Ugly

The word Ugly. It looks misshapen and sounds guttural.

I think DB is already moved past the phase of “feeling guilty” and moved onto “ugly revenge”.

Revenge for what exactly? Because I am fucking heart broken and mean to him? Because I refuse to give in to any of his demands (that I pay his gas mileage for picking up our son one way… it’s literally 5$, it’s not about gas, it’s about wanting “fairness”. Well believe me, nothing is fucking “Fair” about our situation).

He is refusing to give me half the money from savings. He has basically told me that he will “pay for my maternity leave” but other than that, he isn’t planning on giving me the money.Well, I already have about 6 weeks of leave saved up for, (I hope to take at least 12 weeks, but if the cards are right, I would like to wait until 16 weeks). The money I need for maternity leave is far short of half of our savings. He is trying to rationalize that only 4k of the money was “our savings”, since the rest was tax returns and money from his totaled vehicle that *I* suggested that he put towards savings instead of putting into a new car because his interest rates were so low he would only be saving about 600$ over the course of 5 years by reinvesting in the car. I reasoned it was better to have the money available for car repairs, maternity leave, to put towards a down payment or however we chose to use it, since it would be tied up in the car and he already had the loan terms with out a down payment.

And tax returns? Tax returns that WE got when WE were together.

There has been other ugly things. Despite all this; I have made a point in reminding him that we do not have a custody agreement yet and any and ALL time he sees our son is because I allow him to. He acts entitled to it (for various reasons, he is not on the birth certificate and has no parental rights) even threatening to call the police on me if I left town next weekend for the holiday weekend on “his day” to see family. ( I offered him the following weekend which wasn’t good enough, he wanted “tit for tat”. If I left for 4 days, He would take Jr. for 4 days even though he is only missing one overnight visit in those 4 days).

I am not saying that I have been totally victimized here. He was not able to sign the birth certificate because I was legally married (my ex husband and I have been separated since late 2007 but never got around to filing divorce papers because 1. money 2. agreeing on terms of joint legally owned property). It seemed easier to make it all informal at the time with the chance to change our minds later. Since his gf of the last 9ish years had no interest in getting married for her own reasons, it was never a problem in their relationship. I of course got with DB and it was an issue for him but twice we got to the part where all we needed to do is file the court papers but neither of us had the money to do it. DB tried to throw this in my face (that it took 2 years together before I filed and wasn’t important to me) despite him being the reason we had no money (he was spending it all on alcohol while I paid all the bills. I knew that money was going to be a fighting issues between us if we broke up. He doesn’t believe men should have to pay child support for starters and that women are just “money grubbing bitches” for the most part. Despite that we made similar income and I paid all the fucking bills while he used his free money (about 600$ a month unaccounted for each month until we started saving for a house) on whatever the fuck he wanted to buy.

Long story short. I know that we can move to get him on the birth certificate but I haven’t said shit to him about it because I am being fucking petty. I am angry and it’s my only card. Or maybe I am not petty and I it feels petty because good people don’t play games like this except when you are pregnant, stuck with no money, and a Douche for an ex, it’s a little hard to not hold what little leverage you have over the situation. (I.e. I will talk to the courts about it when I get my money.)

I have a good relationship with my ex husband and his wife. Sure, we have our differences of opinion and have tight lipped, bite your tongue, conversations about kids that piss each other off, but for the most part, we have come to terms. Over time, we got joint custody and over time, 50/50 physical custody. We both are able to attend things like birthdays and celebrations and sit with each other and chat afterwards and do fun things like see movies as a group sometimes. Believe me, I do know how to compromise and put my kids needs ahead of my own.

DB is a taker. He wants our son 4 nights a week. He wants me to pay his gas money to get his son (he works here so there is only 1 day that he is traveling here with out needing to any way). DB thinks he is getting 50/50 custody of our newborn. He doesn’t know how to put other people ahead of himself. He doesn’t even know how to look at a situation and think about everyones needs, not just his own. This was a huge problem in our relationship because he was always over stepping with the ex husband. For example,  I was angry the ex-husband booked a vacation during an annual family event. They claimed to have “forgotten” about it. I bitched about it to DB but the vacation was paid for and reservations made. I decided to LET IT GO. DB wanted to force the issue and make them reschedule the vacation and we argued about it for weeks. He took it upon himself to call and bitch to them about it, which made them call me. I don’t think that they forgot about it, I think they figured do it and ask for forgiveness later which is what made me most upset about it. I do think that they were limited between his vacation time and the availability for the vacation which is why they scheduled it when they did. So I admitted yes, I was upset but we had other traditions we did and it wasn’t the end of the world. Most of the time they accommodate those things.

One of those annual traditions is Labor Day. My mom, extended family and close friends gets together for a few days at her place. It’s like a mini family reunion. This is what I plan to do next weekend where DB is threatening to call the police if I take our son to. (So to be clear: the ex can’t take his kids on vacation during a family tradition, but at the same time, he can’t miss out on one of his days with our son so he can have a solid relationship with his extended family like my older kids do.)

Usually I could talk sense into him when it was the two of us and when that didn’t work I would just shut him down. He would plot and scheme against how to get even with the ex for every slight and there were some major contention between the ex husband and I. For one: they refused to sign a waive of paternity rights to JR. They said that it would look like(my ex  husband) was an unfit father. That is NOT WHAT THE PAPER WORK SAID AT ALL. It said we both voluntarily acknowledged that they child conceived in our marriage was not HIS CHILD. I am getting off topic. I am just saying that things aren’t always fucking roses with the ex husband but I have learned to compromise and put the kids ahead of my own desires. (I would not have agreed to 50/50 but our kids wanted 50/50 and I relented after a year of wavering at 3 nights a week). When the ex and I first split up, he didn’t even have overnights at all. He took them after work 2 nights a week and on one of his days off. Of course, my ex was not an involved father and even this was hard for the kids to be left with their dad for those few hours. DB is much more involved and active (now that he is sober any way) and is why I agreed on the visitation schedule of 3 nights a week).

There will be no informal anything with him. It will all have to be written in stone to the last details. Who gets the kids when and what hours and how the drop off will take place and who will pick up and who will drop off. Which makes me fucking sad because I have to deal with that for a really long time. It is not about what is best for our son. It is about wanting control.

He has made vague threats that he will fight for full time custody because “I am a broke ass mom of 6 kids”. Believe me, I have a lot of people that will testify that I am a reasonable fucking person to get a long with most of the time, including my ex’s family who pretty much hate me but also know that I have been reasonable about accommodating them seeing the kids when they want.

Although DB’s family will probably support him, they were also were willing to pay lawyer fees for his alcoholic brother getting custody of his kid, which he didn’t even want, while he was couch surfing and homeless, if that puts any sort of light into how they view children. Not as people in their own right, but possessions.

Any way, I had to get that off my chest this morning. I could not sleep last night because of our conversation and finally sent him a long note asking about why he is trying to “get back at me” when clearly he is the one that should NOT be having stupid petty fights about gas money. He has not done a single one of the things that he said he was going to do when we split up to “try to make it right”. I don’t think he ever even planned to but I did say that it is on his shoulders if he wants to have a decent relationship between us. So what if I say means things that make him sad? I am fucking sad all the fucking time. I am pregnant and hormonal and can’t fucking sleep and can’t fucking eat. I am averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night and I have stomach issues all the time from stress. I am trying my best just to hold it together and it does feel better to get a reaction ANY FUCKING REACTION out of him right now than be ignored.  I told him as a decent fucking human bean he should be man enough to put up with my mood swings and push and pull and everything else as someone he once cared about and as the mother that is carrying his fucking child.

I am going to forgive him and move on a lot sooner if he is here supporting me through this (even if it is just as coparents) than being fucking abandoned. Even if it means I lash out and hurt his fucking feelings.