Spent a good chunk of the day in court. Not a good sign when you feel like a 'regular' at the courthouse .. when faces there become familiar. Wouldn't wish this mess on anybody.
Learning a lot (unfortunately) about how the system works. (Been at this for years.) While waiting for my case to be heard, I sit there and hear lots of other cases. So I glean things.
One thing has become clear » I could never be a lawyer, or a judge .. at least not in Family law, where things are very emotional .. and where there's far more at stake than just money.
Don't know how they do it. I certainly couldn't.
On that note .. it embarrasses me that we need to have somebody in a black robe make rules for us .. and tell us what to do .. someone who has never even met the Bug. Makes me feel like a big, fat failure. (Yet admittedly, the alternative would be worse.)
You might expect, when children are at stake, that the parents, even when they no longer care for each other, would lay aside their differences .. to focus on what's best for their children. And what's best for the children, you could argue, might include the welfare of the parents (who are caring for the children).
So it's difficult for me to understand why I have been repeatedly attacked. I'm not talking just once or twice, or 3 times, or even 4 or 5 times .. or even 6 or 7 .. but many times. (I've since lost count.)
I'm talking police reports & full-on detectives getting involved. Criminal accusations .. which would involve jail time.
Now even when these accusations are deemed 'unfounded' (as they always are), they still take a toll .. an emotional toll.
••• today's entry continues here below •••
The Dog & I go way back (.. to our days in Waikiki). He has been there for me from Day-1 .. like a brother (only better). He has told me, "The only thing I have against you is that you let her get away with this stuff."
.. and sometimes, "You defend her." (when he's unhappy with me).
To which I usually respond, "She's still his mom." I simply don't have that killer instinct. Anything that affects her (it would seem) is going to affect him. So I'm reluctant to 'reciprocate.'
Now the Dog isn't the only one who has expressed these sentiments. (That I'm too nice.) But the Dog has been so supportive (for so many years) that any time he offers criticism, it naturally gets my attention (because he does it so rarely).
I would love nothing more than to have a healthy relationship with the mom .. not because I think she's such a wonderful person .. but for our son's sake .. because he deserves parents who get along.
I don't want him to grow up with the model of the two most important people in his life at odds with one another. I don't want this pattern to become 'normal' for him. Because it could prevent him from forming healthy, intimate relationships of his own, later in life.
Yet it's difficult to develop any kind of healthy relationship with a person who is continually attacking you. (I'm talking thermonuclear .. not just nasty name-calling.) It's hard to extend the hand of friendship to someone who is repeatedly filing false police reports against you.
The natural human tendency is to avoid things that cause us pain .. to put distance between us and the source of such pain. (Consider the last time you touched something hot.)
The dictionary contains many colorful words to describe people who intentionally & repeatedly attack us .. over a prolonged period .. who go out of their way to do us harm .. and who take extraordinary steps to see us suffer. 'Friend' is not one of them.
No words you might characterize as 'friendly' were spoken in court today. The whole situation is very sad .. especially for the Bug. Sad and so unnecessary.
Most of all, healthy relationships depend on TRUST .. and it's difficult (if not foolhardy) to trust someone who has attacked you many times in the past.,
The worst part is when the Bug is used as a weapon (.. to attack me). I've never been able to figure out how to handle that. I feel sorry for him .. that's he's being put thru this.
As a dad, the love people show my son means everything. So I can't understand how that can mean nothing.
So it would seem there exists some motivating factor that trumps even the welfare & happiness of your child. Wow. I don't know what that could be. But whatever it is, it must be very powerful and deep-seated, because it has lasted so long.
I don’t get this either. My mother did the same thing to my Dad. Multiple false release reports filed against him. He found out about it first and pre-empted it with his own police report, so the reports ended up canceling each other out, as they both accused the other person of the same thing (violence).
My mother left Florida when I was six and my Dad raised me all my life. I turned 18 this month. So it’s been a while. She came back when I was 8 to try to win custody. This was after being in California for two years. She requested back child support for the time she was totally out of my life. I don’t understand how that works. She ended up getting joint custody (three months per year) and having to pay about $450 per month child support, whereas my Dad begged her not to go to court (all the wasted money and stress) and was happy to accept no child support (he didn’t even consider it). I never went to CA and she never pushed it, and she still lives out there with her husband of nine years and her eight year old daughter I’ve met twice.
What amazed my father was the incompetence of her lawyer. Everyone in the courtroom was poorly spoken. It’s not like Perry Mason at all.
I never understood her hatred toward my father, or her insistence on going to court. She just finished paying $50,000 in child support over a period of ten years. I have to say, she’s a much better person now. She became a Christian.
My advice to you is to remember that all people can change. Your boy’s mom will change. She’ll have to do it on her own, and it might take ten years, but she will. She’s just at a very immature stage right now.
I see she got your license suspended. It’s a pity that the courts are so biased toward women. If my father hadn’t been the ideal Dad and my Mom didn’t handle the situation so badly, he wouldn’t have gotten primary custody, just because the courts are so biased. They grilled him on the stand for four hours, even bringing up the crimes of his siblings and the fact that he put grease on our fence to discourage her from climbing over it. Mom broke down crying after 15 minutes and basically said nothing.
People who find this post through Google and have not been in your situation will think that there must be more than you are revealing. You must have battered her for years. They can’t believe that someone (especially a woman) could be hateful and evil without reason. It happens. I’ve followed your posts for over a year and I know you’re a great father and probably treated her like a queen. Sometimes all you get is resentment for it.