Paul's oldest daughter had just turned 8 and his youngest was 3 1/2 when I met him. He had just started having a relationship with the oldest when I came along. His relationship with the youngest was virtually non-existent. The little girl had no idea who this strange man was that was suddenly coming to get her and wanting her to call him daddy. She'd been raised to believe her mother's new husband was her daddy.
The first day I met the oldest child, I was scared out of my mind. We took her for ice cream and I took photos. She showed her butt a little on the way home and Paul pulled the car over. He said he was going to spank her if she didn't straighten up and I was kind of taken aback. I didn't see anything she'd done as being that drastic. We got back to his parents house and she immediately told Paul's mom and she interceded. Paul's parents have always been really rough on him as far as his parenting. His mom, especially, would step in when he was trying to discipline.
That night I stayed over and the following day we took her and her cousin to the zoo. For reasons unknown, the kid automatically liked me. Some eight weeks later Paul asked her permission to ask me to marry him and she said yes. When we started looking at houses, she was so excited to have her own room. We talked about how we'd decorate it and she was really excited.
We had been in our house for less than a month when the youngest child started coming for visitation, too. She had heard from her sister how much fun we had and she wanted to see what it was all about. Our weekends with them were filled with activities. We'd go to the park or to the movies and as Halloween approached, we went to a pumpkin farm and picked out a whole family of pumpkins. We picked out costumes and took them door to door and they made out like bandits.
November 2007 came and the youngest child's 4th birthday approached. Paul had arranged with his ex-wife to let her have the little girl for the first half of the day and we'd get he for the second half (it was our weekend). We planned a party and sent out invitations. That morning he took her to her mom's and came home where I was decorating a bear cake and making food for the party. A few hours later, Paul got a phone call saying that the little girl wasn't coming back to our house. We drove to her house with the car load of cousins we'd picked up and she refused to come outside. Her mom wouldn't release her. We still had the oldest child and we left.
I was pretty upset. I got Paul to pull over at a gas station in town. The oldest kid and the cousins were in my car and Paul was in his truck. I was standing at his window talking to him when his ex-wife came tearing into the parking lot, screaming and cursing at Paul. She told him he was not taking the oldest daughter, either and she got in my car and made her get out. I just stood there, completely stunned. She just kept screaming and cursing and berating Paul. He didn't say much.
We drove to drop off the kids in my car and I sat there and bawled. Paul got in the car with me and held me. I couldn't explain what I was feeling and he didn't really understand why I was crying. This was an important milestone for me... to celebrate a birthday with the children whose lives I was joining... I was furious at their mother. We made our way back home and made several phone calls to let guests know that the party was canceled. We hacked the bear cake to pieces and held each other that night and talked about having babies.
The following weekend we were supposed to have the kids and their mom denied us visitation, so Paul filed the necessary contempt paperwork and we ended up in court. The judge found the kids' mom in contempt and our visitation resumed just in time for Christmas. Our excitement was amplified by the kids' desperation to open their presents. Christmas Eve, I typed up a personalized letter for the kids from Santa and told them they'd find some gifts in the back yard since there was no more room under the tree.
Christmas morning, the kids were wild with excitement. They ran to the tree and saw the letter and opened it quickly. The oldest had just got to the part about the back yard when she took off like a rocket through the house. "Where are you going?!" I shouted, laughing. Paul barely had enough time to sneak into the garage and back through the laundry room into the kitchen to watch the kids peek out the back door and start jumping up and down at the presents they found. It was an awesome Christmas. The kids were so excited and when noon came, we had to return them to their mom's and they didn't want to go. They wanted to stay with us to play with their toys and to be in our house.
After the new year, things were pretty quiet. We got the kids when we were supposed to and our activities were pretty typical. April came and we celebrated the oldest child's ninth birthday with a huge party. Everything was going pretty well. The kids had been shuffled back and forth between homes at their mom's and it was rough on them. Their mom couldn't keep her act together enough to keep them in a one place more than a couple of months. School let out and the kids were anxious to be at our house for the second half of the summer. Paul was in between jobs and was out of the state for the last week, but the kids enjoyed themselves and everything was fine.
Something happened between July and August that caused their mom to start giving Paul grief again. She stopped letting us have the kids and we once again had to go back to court. This time Paul got permission to get the kids in counseling. After some threats from the judge, their mom conceded and we got the kids in counseling and visitation resumed... again. Counseling was good. The kids loved Karla and we learned some stuff, too. Karla said that during conflict the kids felt more at ease going to me or their step-dad than either of their parents. She suggested that I stop intervening when Paul would get into an argument with either kid.
When we eloped in September and the kids found out, things started to fall apart fast. Paul and I were having our own issues and the kids felt the tension. The oldest kid started acting up and the youngest started refusing to come. As I started pulling away from everyone, things progressed to a very bad place. The girls didn't understand why I was suddenly letting their dad handle his own battles and they didn't understand why I wasn't as involved as I had once been.
As more and more lies came out, I slowly started pulling away from Paul, too. I'd put my trust in him only to be burned again and again. He didn't accept responsibility for any of it. He blamed me for the kids not wanting to come and as the counselor had told us, they would direct their anger at the person they felt was the safest. So, as I stopped participating in the parenting as much and as Paul and I fell apart, the girls, especially the oldest, became very angry with me.
When they came for the summer break, I made it clear to Paul that he was in charge. What conversations he had with the kids during this time, I don't know. I'm sure now that at some point he would make some off handed comment to make them think I was mean so they'd think he was the "good guy". Regardless, the girls had been treating us so badly for the last six months prior to that, I was burnt out. For the duration of our relationship, Paul had depended on me to be an active parent. To step in where it wasn't my place to step in and to discipline where it wasn't my place to discipline. When I suddenly stopped after talking with the counselor and with several step-mother's I know, it rocked our world.
The summer break visitation lasted less than a week. The oldest daughter was rude, inconsiderate and completely out of control while she was there. I bit my tongue and let Paul handle it, but that only made the situation worse. The last day they were there started out badly. I had went upstairs to wake the children to get them off to the babysitter so I could work and neither of them would wake up. I shook the youngest and patted her arm and she wouldn't wake up, so I swatted her on the rump. Not hard in the least. She popped up and had no idea that she was in her sister's bed. I had her help me wake up her sister and after shaking her and calling her name, I swatted her on the rump, too. She popped up and asked what the time was. I got them some breakfast and sent them across the street to the babysitters.
Several hours later, they came back and the oldest stomped through the door, came over to me and shouted, "Why did you hit _____?!" I must have looked confused because I asked what she was talking about. "____ said you hit her this morning! You're going to tell me why you did!" Obviously I wasn't thrilled about being spoken to this way by a now ten-year old child. "First of all," I said, "I didn't hit _____. I swatted her on the butt to wake her up, just like I swatted you on the butt. She and I shook you to wake you up and you wouldn't. There is nothing to explain to you, so cool out. Go upstairs and change your clothes. Dad will be home soon." She huffed upstairs and I immediately texted Paul. The babysitter looked at me and said, "I'd have popped her in the mouth."
Later, after Paul had gotten home, he and some of the guys who worked for us were in the backyard messing with the lawn and the girlfriend of one of the employees (who had sat for the kids) was in the kitchen with me. The girls had been playing upstairs and came into the kitchen to ask what was for dinner. I told them we were having spaghetti and they could watch tv in the living room if they wanted to. I never allowed the kids to be in the kitchen while I was cooking when there was open pots of boiling water involved. This was not unusual.
The sitter started talking about very adult subjects and the kids were still in the kitchen. I asked them both to go into the living room, turn on the lamp and watch tv. The youngest went into the living room and tried to turn on the lamp, but couldn't quite get it. The oldest refused to leave the kitchen. After asking her three times to go to the living room, I lost my temper and said, "I need you to listen to me right now. Go to the living room, turn on the lamp and sit on the couch and wait for your dad. I do not appreciate that I've had to ask you several times now." She threw her hands up in the air, huffed off and shouted, "You're so freaking annoying!" That was it. I went outside and told Paul what had happened. He came into the house and we went to the living room and on the couch sat only the youngest girl.
I looked at Paul with tears in my eyes and said, "Honey, I gotta go for a drive. I have to have some space and get some air. I'll be back." He didn't want me to leave, but I had to. I had to have air. I was going to cry and I had a house full of people and I couldn't be there. What happened after I left is still a mystery to me. When I got home, the kids were gone and Paul and I were never the same.
The kids didn't come back after that and months later, Paul tried to reach out to the oldest and she got on the phone with him and cussed him out and told him she hated him and was NEVER coming back to his house. Later they got into a fight through text messages and she said she wasn't coming back to his house to be around his "wife". I was devastated. Paul started talking about signing over his rights after that. I was hurt and said a lot of things I didn't mean. I said that when he started getting the kids again, I was going to stay at my mom's so that they couldn't accuse me of doing something I hadn't done. This offended Paul greatly.
He started getting serious about letting the kids' step-dad adopt them. I thought I was being helpful... he'd taken a friend of his upstairs at our house to show him the kids' stuff and told him he could have first choice of the kids' stuff... I started bagging stuff up. I put together bags of things I really wanted them to have and bags of things to give to charity and bags of things to sell. I did this because I thought it would be too difficult for Paul to do it. Looking back, I guess I can see how he may have taken this the wrong way.
When Paul came home and said he wanted out of our marriage, he threw a million different reasons at me. It wasn't until a week later that the kids came up. He said he missed his kids and I was the reason he didn't have them and no woman was going to stand in the way of him having his kids. I was stunned. I had NEVER asked him to choose. Not once. We had had conversations about having kids of our own and I had made the statement that I felt it would be prudent to wait until the kids were a little older and things were more settled. Paul took this as me not wanting to have kids with him because of his girls. No, I didn't wan to subject a child to the drama of his ex-wife and all that garbage, but we were actively trying to have a child. How could he think for a second that I was refusing to have a baby with him?
Since all of the drama happened, I don't know if Paul's been in contact with the kids at all. I don't know if it was an excuse or if he really felt that it was my fault the kids didn't want to be with him. He failed to remember that for the first year, they came to the house to see me because their relationship with him was so strained.
The kids are not the sole reason Paul and I fell apart. To get to that, you have to look at how things fell apart after we got married. I've had a lot of time to think and some things are starting to become glaringly obvious.
Part six to be continued.
The first day I met the oldest child, I was scared out of my mind. We took her for ice cream and I took photos. She showed her butt a little on the way home and Paul pulled the car over. He said he was going to spank her if she didn't straighten up and I was kind of taken aback. I didn't see anything she'd done as being that drastic. We got back to his parents house and she immediately told Paul's mom and she interceded. Paul's parents have always been really rough on him as far as his parenting. His mom, especially, would step in when he was trying to discipline.
That night I stayed over and the following day we took her and her cousin to the zoo. For reasons unknown, the kid automatically liked me. Some eight weeks later Paul asked her permission to ask me to marry him and she said yes. When we started looking at houses, she was so excited to have her own room. We talked about how we'd decorate it and she was really excited.
We had been in our house for less than a month when the youngest child started coming for visitation, too. She had heard from her sister how much fun we had and she wanted to see what it was all about. Our weekends with them were filled with activities. We'd go to the park or to the movies and as Halloween approached, we went to a pumpkin farm and picked out a whole family of pumpkins. We picked out costumes and took them door to door and they made out like bandits.
November 2007 came and the youngest child's 4th birthday approached. Paul had arranged with his ex-wife to let her have the little girl for the first half of the day and we'd get he for the second half (it was our weekend). We planned a party and sent out invitations. That morning he took her to her mom's and came home where I was decorating a bear cake and making food for the party. A few hours later, Paul got a phone call saying that the little girl wasn't coming back to our house. We drove to her house with the car load of cousins we'd picked up and she refused to come outside. Her mom wouldn't release her. We still had the oldest child and we left.
I was pretty upset. I got Paul to pull over at a gas station in town. The oldest kid and the cousins were in my car and Paul was in his truck. I was standing at his window talking to him when his ex-wife came tearing into the parking lot, screaming and cursing at Paul. She told him he was not taking the oldest daughter, either and she got in my car and made her get out. I just stood there, completely stunned. She just kept screaming and cursing and berating Paul. He didn't say much.
We drove to drop off the kids in my car and I sat there and bawled. Paul got in the car with me and held me. I couldn't explain what I was feeling and he didn't really understand why I was crying. This was an important milestone for me... to celebrate a birthday with the children whose lives I was joining... I was furious at their mother. We made our way back home and made several phone calls to let guests know that the party was canceled. We hacked the bear cake to pieces and held each other that night and talked about having babies.
The following weekend we were supposed to have the kids and their mom denied us visitation, so Paul filed the necessary contempt paperwork and we ended up in court. The judge found the kids' mom in contempt and our visitation resumed just in time for Christmas. Our excitement was amplified by the kids' desperation to open their presents. Christmas Eve, I typed up a personalized letter for the kids from Santa and told them they'd find some gifts in the back yard since there was no more room under the tree.
Christmas morning, the kids were wild with excitement. They ran to the tree and saw the letter and opened it quickly. The oldest had just got to the part about the back yard when she took off like a rocket through the house. "Where are you going?!" I shouted, laughing. Paul barely had enough time to sneak into the garage and back through the laundry room into the kitchen to watch the kids peek out the back door and start jumping up and down at the presents they found. It was an awesome Christmas. The kids were so excited and when noon came, we had to return them to their mom's and they didn't want to go. They wanted to stay with us to play with their toys and to be in our house.
After the new year, things were pretty quiet. We got the kids when we were supposed to and our activities were pretty typical. April came and we celebrated the oldest child's ninth birthday with a huge party. Everything was going pretty well. The kids had been shuffled back and forth between homes at their mom's and it was rough on them. Their mom couldn't keep her act together enough to keep them in a one place more than a couple of months. School let out and the kids were anxious to be at our house for the second half of the summer. Paul was in between jobs and was out of the state for the last week, but the kids enjoyed themselves and everything was fine.
Something happened between July and August that caused their mom to start giving Paul grief again. She stopped letting us have the kids and we once again had to go back to court. This time Paul got permission to get the kids in counseling. After some threats from the judge, their mom conceded and we got the kids in counseling and visitation resumed... again. Counseling was good. The kids loved Karla and we learned some stuff, too. Karla said that during conflict the kids felt more at ease going to me or their step-dad than either of their parents. She suggested that I stop intervening when Paul would get into an argument with either kid.
When we eloped in September and the kids found out, things started to fall apart fast. Paul and I were having our own issues and the kids felt the tension. The oldest kid started acting up and the youngest started refusing to come. As I started pulling away from everyone, things progressed to a very bad place. The girls didn't understand why I was suddenly letting their dad handle his own battles and they didn't understand why I wasn't as involved as I had once been.
As more and more lies came out, I slowly started pulling away from Paul, too. I'd put my trust in him only to be burned again and again. He didn't accept responsibility for any of it. He blamed me for the kids not wanting to come and as the counselor had told us, they would direct their anger at the person they felt was the safest. So, as I stopped participating in the parenting as much and as Paul and I fell apart, the girls, especially the oldest, became very angry with me.
When they came for the summer break, I made it clear to Paul that he was in charge. What conversations he had with the kids during this time, I don't know. I'm sure now that at some point he would make some off handed comment to make them think I was mean so they'd think he was the "good guy". Regardless, the girls had been treating us so badly for the last six months prior to that, I was burnt out. For the duration of our relationship, Paul had depended on me to be an active parent. To step in where it wasn't my place to step in and to discipline where it wasn't my place to discipline. When I suddenly stopped after talking with the counselor and with several step-mother's I know, it rocked our world.
The summer break visitation lasted less than a week. The oldest daughter was rude, inconsiderate and completely out of control while she was there. I bit my tongue and let Paul handle it, but that only made the situation worse. The last day they were there started out badly. I had went upstairs to wake the children to get them off to the babysitter so I could work and neither of them would wake up. I shook the youngest and patted her arm and she wouldn't wake up, so I swatted her on the rump. Not hard in the least. She popped up and had no idea that she was in her sister's bed. I had her help me wake up her sister and after shaking her and calling her name, I swatted her on the rump, too. She popped up and asked what the time was. I got them some breakfast and sent them across the street to the babysitters.
Several hours later, they came back and the oldest stomped through the door, came over to me and shouted, "Why did you hit _____?!" I must have looked confused because I asked what she was talking about. "____ said you hit her this morning! You're going to tell me why you did!" Obviously I wasn't thrilled about being spoken to this way by a now ten-year old child. "First of all," I said, "I didn't hit _____. I swatted her on the butt to wake her up, just like I swatted you on the butt. She and I shook you to wake you up and you wouldn't. There is nothing to explain to you, so cool out. Go upstairs and change your clothes. Dad will be home soon." She huffed upstairs and I immediately texted Paul. The babysitter looked at me and said, "I'd have popped her in the mouth."
Later, after Paul had gotten home, he and some of the guys who worked for us were in the backyard messing with the lawn and the girlfriend of one of the employees (who had sat for the kids) was in the kitchen with me. The girls had been playing upstairs and came into the kitchen to ask what was for dinner. I told them we were having spaghetti and they could watch tv in the living room if they wanted to. I never allowed the kids to be in the kitchen while I was cooking when there was open pots of boiling water involved. This was not unusual.
The sitter started talking about very adult subjects and the kids were still in the kitchen. I asked them both to go into the living room, turn on the lamp and watch tv. The youngest went into the living room and tried to turn on the lamp, but couldn't quite get it. The oldest refused to leave the kitchen. After asking her three times to go to the living room, I lost my temper and said, "I need you to listen to me right now. Go to the living room, turn on the lamp and sit on the couch and wait for your dad. I do not appreciate that I've had to ask you several times now." She threw her hands up in the air, huffed off and shouted, "You're so freaking annoying!" That was it. I went outside and told Paul what had happened. He came into the house and we went to the living room and on the couch sat only the youngest girl.
I looked at Paul with tears in my eyes and said, "Honey, I gotta go for a drive. I have to have some space and get some air. I'll be back." He didn't want me to leave, but I had to. I had to have air. I was going to cry and I had a house full of people and I couldn't be there. What happened after I left is still a mystery to me. When I got home, the kids were gone and Paul and I were never the same.
The kids didn't come back after that and months later, Paul tried to reach out to the oldest and she got on the phone with him and cussed him out and told him she hated him and was NEVER coming back to his house. Later they got into a fight through text messages and she said she wasn't coming back to his house to be around his "wife". I was devastated. Paul started talking about signing over his rights after that. I was hurt and said a lot of things I didn't mean. I said that when he started getting the kids again, I was going to stay at my mom's so that they couldn't accuse me of doing something I hadn't done. This offended Paul greatly.
He started getting serious about letting the kids' step-dad adopt them. I thought I was being helpful... he'd taken a friend of his upstairs at our house to show him the kids' stuff and told him he could have first choice of the kids' stuff... I started bagging stuff up. I put together bags of things I really wanted them to have and bags of things to give to charity and bags of things to sell. I did this because I thought it would be too difficult for Paul to do it. Looking back, I guess I can see how he may have taken this the wrong way.
When Paul came home and said he wanted out of our marriage, he threw a million different reasons at me. It wasn't until a week later that the kids came up. He said he missed his kids and I was the reason he didn't have them and no woman was going to stand in the way of him having his kids. I was stunned. I had NEVER asked him to choose. Not once. We had had conversations about having kids of our own and I had made the statement that I felt it would be prudent to wait until the kids were a little older and things were more settled. Paul took this as me not wanting to have kids with him because of his girls. No, I didn't wan to subject a child to the drama of his ex-wife and all that garbage, but we were actively trying to have a child. How could he think for a second that I was refusing to have a baby with him?
Since all of the drama happened, I don't know if Paul's been in contact with the kids at all. I don't know if it was an excuse or if he really felt that it was my fault the kids didn't want to be with him. He failed to remember that for the first year, they came to the house to see me because their relationship with him was so strained.
The kids are not the sole reason Paul and I fell apart. To get to that, you have to look at how things fell apart after we got married. I've had a lot of time to think and some things are starting to become glaringly obvious.
Part six to be continued.
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