And the Beast goes on

And the Beast goes on.


She moved out three weeks ago, for anybody who’s counting. What a relief from constant pressure it has been for me! I mostly deal with her over the phone now, which is just fine by me, except she still calls too much. I hate to sound harsh, but that is just the way things turned out. It isn’t that I don’t like her, it’s the negative energy I perceive emanating from her constantly toward me that I can’t stand. The criticism and chiseling away at every little thing just never stops! I feel bad for her, and I am not impressed with my inability to encourage positive responses from her. I feel like a failure when it comes to us. Sadly, I think she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She tried to withhold my visitation rights to my son several times in the last three weeks. She keeps trying to make assertions that I don’t watch our son carefully enough. I watch him like a hawk, just not the same way she smothers him, and surprise! Not to her satisfaction. She claims that I endanger him. Par for the course. I let him go across the driveway from the post office where we were waiting in line one day to go to the bathroom in an emergency situation for him, and she freaked out. There was no public restroom at the post office, so he went maybe a hundred feet to a restaurant he and I had been into half a dozen times at that time of day. We knew the owner, he’d been in that bathroom several times, I knew the place would be empty that time of day, and I asked him if he felt ok doing it. He’s getting close to seven, he’s big, strong, smart, and mature for his age, and I felt like it was the max boundary for him. I told him to make it quick, and come right back. I can’t walk very fast, and I would just have slowed him down. He went and came right back, there was no problem, and I felt proud of him. Under any other circumstances, I would never have let him do it. Three days later, she calls me up and goes off and says she isn’t going to let me see him any more, and I am guilty of child endangerment. Apparently she’s been grilling him about any time I’ve let him go out of my sight for an instant. She’s got an axe to grind and she’s sharpening it up just for me. I even let him go in the supermarket and drop a video in the collection bin while I waited in the car with flashers on right outside the entrance to the store fifty feet from the bin! How could I do such a thing?

When I was my son’s age I was tagging along on deer and quail hunts and shooting pellet rifles, shotguns, and .22s under the expert tutelage of my dad on the range we had on the back forty of our ranch in the high desert. I know what acceptable risk is. I would never expose my son to danger of any kind. But that’s not good enough for her. So I called her mom. I said, “Now Grandma, I need you to talk to your daughter before we have a nasty custody battle on our hands. What she’s doing isn’t good for our son, and she knows I am entitled to my rightful time with him.” She said she had heard from her daughter about the using the restroom incident detailed above, and she wasn’t very happy about it either. I told her she had to consider the source, told her my side of what had happened, and that she knew I would never do anything to endanger my boy. Fifteen minutes later, my son called and asked when I wanted to come over and play.


He is truly the one bright spot in all of this. He is the best student in his class, and most of the other kids are six months to a year older than him. He has received the highest academic and citizenship award offered, the Principal’s Award, all four trimesters he’s been at the private Christian school he attends. He’s in an accelerated program, and his skills are far beyond his grade level. His mom has told me several times since she moved out how well behaved he is, and how she hardly has to discipline him at all. I’m just super proud of him. Yesterday and the day before we had extra time together because of a half day at school and a function his mom went to yesterday evening. It was great to spend the extra time with him, and we had fun. I go to the before school recess and assembly every morning, and pick him up after school every afternoon. He does his homework and rides his bike and plays on the computer, and everything goes fine. I guess when she’s at work and can’t afford a sitter, she’s not too worried about me endangering him. Or perhaps I’ve just become a little cynical of her motivations. Do I sound bitter? I’m not, just getting wary and cautious in my old age, that’s all.

Today I brought him home from school and got him a snack and was doing some typing on the web when he called me in the bedroom where he was watching Jimmy Neutron. He said he was cold, so I got him a blanket and sat with him. I told him how proud I was of him, and how well I thought he was handling everything. I asked him how everything was going with him and his mom now that she had her own place, and was she being nice to him. I had my arm around him and had given him a couple little kisses on the forehead, and I was looking right into his big brown eyes from a couple inches away. He looked back at me for a second, and slowly shook his head from side to side. The look in his eyes became distant, and sad. I said, “Has she been spanking you a lot again?” He nodded. I said, “How often?” He said, “She spanks me almost every day.” My heart nearly fell out of my body as it went out to him. There is simply no justification for her to treat him that way. I know there is nothing he is doing that warrants a spanking nearly every day. I think she must be really trying to assert herself over him now that we don’t live together any more. There is no doubt in my mind that she is overdoing it. We were married for nine years, and I filed for divorce and a restraining order over the way she had treated us in the past. I resolved then and there to find a way to make it stop once and for all.

I still had to take him back to her place when she got off work, but I didn’t want to take him now, and he didn’t want to go. I reassured him that I would make her stop spanking him so much, and we got in the car and went over there. He asked me to come in and stay for a while and play go fish. She got his home work out of his backpack and started criticizing him for getting 97% on a math test. He missed one question. Then she found his progress report. He had made the Principal’s Honor Roll again, the fifth time in a row. Last time he had all 100%s in his subjects and all O’s (outstanding) in his citizenship. This time, he had a 98% in Math and a S+ in Christian character. He had missed a couple questions on his math test and the teacher’s note said he was talkative and didn’t always raise his hand to answer questions, hence the S+. I would be talkative and jump the gun, too, if I was getting smothered at home all the time like she does to him. I might even get distracted during a math test and miss a couple questions. She demanded to know what was wrong with him and why were his grades slipping like this. He said, “Please, Mom, I’m trying to play go fish with my Dad.” and I held my breath for a second. She was busy picking apart his homework, looking for mistakes and telling him he wasn’t trying hard enough and he had to go over his answers and he should get 100% and all O’s all the time. Lucky break. I hope he didn’t hear about that after I left. I told him how proud I was of him winning the Principal’s Award again, how he would get used to carrying the one on his math problems, to take his time and check his work, that he was doing great, and he didn’t have to get 100% all the time on everything. He looked up at me and smiled. He won two games of go fish.

I called him a couple hours later and told him I was thinking of him, that he’s special and smart and wonderful. He called me back before bedtime and told me he had taken a bath. I got the impression he might have gotten another spanking. I am more resolved than ever to protect my custody and visitation rights to him, and force an accounting of her behavior. She will attack my credibility with the endangerment issue and whatever else she can come up with, but her same old tired smokescreen isn’t going to work for her this time around. I’m wising up in my old age, and I’m going to get the story out one way or the other. My son is getting old enough to speak for himself, too, and before too long, he will have a say in this matter, as well. What a glorious day that will be.

Peace y'all.


[edit on 28-1-2006 by Icarus Rising]