Fight
Kristina commented that I must be feeling a sense of relief about getting resolution with regard to establishing a parenting plan with my boys’ dad but no, I definitely do not feel any relief at all, I only feel fear. My boys’ dad is the type of person who will stop at nothing to win, nothing. If I file a parenting plan and he gets served with notice of my filing, he won’t look at the plan to see how reasonable or unreasonable it is, or how it fits in with what he wants, he’ll just attack.
I fully expect that he will make up any number of lies to demonstrate that I am a bad parent. He already does this in our regular communication, taking one small occurrence and twisting it into something completely inappropriate. For example, way back before he moved across the country, he sent me an email completely out of the blue and told me that he was moving and that he wanted to take our five year old with him. As you might imagine, this freaked me out. I was afraid that if I said no, he might well do it anyway. And when I received the email, our son was at his house already, so I was afraid that if I said no, I might not ever see him again. We got into a big (email) fight as a result and when we were coming down from the fight I tried to explain to him that he had scared me, that my first thought had been to run to my son’s preschool and bring him home so that he’d be safe, so that I’d know he wouldn’t be taken from me. Ever since I wrote that, he’s been using that to accuse me of threatening to kidnap our son. I was just trying to explain how panicked and afraid he made me! It’s like being at work and hearing about something bad happening to a little kid and wanting to leave work immediately to go hug your own to reassure yourself that they are safe. You don’t actually do it, it’s just your first thought because you worry about these little people who depend on you so much! But now I am a potential kidnapper.
He also accuses me of bringing strange and dangerous men around my children. This accusation was based on a blog entry I wrote long ago about a guy I met who was too needy and clingy, but jesus, he wasn’t dangerous, he was just insecure! He just liked me! In my experience dating over the past year or two I’ve talked to and/or gone on dates with plenty of people who were too insecure for me but who were still interested in me. That doesn’t mean they became insane stalkers. Hell, some of them actually became my friends (including the needy clingy guy from above). Most of them never came to my house, never even learned my last name, and certainly never met my children. Not because I felt they were unsafe in any way, but because there was no need. Jesus, I’m not desperate and I’m also not a moron. I don’t need to latch on to any and every person who happens to glance my way. I certainly can be choosy enough to keep far away from anyone who seems even slightly concerning. If I learned anything from my ex, it’s that trust is a dangerous thing to give someone, so it’s best to be very, very cautious.
And then just yesterday he accused me of drunk driving with my five year old in the car. This is based on a text message I sent him from a friend’s house one day. She was moving away and another friend brought over a bottle of wine as a going away present and so we each had a glass. I made the mistake of sending him a silly, exaggerated text message saying that I was drunk (after one glass of wine) and since I drove home afterward (four or five hours later), I’m now a drunk driver. (Especially pleasing is the fact that although this happened years before we broke up, he emailed himself the message so that he would have it in case he needed it in the future.)
It’s easy enough for me to get indignant over his ridiculous accusations and then roll my eyes, brush them off and move on. But when it comes to court, it won’t be that easy. The story I hear from women over and over is that the first hearing, the temporary hearing where the temporary parenting plan is established, is a setting where anything goes. He can make any accusations he wants, any, and he won’t have to back them up or provide any evidence until the final hearing that generally doesn’t take place for another year or two. So he could lie, he could make up outrageous bullshit, and as a result I could lose my children for a year or two. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how that thought keeps me up at night, how it chokes me up thinking about it right now.
And he will do it. I keep having this entirely irrational hope that he will conduct himself with integrity, that he will read over the parenting plan I create and think to himself, oh, hmm, this is actually not that bad and really pretty fair, and won’t fight me at all. But I know him. I know that if I dare to challenge him, then he has to win. And if he’ll lie to me about me, the person who actually knows the truth, imagine what he’ll say to someone who doesn’t know me at all.
Sure, I can lie too. I can twist circumstances and take things out of context and make up shit outright, but that’s not me. I have no desire to do that, why would I? I don’t care whether he wins or loses, I don’t care whether he is judged as a bad parent, I just want everything to be settled in the best interests of my children. I am fully aware that their best interests include their father, I agree even, so I’m certainly not going to stand in the way of that. But I can’t say the reverse in true for him. I can’t say that he’s not going to try to “win” at all costs, even if that means that our boys will lose, even if he doesn’t even want the prize.