I had written this over on the the Other Topics board the other day, but didn't get any responses. <P>This week is being pretty hard for me; I'm torn about what to do.<P>~Amy<BR> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum5/HTML/001594.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum5/HTML/001594.html</A>

Oh, ((((((((AMY))))))))), dear I'm so sorry for your situation. I wish I had hope, but I just see any there.<P>Only you can decide which path to follow, just know that whatever your choice, there are plenty of us that will support you.<P>I do have one question, WHY IS HE KEEPING HER FOR A WHOLE MONTH?<P>Hugs, Kisses, Prayers, & Thoughts<P>------------------<BR>Love, Bill<P>-There are none so blind as those who refuse to see!-<BR>-Stand up and do the right thing, even if your standing alone.-

Amy I can understand your hurt and suffering. I am new myself to this, but can say that I will pray for you. Just being able to vent and write out what your feeling is a good sign. This is a sad place to be for a lot of us but we can and will make it. One second at a time, then one minute, one hour etc......... blessing's<P>A friend told me this;<P>No man is worth your tears, and the one who is would never make you cry.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by out of the fog:<BR>No recognition of me for birthday, Christmas, or even Mother's day.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Don't expect it. I got nothing for my last birthday or Christmas or Father's day. I didn't get or wish anything for her on these occasions either.<P>As the betrayed spouse, my experience is similar to yours. She has told me gleefully how great life is without me, how she'd rather die than be with me. Yet if I say something that she interprets as being against her, she goes into a rage. She rationalizes all her actions, and she denies any of her wrongdoings. It's the same pattern for nearly all wayward spouses.<P>In your case, it sounds like you have to keep a mind towards protecting yourself and your relationship with your daughter.<P>As far as salvaging the marriage, now, I would have hated to hear this months ago: I think the right frame of mind is to consider the marriage over. That doesn't mean going out to meet men, as that's just more ammunition against you. It means you lead your life as a single mom. Treat your husband with the respect he doesn't deserve. Treat yourself with the respect that you do deserve. Let him try to salvage the marriage if that occurs to him. Attempts for the betrayed spouse to go after the marriage seems to always push the wayward spouse away. It also makes you look for any sign that you'll get back together, only to be disappointed again and again.

Wow! How come he gets her for a month? My ex did some terrible things in regards to our kids when we were separated and for awhile after our divorce was final. I don't repeat a lot of those things because the memory is too painful a lot of the times. My opinion though is to get this divorce over with so that you have some orders handed down by the Judge for you to fall back on. I can understand dragging a divorce out if it's something you don't want but you also have a daughter that needs your protection. If he's anything like my ex he'll be at his worst until the divorce is final. Sometimes that closes enough in his chapter book to find something better to fill his time with other then coming after you. My ex's girlfriend did some terrible things to me too. The reason this woman is doing things to you is because she fears that he has unresolved feelings towards you and she feels threatened. Believe it or not, it does get better with time. All I can really tell you now though is to stand up for yourself and your daughter! Another note......if your daughter stays at the same daycare you should be able to receive some feedback from them as to how she's doing. Maybe you could even visit your daughter there during that month. I'm sorry though....I have a big problem with a child that young being away from either parent for that amt. of time. I'm off today but I'll check back tomorrow. Hang in there!

I guess I'm going through another wave of grief.<P>We're in Texas --- the rules are very generous. It takes something extreme and obvious, like physical abuse, to get sole custodianship. So we're joint custodians.<P>Unless we work something out otherwise, HE gets to say how long he will see her. I mean, there is literally this little checklist: Wed. - 2 hours, 6-8pm.; Wed. - after school to 8 pm.; Wed. - 6 pm. and return the child to school the next morning. Same for 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends of each month.<P>Guess which one he picked? She's been spending one night a week over at his house during the school year. And he threw a fit when I stopped the Wed. visitations when our public school year ended....as per the Orders.<P>It's in the orders that he gets her for either one month, 4 weeks, or 2 2-week periods. And out of that, I only get to see her on one weekend. And I can take one of 'his' weekends for normal visitation during the summer.<P>No where in the Orders do I get Wed. visitations to counter his during the school year. No where are the 2nd and 4th weekends reserved for me.<P>However, I am named as the primary custodial parent. Therefore I have exclusive control over her education and several other things. That's what I used in order to keep him from changing her daycare. And when I told both my MD/psych. and my counselor about what he tried to do, they both agreed that she shouldn't be moved from her daycare when she is getting moved out of her home.<P>However, when she returns to my home again, I'm going to have to change her day care. No choice, the day care is associated with my current employer. I won't be working here any longer by the end of next month. But I think I can coax them into letting her stay there till the end of the month.<P>I really hate having to leave here. My co-workers and my boss have been incredible during this past year. All the time I've taken off to go see Drs. Sitting at my desk and suddenly breaking into tears. Drop in productivity. I couldn't ask for a more supportive group of people to be working with.<P>And yes, I have been working with the people at her day care. We have been keeping track of her behavior. We tracked the regressions. We knew when she was having trouble with different things. We noticed that on Wed.'s she was always clingy and tended to cry or be easily upset during the day ---- she knew that her Dad was picking her up. And on Thur.s when he'd return her, she tended to be more aggressive, easily frustrated, hitting instead of talking, etc. <P>She's a smart girl. Privately I laughed when she was getting closer to being potty trained. She'd hold her poop until right as he got there to pick her up. And then she'd make this big mess and not cooperate with him changing her.<P>She's been telling me that she doesn't want to go to her Daddy's. But I don't have a choice. If she doesn't go, I could be in Contempt of Court.<P>I've tried asking my stbxH what I should pack for Little Bit to take with her to his place. He's already got some clothes and such, but he won't tell me what or how much of other things I should pack.<P>He simply does not communicate! He didn't communicate when we were married. And now he can't even communicate where our daughter is concerned. Even though his attorney has assured that he would communicate with me and answer questions I may have concerning our daughter. If it appears that I am attacking him or questioning his parenting skills in any way, he won't respond! I have a right to know why my daughter is suddenly starting to say curse words. Where she got certain bug bites and bumps. To know if she's using the potty or being put back in diapers. To know if he is still showering with her (which I disapprove of now, she's heading towards four....she's getting too old for that --- and the books support me).<P>I have two bachelor degrees. I'm certified in secondary education. He may be making more money than me. He may be planning on marrying his mistress. But I still have better qualifications than both of them for making decisions about her upbringing. And I DO consider her when I make decisions --- even when making the decision about my new job. She comes before my job. He doesn't put her needs first; otherwise he'd listen to her or at least respond to her when she tells him that she wants him to come home.<P>I don't think he has any idea about how much he's hurt my little girl. I don't want him to hurt her again. But there's nothing I can do. Going to jail won't prove anything.....and he'd still get her.<P>~Amy

BonnieSept said,<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>he'll be at his worst until the divorce is final<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I wouldn't count on it. It was right after the court date that my H started refusing to set foot in the house, even to hug a sick child, and he cut back visitation even further at that point.<P>I think that the OW got even more demanding after the divorce, and the worse she treats him, the worse he treats the kids and me.<P>I have seen no sign that it ever gets any better.

What Nellie said applies to me too. My ex was initially brutally cruel, but for a couple of months before the divorce final date, we got along pretty well. Not long after the final date, she became...nuts? Argumentative, insecure, I really don't know what happened.

you see.... that's what I'm expecting him to do.<P>When he first left he'd come by fairly regularly. We'd do things as a family. That happened for a few weeks.<P>Then he started withdrawing. I'd get a message with some excuse for him not showing, like he'd be 'sick'. And when I'd call in the evening to check on him, he'd be at a restaurant with the OW --- I could hear her talking!!!<P>He quit coming over. He quit calling. He started getting extremely rude. Making wild accusations. Not even responding to my requests that his daughter wanted to see him or at least talk to him. And my daughter didn't even want to leave a message for him. She was getting VERY angry with him. He said that I was turning his daughter against him ---- his own actions were doing that!<P>He initially hired this horrible lawyer with a bad reputation.....known to be nasty and to force everything to go to before a judge. He asked for custody of our daughter, the house, fees, everything. Blamed everything on me. [And this person had been recommended by his oh so wonderful 'friends' --- conveniently located by the OW.]<P>I have my family's support. We went out and located the best lawyer possible. In turn, my stbxH had to drop his attn. and hire someone else. His attn. is real reasonable and knows the law, my stbx is not.<P>We finally got on a standard visitation schedule. Which meant that I finally got the 'night off' that I had been requesting for over a year (the night that I was requesting, not the night that he was 'giving' me [which fit his schedule]).<P>It was only after he got in contact with this new attorney that we got some semblance of order in visitations and he began treating me a bit nicer. But his nicety wavers. If things don't go his way, he has a fit; just like some little kid. I sometimes feel he's saying to me, 'You can't tell me to do such-n-such! Make me! <nyaah!>'. Sometimes I feel like I'm a fly on the window sill and he's the cruel little boy who enjoys pulling of my wings. Like he'll do anything to hurt me, simply because he knows he can.<P>Same with the OW. I know at one time she professed a strong interest in the occult (my stbx was pagan when we met and he converted). With her, I feel like every time I close a door, she finds some other way to attack me. I think I have everything closed to a point that she can't get to me anymore. But sometimes I wonder if she's trying to influence things around us in order to make me look bad.<P>Example -- the Yates lady who has confessed to killing her five children ---- I am either currently on or have been on some of the same medications as she's been on. My psych. has said not to worry about it. At best I'm expecting people to learn that depression is a treatable and sometimes curable illness. That I was not getting the help that I needed when I was with my H, even though he could have gotten it for me. It wasn't until he left and told his family what was going on, his family rallied around and got me the help I needed so much. Help that I was willing to accept, but for some reason I was unable to ask for for myself.<P>That's the nature of both depression and codependency.<P>But part of me is really afraid that the moment the divorce is over, he'll simply up and disappear from our daughter's life. Our little girl oesn't like being around the OW when she's with her daddy. She's complained of not having toys, of watching movies all weekend (when it was beautiful outside), of her Daddy sewing or playing on the computer instead of playing with her, of the food, her room, ..... she doesn't even want to go and see her Daddy for this month. She wants to stay home, and she wants me to stay with her.<P>My counselor is expecting him to call me part way through the month and ask me to take care of little bit. My friend says that he'll just leave her with his parents and run off and play with the OW anyway. Another person says that the OW will either leave or demand more of his attention --- either of which will make him upset and likely to blame me.<P>Either way, I see him running away from responsiblity. He's still hasn't grown up, he wants to play, and his parents don't care abut him enough to set him down and tell him that he' screwing up his life. They want him to find out that on his own.<P>~Amy