastation, there was collateral damage. The worst damage of all in my opinion.
I find myself constantly asking why she can't attack me, just me? Why does every bicker have to involve our children? What good did it do for her to move back home to regain her family support? Is it a good that outweighs our children regularly having their father in their lives?
This latest rant comes from our latest discussion over custody. My work schedule cutting into my time with the boys, and her being unable/unwilling to make adjustments thus limiting my already short time with them.
While there exist an endless array of word groupings I could use to describe her, she is simply no longer deserving of my time. My true concern and heart goes to my children, my amazing boys. I'll never know why you were thrust into this situation that separates us, but I hate it. I love you more than you know. I want you back. I want you with me. I want you home. God dammit.
