I am a Prophetess!!

Last night I said that I was sure something would come up with my best friend's ex regarding her trip. Sure enough it did! Quite literally actually!!

Her attorney emailed this morning that both the ex and my friend's son have the stomach flu. Apparently it is a sneaky spontaneous flu that strikes two people at EXACTLY the same time right before they are scheduled to travel for visitation, evaluation and her psychological testing (that has already been re-scheduled three times). It is going around you know.

Oh, and a little later we heard that it is a 4-7 day flu. What an amazing coincidence. Of course there were no signs at all that she was coming down with anything last night when she was going to an Open House and needed confirmation of the visitation schedule "no later than"...

I don't think I will ever forget the look on the kids faces when they heard that their brother wouldn't be here tonight after all. Chris was at work and they kept making plans for his arrival. I couldn't let them keep doing that. They just had to know.

I told them simply that their mother said she and their brother were sick and so they wouldn't be coming after all. They were devastated, absolutely devatated.

Another Surreal Moment

My best friend’s ex-wife really out-does herself over and over and over again. The gaps in her “thinking” are amazing. Just a little while ago he got an email requiring scheduling arrangements be made for his ex’s visit this weekend. She demanded an email “no later than” a certain time because she was leaving for the airport and declaring that he was NOT to call her but HAD to respond by email.

If my best friend had been refusing to respond to her attempts to arrange time that would be one thing, but he INITIATED the email exchange to set up the times and exchange locations. If you only read her email you would have a very distorted picture of the whole situation. For instance you might get the idea that he has been harassing her with phone calls. He hasn’t called at all!!

Something I’m sure will come up at the last second. It always does. And we’ll deal with it the best we can…like always.

Frustrations...

If you had an attorney, would you fire him, go pro-se and then get pissed off when you were contacted about a routine scheduling?

Well, that is what my ex did.

I don’t understand that mentality. Why would you get that upset about a situation you created for yourself in the first place? I don’t get it.

But then again it was because I got tired of all his crazy making behavior (and I got tired of walking on eggshells so I wouldn’t get my head bit off for the simplest thing) that I left him in the first place. Well, that and some of the things my son was saying. I just couldn’t pretend anymore.

It is just bizarre.

Birthdays

I have a very weird “relationship” with my birthday. Most of my history with it is not the best. Last year I tried something completely different. I didn’t mention it to anyone. My birthday came and went without the slightest notice to me from anyone in the world. It was odd but kind of nice. No expectations, nothing. Just another day.

This year I approached my birthday the same way. No expectations. As it turned out, my best friend took me out to dinner. It was nice too! :D

As a corollary, I was raised that holidays (including birthdays) were a really BIG deal! That the day itself was important and had to be perfect! I much prefer my current approach. Absolutely celebrate holidays, but in a way that works. If it doesn’t work to celebrate on “the day” then pick another one and go with the flow!

Very revolutionary I know but it is SO much less stress!!

Perspective – I love it!

Holy Cow!!

I can’t believe what just happened! In order to understand what happened though some background might be helpful.

I live with my best friend and four of his five children. His other son lives with his ex. My son lives here too. Both my ex and my best friend’s ex live in CA about an hour away from each other.

I just finished a custody evaluation regarding my son and the divorce is final but not much else. The evaluator decided that residential custody would stay with me and that my ex would have visitation. My best friend is also in the middle of an evaluation.

Part of the contact my son has with his adopted father in CA is via phone every day. My ex either calls or my son calls. Either way if I EVER hear my son being rude or speaking inappropriately while on the phone I have always corrected him. The exact same thing is true if I EVER hear him speaking to ANY adult rudely or inappropriately.

None of the children here are allowed to speak rudely to or about adults, let alone their parents.

My best friend’s ex had actively denied visitation of his son in CA for nearly a year. He finally saw his son for a few hours a couple of weeks ago because of the evaluation (his ex HAD to bring his son here) which has arisen from his motions for a) more parenting time and b) enforcement of current parenting time.

One of the responding claims of my best friend’s ex is that he and I are poisoning the children against her. She has no idea that the EXACT OPPOSITE is true. Both my best friend and I work hard to help the children here have a good relationships with our ex spouses. We encourage healthy, respectful relationships with their parents. You’d think that if she was claiming we were poisoning the children that she would make sure she had “clean hands”. She doesn’t and that is where the “holy cow” comes in.

During my best friend’s recent visit with his son I was around, took pictures of them together and even played with both of them some times. We had a good time!

Recently, my friend’s son has called more (with help from mom) and also on his own! He and I have also had occasion to be on the phone with one another. When I am passing the phone to someone else, when he calls and no one else is here but me, etc. We have had some fun conversations! He has even asked to speak to me quite a bit, even right after returning from his trip here.

However within the past four days something interesting has happened. There have been a few more phone calls than usual. I answer the phone and I hear something like, “Hello? Who is this?” When I identify myself I then hear something like, “Get off the phone!!! You’re nasty!! You’re a nasty, nasty!!”

This is not an isolated event and I just remind him that he can ask politely for who he would like and then I give the phone to them. However, tonight what COMPLETELY FLOORED me was that while I answered the phone while my friend was temporarily unavailable (the call had been disconnected and his son called back) he did the same thing. I told him to just wait for a minute and I clearly heard his mom in the background telling him to ask for other people. He kept calling me names and speaking beyond rudely. She obviously heard it and did NOTHING!!! There was no correction of ANY kind!

I couldn’t BELIEVE it!!! She is claiming that we (specifically I) am a horrible “evil” person and yet she lets (and it sounds like encourages) him to talk that way to me and about me. There is no reasonable way that he would go from asking to talk to me one phone call to calling me “nasty, nasty!” and ordering me off the phone on the next without “help” from other people.

My jaw is still on the floor that he was allowed to speak that way to any adult.