a white stick for the blind

What with returning to work two weeks ago, meetings galore for everyone and a new year performance for B2 with productions every day this week and sometimes two, the creative juices haven't been flowing around Chez Pan. Basic gardening has been done in accordance with the extreme heat; lots of watering the fruit and veg, Ive read three books in a week and a half and have been cooking per usual, but nothing special, nothing really to get excited about, besides 'the date' the bloke and I had where we trundled off to go see Avatar and share a pizza when all the kids went swimming at their grandmas. Yawn. Thrilling huh?

The only bit of real drama around here has been the revelation that the ex- and his ex-(?!) are now readers of Taurus Rising. An interesting turn of events to say the least. What would you do? Make your blog private? Keep going without censorship but just be a little more restrained? Business as usual? Ive reviewed what I have written since I started this blog (about separation and divorce and blended family issues and his particular issues) and think that I have been quite fair and considered in my criticisms of situations so feel quite OK with him having read my thoughts. Really, I mean what a score for an angry 'not-yet-over-it' bloke.. a blog! just imagine? Hehe.

Ive decided to use the situation as it stands at the moment as a chance to list my top 5 parenting tips for separated parents in order of importance.

1. Don't bitch about the other parent to the children. It might make you feel better for offloading in the short term but you damage your own relationship with the child, its doesn't make them hate your ex (their mum/dad) it makes them disrespect and distrust you.

2. Leave your adult problems and issues as just that. Adult issues. Children get stressed when significant adults in their life pass on their worries. A problem shared in this situation is actually a problem doubled for the child. Let children be children and talk to another adult about your problems.

3. When your maturing child starts to develop opinions about life, the universe and everything which are confronting to you, don't tell them that it sounds like the 'other' parent talking. Young adults can think for themselves and find it disrespectful and painful that you cant love them for who they are despite differences in opinion.

4. Don't keep making reference to 'how much you look like your mother/father' when all that child hears is how awful that mother/father is. They put two and two together and conclude that therefore you don't like how they look. Just tell them they're looking lovely.

5. Trust, respect and love are earnt, they are not automatic. Relationships need to be built and maintained. If you don't live near your children you have to work extra hard at maintaining the relationship and use every opportunity you can to keep the relationship. You are the parent - it's your responsibility. Listening to your children and hearing what they say is an essential part of maintaining that bond. The small things are the important things and if in the course of your snuffling you come across a blog written by your ex - dont use the stuff you find as an excuse to bitch yet again to your child. They do not like it.

What have i missed?

Now back to business as usual here at Taurus Rising.

knock knock

who's there?

An ex husband who apparently had to move to QLD to get away from me but just cant resist searching for me on the internet. Go figure?

Im now saved to file://C:/Users/Vivi/Desktop/taurus rising.htm

He's had a good root around and spent hours visiting Chez Pan courtesy of Taurus Rising yesterday. Pity he had to traumatise B1 last night with a demanding phone call which reduced her to tears and great distress coz her mum blogs and he couldn't handle what he'd been reading.

The fun never stops!

divided loyalties (or just 'oh fuck!')

good news: the girls dad has split from his woman friend of five years and her apparently 'horrid' boy children (his explanation not mine) and may be moving back to Adelaide.

bad news: (actually very very bad news) the girls dad has split from his woman friend of five years and her apparently 'horrid' boy children (his explanation not mine) and may be moving back to Adelaide.

Take your pick depending upon which side of the fence you may sit. The man just upped it and left to follow her to QLD, leaving his children behind. No job as a justifier to them, no climbing the ladder, etc, just another woman and her kids.

To me it screams the end of peace, continuity, consistency and stability. The judge ordered him nothing as he failed to turn up at the custody hearing (how can you not turn up at the custody hearing FOR YOUR OWN CHILDREN!?) he has already started on the girls 'if your mother lets me see you'. ugh.
Ding ding. Round ...umm ...lost count.

a good larf

Chatting at home with Simon last night about a colleague who is going through the family court at the moment reminded me of the drama that is seperating one life unit into two. It also rekindled a memory of the depths ex partners can go to to seek revenge on a spouse, to try and equal the pain of the heart. This story is funny and despite the agony at the time i did manage a very good larf.

The crux of the amusement stems from the fact that my ex husbands name is Simon and my then boyfriend (now my husband) is also named Simon and that additionally, my surname is X and my boyfriend (now husband) also has the surname X. My ex husband has a different surname.

The circumstance that i found myself in is that i recieved a letter from the government stating that a certain department had been trying to contact me, unsuccessfully, by phone and had also twice sent someone around to my house to 'interview' me. I had remained uncontactable, hence the letter and would i please call this department for an interview about my current living arrangements.

???
So i call.

The woman who is in charge of my 'case' informs me that they have had an 'anonymous' tip off that i am in fact co-habiting with someone yet recieving extra government allowance allocated for people parenting solo. Could I please confirm that my ex husband had moved back into the house. What the!? That sounds horriffic! NO!

I tell her that but she also informs me that the tip off has included details about a vehicle being seen frequently at the house etc and being there for a few days. I say 'well my ex husband drop the kids off every week but he doesnt even come inside the house and that this tip off is a bit of a mystery to me coz there is no way on earth we are back in a relationship together'.

She asks me a few more questions... my mind is racing around trying to figure out who on earth would make a 'tip off' like this; that my ex and i are back together...its ludicrous! Nuts. A really awful notion! The only person who i think would make a tip off about me being in a relationship (and hence 'concerned' about co-habitation with another man) would be my ex husband but he is the one being tipped off! Im confused. Then the lightbulb goes off. I ask her a few questions about the names she has in front of her...

Is the reported name of involved person Simon? "yes"
Is the surname reported X? "yes"
I tell her that Simon X is not my ex husband, despite the name, that he is my boyfriend and the name of the person doing the tip off would be my ex husband Simon? "Umm I cant reveal that."

I tell her that what has happenned is that someone in the department has seen the names involved and become confused and has assumed that the boyfriend is the exhusband and the ex husband is the boyfriend. It gets really special here as the natural effect of such confusion is that the ex husband has now also implicated himself inadvertently as a co-conspirator in this 'defrauding'. He has, by his own doing, sent the goverment dudes around to his place to answer the same questions i am getting and go through the burecratic nightmare that was required to prove his innocence! Priceless. Boy , did that woman and i have a belly laugh on the phone that day. I really, really would have loved to have been a fly on the wall the day the ex realised what a totally botched job he had made of his attempt to make life difficult for me.

There was no defrauding on my part. Sleepovers dont count. I could have told him that. Ahhh, revenge gone wrong. Sweet enough for me.

the borderline parent

i read years ago that if you think that trying to make a relationship you want to be in is difficult, then try having an effective relationship with someone you dont want to have any relationship with but have to because you are co-parenting children. Now thats hard work. So true.

Having the house to myself over the last few days has been so wonderful; relaxing, peaceful and very replenishing. I needed it, its why my posts have been so indulgent. I have been looking to the aesthetic in my environment to bring happiness. It worked, warmth and light are very beneficial in generating a happier disposition. So, if co-parenting after seperation is difficult, co-parenting even from a distance, with someone with a personality disorder is something i wouldn't wish on anyone. I found out on the weekend that i had sent my girls up to a father who had changed not only his place of residence without telling me but also all of his telephone numbers. Apparently its beeen this way for months. The sheer irresponsibility of this behaviour is staggering, not to mention disrespectful, arrogant and just plain stupid. What was he thinking? maybe not much... does he do this just to piss me off or can he really be that careless? So what do i do? I say nothing. Experience has taught me to wait until the children are home before i confront him about issues. He takes it out on them, ranting about their terrible mother who is single handedly responsible for his current miserable state.

To top it off, the huge promises of fun he'd made the girls these holidays (yet again) but backed up with the 'facts'..'yes were going, great huh? so exciting, we have bought tickets already...' poof!

It breaks my heart to see the girls time and time again believe in their father and then have his actions and words strip that misplaced trust right back to nothing, well, back to the raw truth of his condition.

Watching your children experience having their faith and love twisted and broken over and over again it so difficult and then they protect him, taking the full brunt of the experience on themselves. He consistently makes them empty promises and for me its become a very fine line between preparing them for dissapointment and potentially generating negative feelings towards him and making him out always to be the bad guy, incompetent. I tend to just make a brief comment about preparing themselves for something going 'wrong' and then move the conversation on.

So, its happened yet again. They've gone to visit and their hopes and dreams about this time with him, which were fed by his promises, have now become yet again, conditional and his outright lies to them have been exposed. Its breaking my heart (hmm, i think Ive said that before). Im hoping that a miracle will occour and he will get his act together before their time is up and make it happen. For them. Show them that he can make a mistake and correct it.
I think Im dreaming...

be careful what you wish for

I used to say about my ex husband that life would be so much easier if he just got hit by a bus. Not very karmic or Zen i know, but at the time the children were experiencing so much pain and confusion that my rational and 'big' self got consumed by the emotional and insular self that exists within me.

But the guy has gone and driven over himself with his very own mini-bus for hire jam packed to the roof with narcissism, selfishness and a huge lot of emotional baggage! Flattened himself and the kids with so much parental incompetence that they came home shocked, depressed and full of confusion brought about by the huge amount negative feelings towards him that spending a month with him engendered.

What do you do when your child speaks about divorcing their dad? about having no respect left and thinking him stupid and incompetent to the degree that they say they no longer like him? I wasnt ready for that conversation with B1; it winded me, made my heart race and my brain shut down. In these moments of honesty spoken by a child you have to put aside your feelings of rage, hurt, whatever leftovers you may harbour and current circumstances you have to navigate and just hear their words and help them ,without agenda. Its hard. it takes clarity and linearity which just dont come easily when im talking about their dad and his incomprehensible, bipolar, personality disordered ways. But, for them, i have to be detatched from myself to some degree in order to respect them and their relationship with him, which exists independently of me.

Fark!

He has enough rage towards me without having this situation come about, where he will no doubt believe to some degree that i may have had something to do with the current dilemma.

The girls dont want to tell him themselves that they never want to go visit him again, that they were so bored out of their brains and felt deeply disrespected by his lack of planning, interest and maturity that they dont really care if they see him again this year. The guy banned them from visiting the only friends they have in QLD, friends they have had since birth, because their mother is a long time friend of mine. He banned them from hanging out with their step brothers while he went to work as he thinks they are a bad influence, so they stayed home, alone, on weekdays, for 4 weeks and went on out to the movies with him twice. I cant send them back to experience neglect like that. So they want me to do it, tell him they refuse to visit again. Im so unsure about the best way to approach this problem. Im damned if i do and they are damned if they do.

Its difficult when you co-parent with some one who really isn't capable or competent of filling the role.

I almost didnt do it

Yesterday was the girls dads birthday.
Yesterdy was my ex husbands birthday.
Can you see the conflict?

Every year since the girls have been small and their dad and i have been seperated, i have always, religiously, made sure they had gifts and cards for him on days of celebration; Fathers Day, Christmas and his birthday. This was my expression of love for the the girls so they were never caught in a position of guilt or sorrow about not having something to gift him. I wish i could say he ever returned the sentiment. After seeing the distress that not being able to organise gifts for me caused the girls, my mother took on the role of 'keeper of the heart' so that when it came to such days, she always made sure the girls had something for me, homemade or bought. So when the girls Dad moved away, i had to get a little more organised in order to make sure something went off in the post to arrive in time. My committment to the wellbeing of the kids in this matter went on through property settlement, divorce and multiple court hearings for custody. I never wavered, until this year, until he moved away and himself failed to send written word or a gift in the mail on their birthdays. When Fathers Day approached the kids said they werent interested in sending him something. i didnt insist. i was shocked but i didnt insist. In the past i would have. I let it roll on and they phoned him on Fathers Day, late. His birthday approached, the window of time for sending something passed, the day arrived, i was feeling pretty guilty. The girls said nothing and i nearly let it pass. Let him stew i thought, let him experience for the first time what it feels like. Im not sure if he ever really realised that in the past it was me who orgainised it all. At half eight last night i couldnt stand it anymore and finally went into B1s room and with a tone of feigned shock and realisation in my voice i declared it to be October 29th.
"Dads Birthday?"
"Yup"
She was dialling within five seconds.

the end of something

this morning we used up the last of the 'little bottles', the last little bottle of conditioner, the type they leave for you in hotels and depending on the price of the room, determines thereafter the state of your hair.

These little bottles have a historic place in my life, a history i am happy to see the last of. My ex husband was a collector; not of antiques or art, but sachets of sugar from cafes and small bottles of hotel issue hair product. When we lived together he travelled a lot and upon his return from a trip to wherever, he would invariably empty his bag and his jacket pockets and deposit a couple of these bottles in a bathroom draw and toss a sachet or two of sugar in a kitchen cabinet. In and of itself, this habit is not a bad one. what did infuriate me was that he never, ever used them, he just brought them home and 'put them'. i, as a matter of principle, refused to 'manage' them, i figured they were his problem and let the collection grow; damned if i was going to take responsibility for something else.

so when the marriage gasped its final breath and he moved out, he took all his personal stuff, his toys, the modern electrical equipment (of course) and left behind the dogs, the cats, the kids and not surprisingly, thousands of these bottles and sachets. The sachets were kind of fun at the time to consolidate; i ripped, tipped and poured until i had a mountain weight of almost a kilo of sugar. it was theraputic and i vented my rage at being left to deal with so much of his unwanted past, on these little paper bags. But if you have ever tried to extract shampoo and conditioner from these guest portions then you know they take their own sweet time to drain and are more rage building than venting. So i have been sending the kids off to school camps with these and we have been using them at home, intermittently dipping in to the bags under the sink to use them up. 5 years later the last of these little bottles has now been used and its little soapy carcass tossed into the recycling. it's funny how it's the small, somewhat insignificant things in life which can sometimes be embedded with great meaning and be symbols of our past and our futures, our hopes and our dreams, our srengths and our weaknesses. i feel quietly relieved.