Things That Matter

[NoCodeBlues]

Hi, all, and thanks. Just wanted to provide an update.

Just finished what I am thinking has been one of the busiest weeks in my life: juggling work, several deadlines for projects, a move into a new residence, cleaning and prep of the old location prior to turning that over, a parent-teacher meeting for S9, an AS screening and educational eval for S5, cub scout activities including the Bear award ceremony, a 7:45 AM soccer game ( ) on Saturday, and lots and lots of unpacking. This all in addition to all the many other day-to-day stuff.

I am tired, needless to say.

S5 was cleared during his screening. He appears to have no learning disabilities, is extremely bright and imaginative, and shows to have now indication of Asperger's Syndrome. His behavioral issues are most likely emotional. The counselors figure that S5 has been acting both internally and externally to a couple of likely issues.

First, they noted that S5 has had to put up with quite a large degree of changes in his life in the last year. His parents' D, his mother openly dating another person and then eventually M'ing him, the changes in households, etc.

Second, they have taken what I and S5's mother had said about his older brother, S9, and recognize that S5 is behaving very much in accordance with being the neuro-typical sibling of an AS child. S9 is very controlling (wonder where he gets that from?), domineering and is always attempting to set the "agenda" for how his poor little brother plays and behaves. S5 loves his brother but he suffers a great deal of frustration at S9's seeming callous treatment of his rights and individuality. S9 has a difficult time understanding that S5 is his own person.

I can greatly identify with S5 in how it feels to not be shown respect for being a separate, thinking person, to have one's thoughts, goals and aspirations constantly trampled or commandeered.

There is no real malice in S9 -- it's just his AS. S9 is just naturally oblivious to the degree he affects his little brother's struggle to be his self.

This has led to S5 venting himself in the classroom. He has become emotional, crying when he thinks he isn't getting what he wants or sometimes going off to a corner to sulk. And sometimes S5 blows up and acts out by doing something harmful, such as using a marker on furniture.

As time passes, I hope things will settle down as far as all the constant change S5 (and all of us) have had to put up with (xW has more in store however, I am certain.) I am hoping that with some additional counseling we can train S5 to better able to cope with the stress from his older brother. And we can train S9 to respect his younger brother.

One aside: I inwardly laughed when the counselors told us that exW and I were "obviously" doing so very well by cooperating together for our S's sakes. If they only knew how little that really was or how much effort even that little really took!

xW is still being her typical self. More of her shenanigans. For example, last evening, during her pre-bedtime nightly call to our S's, she again had S9 ask me a question. Aside from the fact she should never put our kids in the middle of communications between us, she took this time and method to relay to me about kindergarten orientation she had signed up for S5 the next day (today). Then she asked if I was going to go as well, because she had "just happened" to have the particular morning off already.

11th hour. Again. Uuuugh.

I had to tell her no. I needed much more lead time than the day before -- I would have needed to have cleared it with work first. She knows this already.

So after all the effort I took this past week, busy as I was already, to remind her well in advance of the appointments we had for S5 and for S9, including repeating the reminders the day before each as well as at the start of the week, she neglected to include me in one for this week. Nice.

Regarding S9's parent-teacher conference, his mother sent I and the teacher a message that morning (last Tuesday) that she would not be able to make it. It was fine by me, as it turned out. In fact, I rather enjoyed being able to talk directly with S9's teacher for a change, without exW always trying to demonstrate her "superior understanding" of S9's activities and needs. And the fact that S9's teacher just glowed about his progress over this year was a major boost to my week. S9 has shown tremendous growth in his academics, including his writing -- and Writing has been a serious bug-a-boo for S9. Despite a love of reading and literature, and a fine command of verbal language, S9 has always expressed a great aversion to the mechanics of Writing -- it's again due to his AS and the difficulty he tends to have with fine-motor skills. As such, historically, S9's writing has been very rudimentary and far, far below his reading comprehension. We're talking barely first grade level here.

Well, the teacher shared with me S9's sudden recent growth in his ability to use more fleshed-out sentence structures, along with the proper use of adverbs and adjectives. It was almost poetic! And I noted that he had shown in the examples she presented a minimum of verbs of the form of Be (is, was, are, etc.) -- that is, "lazy" and weak forms of exposition.

I reported all this back to exW in an email. She never acknowledged it to me. But she did mention it to S5's screening counselor later in the week on Friday. (Typical.)

I am proud of S9 and very pleased with his teacher. She has managed to get so much out of him that his previous teachers had struggled with. That, I know, takes tons of patience. And she makes it look so easy too.

We just need to work on S9's behavioral issues -- if we can lick those he will have relatively no problems going forward.

The other ticking time bomb, one that is going to really cause a war, is that exW continues to talk to S9 about changing schools no later than when he enters middle school. To repeat what I have posted before, exW is apparently making plans to move our sons to a lesser school system closer to where OM's home is, more than an hour away. The schools there are barely of average rating -- when the schools they are in now are some of the best public schools in the entire state. Plus S9's IEP and all his friends are here, not there -- and S9 would no longer be eligible for UNC's TEEACH services (for Asperger's) since that would be in another county where they do not offer this service.

exW is again not talking with me about this, let alone seeking my clearance. She continues to think and act as if she alone makes all the decisions for our children. And she is further demonstrating that she only has concerns for her own interests, before those of our S's, yet she still wants to claim she is doing all this for them. B-S.

I continue to pray about this and other matters. I have been praying for close to three years now that exW would wake up and see what she is doing to our S's and their lives. I pray that she would finally recognize the destruction she has been causing, erasing all the hard-won advantages, resources and values we had garnered for our two children. I don't get it. I just don't understand her or how she can think and act in this way. She is so utterly different a person than she ever was before. Such foolishness.

Oh, well, whatever. I am and will do whatever I am led to do and must do, regardless of where my kids' mother wants to be.

[karen43]

Happy to hear about your S9. Things will work out with that. Did I ever tell you there is an autistic guy working in my office doing the same job as me? He's super smart and doing well too.

Sorry to hear your X is considering moving an hour away and to lesser schools. It's obvious the reason for that isn't your boys. Have you confirmed that for sure? What does the parenting coordinator say about that? The lack of services doesn't make it sound in your boys' best interest.

NC, I used to pray every night for my X, now I just do it when I remember. Detaching feels good...

[fightingirish]

NC~

I truly hope that she doesn't move them away. I would fight her tooth and nail on that one. If you are happy with the school they are in, then why make a big change like that. The boys have already had to endure SO much why do this to them, she utterly
Pi@@es me off!!

Something has happend to society and the way parents bring up their kids. I see it so much everyday, and with my own sister. Her daughter was sick last week, 103 fever... but she still felt the need to "go out" and leave her home, now mind you she was home with her father, but as a mother, how could she just up and leave her?? My sister is ALWAYS out and about, and its so self centered it makes me crazy. Yes I am from the old school I guess you would say, and no there is nothing wrong with going out without your kids, but not when they are that sick!!

Why do people have children just to leave them with someone else?
She does it frequently and leaves them with my mother, who then enables her.

Anyways, ,my point is, your ex is not thinking of the boys at all,and I can't imagine the fustration you have. I think even in my case its easier for me because I am the mother, but unfortunately a lot of fathers get the shaft, and probably most of them fighting for their kids would be better off with them and not the mother.

My h loves the boys, but has no patience for them. And raising kids is ALL about patience. I'm probably the other end of the extreme, and way TOO patient.

nc, hang in there, Im praying that she will see the light on this one, or at least the PC can put a stop to it.

Keep in touch.

((((hugs)))

T

[NoCodeBlues]

Hi, Irish, and thanks. I do plan to talk to the PC soon about all of this. I also have to talk to the PC about S5 too, about a referral for emotional counseling for S5 -- as a follow up to his Asperger's screening (AS was ruled out.)

I also know that I need to get the child support payments I make to ex recalculated, based on her new marital status and her current income (she makes at least as much as I do now.) Ex continues to fail to provide the documentation about her income to either of our L's. I still continue to fork out a lot of money to her each month when I know she is not really in need of much of it. Aside from the CS/income redistribution, I still provide a lot of the boys' needs, at least as much as she does, if not more.

Today is Mother's Day. It's a bittersweet date for me now. While I still have my own mother alive and well (unlike other folks) and was able to send her flowers and phone calls, this day now has a sad feeling for me all the same. It was on Mother's Day three years ago that I last had sex. With now ex-W. A month before the bomb.

That was a very strange day for me as well. It should have clued me in. That day itself was the first time in two months we had "ML". She wouldn't let me near her for all that time following her surgery (that prior February) -- as she made so many excuses. Then she went on to blame me entirely for why we hadn't had sex, said it was my own "choice". And I blindly accepted her story, blamed myself.

I had really hoped her allowing us to ML that day was to be the turning point to us getting back on track, to fully restoring our R with each other. But in subsequent days and weeks she shut me down entirely. I became depressed and confused. Lost. I didn't know what to do -- I thought it was all due to me, and I hadn't a clue how to fix things.

I was an utterly ignorant fool.

Since then I have often reflected on that period of time. I now realize that Mother's Day 2007 was her parting shot at me. It was her way of giving me the final kiss-off, before she undertook a PA with OM in full force. I think she had already begun the PA before that, but by May 13th she was fully committed to ending our M. I never dreamed...

So Thursday, May 13, will mark 3 years since I began this involuntary celibacy. I know others have been enduring this much longer than I have, but I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better. At the same time, remaining celibate is the better course for me, at least for now -- and I'd rather be free of the painful consequences for a while longer. xW burned me very severely -- I'm not yet ready to risk that kind of pain again.

I will be someday. Hopefully soon. I do not expect to live a "monastic" life indefinitely.

[fightingirish]

(((nc))) Find comfort in knowing that it was her choice for your Marriage to come to its demise, not yours.

You did everything in your power to try and rebuild it. I know how hard you tried for you and the boys, but she was lost, and frankly too selfish to care.

You weren't a fool nc, you loved her and wanted your marriage to stay together, she is the fool.

What she did and how she did it, is so terrible. She munipulates and decieves~ not only did she do it to you, but her own children, that is unforgiveable.

You are a stand up man, with covictions and morals. Anyone woman would be lucky to have you in their life, as a friend, or otherwise.. I know I am.

You will find someone, I promise.

T

[NoCodeBlues]

Thanks, Irish. I appreciate your kind words.

Guess I'm over-thinking things again. Need to let it go. Too many reminders for me in the May-June-July time-frame -- I get the rapid-fire sequence of Mother's Day/"Celibacy Day", First Date Anniversary, Bomb-Day/Father's Day and then the Wedding Anniversary. I need to find some new calendar event that's overpoweringly positive, to counteract this string of negative milestones.

I'll figure it out eventually. Thanks for bearing with me.

[kat727]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just wrap the gloomy days in a ball and be over with it...just one day of the year? I know I am one to talk today...I think the weather is playing a huge part.

I am actually thinking of having an un-anniversary party in a few weeks. Just happens to coincide with the relasease of "Sex and the City".

kat

[ClingingToHope]

I've cycled through everything once now so I'm hoping this year won't be as emotional. Of course, I don't have a D date yet. That'll be another date to "celebrate" I guess.

Next year would be our 15th anniversary and we'd talked once about going to Vegas again. We went on our 10th.

Hey, maybe I take them to Vegas. It's warm enough to swim and they have enough kid stuff for a couple of days. And if I really, really, really have to gamble I can sneak out after midnight and play cards for a couple of hours.

That would replace the first Vegas trip.

I just looked at the calendar. The anniversary is on a Wednesday, which is usually my night with the girls anyway even if we don't go somewhere. There's lots of options.

Kat, the un-anniversary party is a good idea. I read a book that suggested some kind of "end of marriage ceremony." Something like taking all of the old photos and putting it in a box and burying it or burning it.

[kat727]

My kids used to ask why I kept the pictures of their Dad (with them) in our box of photos. Well, he is their Dad still. About a year ago I was looking for S17's Scocial security card so he could get his job. I came across a bunch of photos when the boys were little. I cried for 45 minutes. I went through them this past winter looking for some specific pictures and didn't shed a tear.

I just try to keep busy on these now "un-days". The next one is next Tuesday...his birthday but also S14's graduation. Going to the graduation and then back to work. Problem solved!

I guess we all have to figure out our own ways to deal with these emotion packed days. A party always sounds good to me.

kat

[fightingirish]

I know what you guys mean, July is really difficult for me.. its when everything got really bad.... A party is good, but It would be better if all my friends from DB could show up!