So I moved in with my sister, in her attic basically. It's not terrible. The catch is due to her having an old house and a centrally located exposed oil furnace, her home owners insurance won't allow kids to "live" in her house. So on my weekends with the kids, I live with my parents. It's highly inconvenient, but it's the best that I can do given the circumstances. I'm not making do, I scraping the shreds together to piece meal something resembling an existence together.
I apply for jobs, still looking for work. Anything will do now. It seems futile though. For example, I apply for one job called "print production specialist." The ad made it sound like it was a graphic design or similar type job but nope. It's more of a print press operator type job. I bullshit my way through an hour and a half long interview. Then they have me take a written skills test on mechanical systems. Since I was ill prepared for the interview, I leave feeling like I just wasted three hours on a job I don't particularly want, but sadly do need.
Divorce is proceeding forward. Usually the threat of a court date and hiring of lawyers is enough to come sort of compromise. All I want is her to be responsible for half our debt, do half the driving when we exchange kids and copies of all the digital family photos, since she took the hard drive with her that had them all. She wants more child support, spousal support, money for her student loans, me to take all the debt, to do all of the driving, and assortment or other random demands for money that border on nonsensical. Oh, and she wants half of the kids movies. She already took more than half of the kids movies, I for one can't even understand why you'd even waste the money paying the lawyer to listen to you talk about something of such low dollar value. My lawyer assures me that most of her demands are standard fair and are only included so she gave give them up during the negotiation process and appear as if she's compromising. I'm not so sure but he's getting paid to deal with her, so I don't have too.
The first of many court house meetings goes like this, I meet with my lawyer in one room, she meets with hers in another. Then our lawyers meet in the hallway and try to reach a compromise. If they don't reach one, we go to trial. My lawyer tells me this should be quick and easy, after being there five hours negotiating with her, it's obvious to him that this isn't going to be pretty.
Second go around is scheduled for middle of October. My ex tells me it's be cancelled. I don't believe her, so I call my lawyer, his secretary confirms the night before, that it is in fact cancelled, and that I should have received notice from the court by now. I have the kids over the weekend. The next Monday she calls me angry, "What did you tell our son?" "About what?" "Well our son told his teacher something and it just so happened to be the exact reason court was cancelled." "Well I don't know what that is, so I couldn't have said anything." "Well then, I guess you're lawyer isn't doing his job if he's not telling you."
What the fuck is going on? She won't tell me what it is, and I don't want to pay my lawyer to tell me something I'm going to find out anyway ... as soon as the letter shows up. I long ago learned I can't win her games, I can only attempt to not play. This could be anything, and she's enjoying taunting me with it. Is she trying to completely deny me access to the kids? Was there some legal angle she's exploring? Is she just making shit up? It takes a week or so, but the notice finally arrives.
Your pretrial hearing has been rescheduled for December 21, 2012 ... Great. The Mayan Apocalypse, how appropriate. ... due to the pregnancy of ... Oh crap. Really? It's bad enough you use my own kids to play games with me and now you just used your unborn child to play games with me?!? Do I care my ex-wife got herself knocked up? Emotionally, not in the slightest. Logistically, she just made this whole process more difficult. In this state, its a process to get divorced when the wife is pregnant.
The next time I call the kids she asks me if I got my letter yet. I tell her I had. Then she goes on to tell me that we can still move forward with the divorce but we all have to testify in open court that I'm not the father. And by we, I mean me, her and her baby daddy. Delightful. "If it makes you feel better" she decides to tell me, "you'll get to see your kids more than he'll get to see his. He's moving to another state with his wife next summer." Why she thinks I care in the slightest about any of that I don't know. I do however wonder if she still thinks her baby daddy's marriage is over though.
During this lengthy unemployment stretch, dating back to even before I moved. I made a new friend. unlike most of my new friends, she doesn't entirely live inside my computer monitor. I originally sent the Facebook friend request because FaceBook suggested her to me every damn day and I kinda sorta maybe remembered her from High School. Of course after we start talking I realize there's no possible way I remember her from High School because she's six years older. a single mom of three boys, the oldest of which is a certified rock star.
As I get to know her I realize she's dealt with more trauma in her life than anyone I've ever met. Which says a lot, because that's how the people who know me best describe me. You can either own your experiences, or they can own you. She owns hers. I mean when she was about a day old, someone found her in the trashcan of gas station bathroom. She just wears that on her sleeve. Literally, she had the gas station's logo tattooed on her upper arm. I'm just in awe of that. I wish I could do that ... but If nothing else, I can't get the tattoo because selling blood has been my most reliable source of income for the past three years and a tattoo would make me ineligible to sell for the next year. Her ability to do this, to survive, to still be optimistic, to still believe the best in people even when they don't deserve it, to still believe the world is a good place is just amazing to me. I make no hesitation in telling her this on a very regular basis.
For one thing she gets the whole broke lifestyle. She's there too. She gets that sometimes you just have to spend money to be some sort of temporary happiness, and you need to be happy to keep pushing forward to get to a point where you can find it for real. I've been known to spend money I shouldn't have a few times, the wedding comes to mind. One thing usually happens when you do that though. Someone questions your logic "If you can afford to buy such and such, then why are you short on money for the things you need?" Then you feel like crap because you know they're right to question. Any positive feelings you have turn negative. But the answer is simple. We're human, and humans need to be happy.
Anyway the Rocker Chick is in this relationship with this ... idiot. It's like looking at my relationship with my ex-wife from the outside. He treats her like she treated me. The same manipulation. The same mind games. The same lack of trust. We talk about it. I try to point her in the direction I wish someone had pointed me. She gives me something else more important though. That personality that I lived with, that she's dealing with has a name, The Invalidator. They pull you in only to cut you down. Maybe a month after we bought the house my ex-wife told me she was unhappy there. She didn't want to live there, and never did. The only reason she agreed to live there was because I wanted it so much, and she wanted to make me happy. from then on out anything and everything that went wrong with the house, or vaguely because of where we lived was then my fault. My fault because she tried to make me happy, or so she would claim. You don't buy a house to make your partner happy. that how you decide where to go for dinner, or what movie to watch. Not a lifetime commitment.
It's a big break through for me to know my experience wasn't totally unique. That it didn't occur just in my head. Mostly though it opens my eyes and I finally know I'm not alone. I didn't cause her to be that way. I didn't cause it, I didn't create the monster. I simply tried to deal with it in the best way I knew how. I can't fix this relationship for her, but I can be there to remind her that she's not alone, and that someone treating you this way is not okay. It's cathartic to see it from the outside instead of living it. I give her advice and realize I should be taking it myself. It takes months, but the relationship does finally end, and I'm there at her doorstep the next morning with a tub of Ben and Jerry's if for no other reason to remind her that not every man is a jerk.
A few days later I get the call. That job interview I thought was a complete waste of time, is offering me the job. I run printing equipment for a sheet music supplier to churches, a terrible assignment for this half Jew, but the pay is good. Still I feel like a bit of a sell out. I'm not one to take days off work ever, but I already have to take one off, the Mayan Apocalypse.
We do the whole dance of trying to negotiate an agreement again in our pre-trial hearing. It takes four hours and we resolve absolutely nothing. I give an inch, she wants a pound. The only forward motion we make is that she's put all the family photos into my cloud storage account. I verify this on my phone while in court. I also give her even more kids movies since what I called half wasn't half according to her, even though she can't recall which movies we did or did not have. After all this we still have to go in front of the judge and take care of this whole paternity thing. My lawyer preps me. It's going to be simple. Three questions to each of us, we answer correctly no problem. The questions are "Have you been intimate in the past 9 months? The past year? Past two years?" Great, I have to testify about my sex life. Because that's not humiliating. The lawyer then asks me to make sure that my answer to all those questions is "no." I think hard, it was the weekend before Christmas two years ago, so checking my calender on my phone that means it's been two years and one day exactly since we last fornicated.
We go into court. Her lawyer asks her those three questions, she answers no. Then the lawyer asks one more question "Did you ever have sex after you moved out?' she again answers no. Wait? What the hell? I'm livid. When she first moved out, our sex life actually improved. We definitely did the deed many times. I really could give a shit that she has decided to deny we were together after she moved out, but lying under oath?!? I thought I knew how low she would sink, but apparently I was wrong. I thought we were trying to reach some sort of fair resolution, and we just didn't agree what fair was. She doesn't give a shit about that though. Maybe I'm the one who keeps seeing the good in people when I shouldn't. This isn't even something that she has anything to gain from by lying about. More than two years ago we had sex. There's no way I could be the father. Why would she lie ... except maybe the fact her boyfriend is sitting there in court too.
Her baby daddy then takes the stand, the questions basically amount to "are you the father?" He answers in the affirmative, thankfully.
My turn to be a witness. My lawyer asks me "Do you hear the testimony given to hear by your ex-wife? Do you find it all to truthful and accurate?" Do I point out her lie that has no bearing on this paternity hearing? "Most of it" My lawyer's face shows a moment of panic, but he's not an idiot so he only asks me the three scripted questions. The judge rules and says I'm not the father. Court is dismissed. As we debrief afterwords I say to my lawyer "I can't believe she lied under oath" "Of course you two were together after she moved out!" He says, "You were together for twelve years!" Wow, didn't even have to tell him what the lie was, it was that obvious. Next court date is in spring. By the time I get home, she's deleted all the photos out of my cloud storage. It seems like spite, and she claims she never did it, despite the account telling me who and when deleted them. I take screen caps as evidence.
I started my job at the beginning of December so I have a few paychecks under my belt by the time the holidays roll around. I actually spend money on my kids this year. It takes the last dollar I have from my last paycheck before Christmas Eve, but I even manage to scrape up enough money to buy gifts for the Rocker Chick's boys, since she was going to go without this year. I figure I can pay it forward after years of being on the receiving end. I didn't give her a choice in the matter, and I gave them to her, so the boys didn't have to know she didn't buy them. I don't have much, but life is slowly, and in tiny increments moving in a not bad direction.
This is my life now.
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