(June 15, 2020 at 10:28 am)Ranjr Wrote: That's quite the turnaround. Getting free of a drag lets us excel in ways we'd forgotten. For me, that kick in the balls, after a time of being doubled over, was an added boost. I loved being single and just taking care of myself and the kids.
It's sad for your kids that their mom regressed. I've heard similar stories and can't understand it. As teens, my kids came to me at various times to complain about their mom either over-controlling them or yelling at them. I was almost not ready to be mature about it because my initial reaction was "so glad I don't have to put up with that shit anymore." But I didn't say that. I listened, sympathized, and took them somewhere fun. And I did still have to put up with that hateful bitch at times.
Hmmm. Interesting you use the word regressed. Not sure if it is the right word. Maybe she was always like that but concealed it well. I am sure she blames me for some things not of my doing. For example, the compulsory Sunday mass thing eventually caused the kids to stage a revolt and flat out refuse to go. I was astonished. I wish I had been there to see it. I certainly hadn't expected it, but equally certainly got blamed for it. What can she do to me. I am merely proud that they had the confidence and courage to step up and say out loud "We are not going because we don't believe in any of it".
She has on occasion threatened to render them homeless and toss them out on the street if they ever became pregnant for example. This actually worried them quite a bit. Well it would to a teenager. Until I reminded them that they had a bedroom in my place as well and they could not be rendered homeless at all. And while she might throw them out for getting pregnant, I would take them in for the very same reason. It was an empty threat. Long pause, and then they go "Oh, yeah". Amazingly, they responded back to her that they would simply move to my place in such an event. The threats stopped. Go figure.
The hammer blow came when my eldest came out as transgender. Oh boy. What did I do? Well we had long soul searching conversations about it, me and her/him. The upshot of it was that I became a volunteer on a transgender support line. The training was harrowing, the live calls are worse. It is so horrific there is a support team on speed dial for the VOLUNTEERS. And we need it. So far, I have held it together on any calls I have dealt with, but I freely admit I have openly wept after some of them. All of it is from religious sources. It is religion that makes people do these things to children, and adults for that matter.
I further became involved in research into a notorious case of RCC excess from the 1900s right through to the 1970s continuously. Some of that was shocking. And also now public. I did my bit. I was able to identify some of the bastards that made it happen.
And after all that, what did my ex-wife do? She stopped going to mass every week, just some weeks was sufficient.
And we end with this "so glad I don't have to put up with that shit anymore."
Yep. I am. I actually had to go for therapy after the breakup. I am extremely cynical about therapy as a rule and upon our first meeting, I told the therapist that I really thought therapy was a load of crap and I was only there because my good colleagues had persuaded me to go.
And his answer? A droll "Hollywood has a lot to answer for".
Now, I was in it for a while, but not anymore. It ended the day he said to me "You don't need me anymore". That was the day I started to rebuild my life.
However, he made me understand certain things. very gently. Once he got a handle on the case history, he said I was depressed. Why did he say that? Well, over years, I had ceded control over my own life, slowly but surely, until I had reached a position where I had to ask permission to even fart. He was really clever. He lasered in on stupid incidents that alone were trivial, one might think, but accumulated over time until I became an automaton just obeying instructions. Path of least resistance.
I shall give you one incidence just to crystalise that. There was one day where she dropped off the kids to me. We were supposed to go for a picnic. Within minutes, there was a paniced call. She had a puncture. Okay. So I loaded up the kids. Off we go. It was close by so we arrived in minutes. Comprehensively shredded front tyre.
Right, How the fudge did that happen? She mounted the curb because reasons. We are talking a 6 inch rip in the tyre.
OK then. Lets get out the wheel brace and the jack and all that, right? Nope. Not there. She then insists that her BIL that sold her the car would not have left out such essential equipment. Really? then where the hell is it? And the ones in mine didn't fit.
Right sez I, take the kids to yonder playground and amuse them and I will go get the requisite tools. Play with them for fifteen minutes and we will be all done when you come back.
So I did, torque wrench and all. Because I own those kind of tools. Turns out her spare is a lame "get me home" wheel, so sure enough 15 minutes later She returns with kids. I tell her that is a "get-me-home" wheel and she needs to make haste to the nearest tyre place of which I give her the two most proximate.
My reward? A sneer.
