And More Stalking ....

I could go on and on about the peculiar woman my son found himself tied to even after the divorce. I am sure he is not alone in this situation that others have, no doubt found themselves in. When I decided to remove myself from my previous marriages, I made a clean break. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. I made it clear and that is what happened. I didn't want child support or anything monetary that would obligate me to share my childrens' lives with them. 

I might have "won" in that regard but that came with its own challenges. My son did not want to be an outsider in his girls' lives, still doesn't. He pays his child support and much more. They have easy access to their Dad for emotional and monetary support. A mere phone call will bring food delivery of their choice, money for extra activities at school and even eye lash extensions.

He would drown his frustration in alcohol. Holding it all in, he never complained about her, even to me. (I should interject that I never shared negative things about the men who fathered my oldest children with them, even though they signed their rights away and my husband adopted them, so I understand not bad mouthing her to the children) Things would appear to be going well. We were far away, trying to make our investment in the kampground pay off and that was all consuming. It seemed like family problems, illness and death all came during the busiest time of the season.

We got a call that warned us that he was in dire need of his parents. It seemed that he had ruined his life and was contemplating suicide. I should have gone myself, but we decided that his Dad should go. I can't begin to describe the nightmare of a phone call in the middle of the night from my child telling me he was researching ways to kill himself and being 9 hours away.

There are no words. When I asked where his Dad was (asleep and I did not dispatch him to sleep!) and made him wake him, I knew I should have made the trip. I would have not missed any bottles of alcohol and poured them down the drain. I would have taken his keys away and I would have had him in treatment in a more timely fashion. That is not to say that my husband is not a good parent, just that he was always the big pushover and I was the one who followed through.

Long story short, I am not sure what exactly happened, and I doubt my son knew what he did, he was black-out drunk. The witch he was tied to by children called the police and he ended up in jail, not treatment. He lost his job and had to cash out his 401K in order to meet his obligations for child support while he was incarcerated for 9 months.

He was allowed to get his affairs in order before surrendering to the plea deal he took. He wrote out checks and post-dated them. She had the checks and then changed her mind and told him she preferred a one-time payment. He trusted her to destroy the checks and paid her the lump sum of $27, 000. I am thankful that he was allowed to do his time in jail as opposed to prison.

I am sad to say that I know a lot about the difference between jail and prison. His youngest sister agreed to be his power of attorney and pay his monthly obligations while he was gone. She lived much closer to him, and it made sense for her to handle it. He bravely told everyone he did not expect them to visit him. He did not mean it! I am sad to say that I was his one and only visitor, save the one time visit from his sister.

I am not proud to say that I did not handle it as well as I should have. The request to have me on his visitors list was overlooked, lost, or whatever the excuse of the day was every time I went. The first time was traumatic enough. The guards are not nice. They deal with liars on a daily basis, so proof was necessary for everything. The last visit was the absolute worst, and I totally lost it, open mouth ugly crying and sobbing complete with hick-ups. I told them I would not leave until they fixed it. They would not even tell my son that I was there. I put on quite a show.

But that was just incidental compared to the ex-wife. We were still communicating until the accusation of me conspiring with my grandson to "kill the cat". I didn't care that she accused me, but when Child Two texted me demanding to know why I tried to kill the cat (the cat that was in their house at that point), I decided I was done trying to keep peace with her. How dare she tell the children I tried to kill any animal, and they should have known me better than that! Anyone who knows me would know that I prefer the company of animals over people any day.

And so began the stalking.