MSTBE,
You are clearly very angry with me. The nasty, ranting texts and emails that you have been sending me for the past three days are evidence of that. The way that you have been ignoring my presence at pick up and drop off is also evidence.
Here's my question: what, exactly, are you mad at me for? Wait, I know what you're mad at me for. You're mad because I'm accepting child support, which is breaking you. You're angry because you can't afford to live in the apartment by the beach that you chose to move into when we went separate ways. You're angry because you think that the only place that you can afford to live is 45 minutes away from your kids and that you won't be able to see them as much anymore. And you're particularly angry with me because I was able to find a very large house to share with my Mom in April and I can provide a nice home and a loving family for our kids, which is not an option for you.
So here's a better question: what would you have me do differently? Would you have me take less support than what the law has deemed fit? Would you have me take no child support and try to monetarily provide for our kids on my own? Would you feel better if I was living on my own, struggling, in a small house, not able to provide this environment for our kids? Or would it be better if I didn't have family members nearby who love our kids and who our kids love dearly?
Should I remind you of the many fair, generous things that I've done since we moved into separate houses in April? Yes, I got more of the furniture and kids' belongings when we split but that was simply because you didn't have the space for it in your one bedroom apartment. But when our son began feeling comfortable spending some time at your house, I sent him with a set of toys to keep there. And when he began spending the night, I sent him with half of his clothes even though it meant that I would have to buy more for him to keep here. (I am responsible for the kids' daycare bag each day, which requires me to have twice as many outfits as MSTBE, not to mention the fact that I make all of the bottles, wash all of the dishes, pack all of the snacks, etc.) When we began to discuss the logistics of our daughter spending the night, trying to figure out how you were going to make that work in a one bedroom apartment, I offered to pay for half of a new crib for her since I got the crib that we purchased together. In fact, let me take it way back to the beginning of our divorce discussions. I agreed to allow you to pay child support as if you had the kids 25% of the time even though, in the beginning, you only had them about 5% of the time and now you have them about 20% of the time.
Despite me being incredibly fair and honest for the past seven months, you continue to blame me for your monetary woes. The last three days have been almost as bad as the week after we met with the mediator for the first time when you were told that you would have to pay support or the week before we parted ways when that became a reality.(I'm not going to go further into the fact that you thought you weren't going to have to pay support at all.)
But I will never share these feelings with you because I know that you won't care. Presenting logical arguments will only make you more angry and these thoughts won't change anything. I am writing this for myself. After my run this morning, as I was waiting for you to drop the kids off, I began to realize that I feel badly that you are so angry. That's just who I am; I don't like to see people hurt or struggling. But you know what, I am going to continue to remind myself every day, every hour if necessary, that I'm not doing anything wrong and I don't deserve to be treated the way that you are treating me. I wish that you were a happier person because I don't want your negativity rubbing off on our kids but there's nothing that I can do to help you be happier. Maybe someday things will change. In the meantime, I will continue to be the positive person that I am and I'm going to do my best to stop allowing you to make me physically sick with this behavior.
Signed,
Someone Who Doesn't Give a Damn Anymore
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