If one person is using drugs...

So tonight my kids came back from another fun and adventurous weekend with the ex. Yeah that was sarcasm. Apparently the ex and his whore have given up their apartment and are staying with her parents along with the whore's brother, wife and son. Sound trashy? Does to me. Anyway apparently the ex and his whore were arguing last night. The brother came in the house complaining today about their arguing keeping him awake. He flipped about it and told them to leave or he would call the cops. The question is what would he be reporting? It isn't illegal to argue. My kids of course are in the dark about so much. I am guessing he was planning to report their drug use in some capacity. My kids did overhear my ex and his whore complaining about the cop telling them that if one person in the house was on drugs (apparently they told the cop that her brother was using meth, again according to my children) that they probably all were. Observant cop. I called him around 5 today asking if he wanted me to get the kids and feed them dinner. I was near the area he had them, the park in downtown Atlanta, and figured at least they could eat a decent meal since they often complain that he doesn't feed them or feeds them very little. He refused. I am guessing he didn't want me to interfere with his drug run which I have little doubt that he does these while at that particular park. He offered to feed them and have them home by 7. They got home around 8 and said he gave them 4 chicken nuggets each and a few of their fries. Wow what a dinner. 'sigh. I am not sure what bothers me more. The fact that my kids now have an inkling that their father is somehow associated with drugs, even if by relation of his soon to be brother in law, or that the whole story didn't surprise me in one bit. My daughter's birthday is tomorrow, dammit if she's 9 I am going to have to come up with another age for them to tell people that I am. 21 just won't work anymore heehee. Just wanted to get this documented.

The whimpers today are mine...

Today I cry, the stress is too much. I will start at the begining. I had a paper that I worked really hard to do a good job on. I read and reread the stories and basically he asked for a comparative essay on the two items. At first one of the stories made little sense but after reading and rereading I interpreted it a bit differently. The night I sat down to write, my ex was supposed to pick the kids up at 6pm. I called to ask if he might come just a little early even. He didn't reply and after I called repeatedly he finally answered around 5:10 and told me he was on his way but had ran to where he was staying first. This is the thing, he works about 30 minutes from town on the northside. I live about 20 minutes from town on the southside. He's staying currently about 40 minutes on the west side of town. The only reason he went home first was to pick up the whore. Instead of letting her wait a couple of hours for him to get his kids and get home, he must make his kids wait while he goes to get her. It's okay that I have things to do, as long as he isn't inconvenienced. He got here finally at 8pm. It took me 30 minutes to calm down enough to write. My kids were upset from waiting on him. Although they seem to be getting used to it. Why must he be so unreliable? It's to the point that the only thing you can expect from him is to disappoint his children. Not only that but he was to bring my daughter to her game on Saturday. I told him to be there at 3pm because she was to have her pictures taken first. He did not show up until 3:50. She missed her pictures. They were retakes because lots of the ones last time ended up messed up because of a memory card issue. The photographer told me he would check to see if her last ones turned out okay. If so, he is going to go with those. If not, she will need retakes. Also he didn't even watch my daughter's halftime performance. He was too busy going to the snackbar for whatever he wanted. My son came to ask if we would get him something to eat because all his father had given him that day was a bowl of cereal. This was 4pm in the afternoon and when he asked his father to get him some food there he was offered two french fries from a container that he and his whore were sharing. It just figures. My friend that attended the game took him over and got him some nachos, not exactly wholesome food but it works. Okay so the point of me going into all of this is that I got my grade back from this paper, the paper that I worked and worked on. I hoped to get a decent grade. I felt it deserved a decent grade. Unfortunately my teacher felt it did not. I received a 69 which is not enough to be a passing grade. I am so disappointed in myself. I hope I can do better in the future but I will have to work on not depending on my ex to be reliable. My mother has offered in the future if he is late to meet me and get the kids and let him come hunt her down for them. If he's here on time or at least tells me he will be late, that's different. Next time, it's all on him. I cannot stress myself this way. Anyway I shall endure the tears I now have because they are what will make me stronger. I will try harder on my next paper. I will not fail. I cannot fail.

The Sounds of Whimpers...

Tonight my ex mother in law called. She has not called since that time several months ago that I asked her to never call my home again. She's worried, very worried, in fact. She has not talked to her son in a week. She was hoping to have comfort in knowing that at least my children or I had. We have not. I hadn't much thought about it but he hasn't called since last Wednesday night. I know he has a new baby, I figured he'd been busy but it isn't like him to forget to call them. They are crying now because they had to go to bed without knowing if he is okay or not. They left a message for him to call almost 2 hours ago. His home phone was cut off before this even happened. They can only call him through his cell. I emailed his pager. It's a little scary. On one hand do I assure them that he is indeed fine? This does little to comfort them because this, to them, means he does not care, that he has forgotten them for several days now because he is too busy with his other child. Children rarely understand the concept of being busy not meaning that you don't care. If he is not okay, this doesn't comfort them either, then they worry about losing, or having lost their father. I have called a few jails and a couple of hospitals. The truth is, the area he travels is too large for me to know for sure if lack of locating him, means he is okay. It's also scary that I had to call jails because of a serious concern that he might be there. There was a time when a hospital would have been my sole concern. My children cry, the only comfort I may offer is that I am here. I wish I knew that was enough.

Show me the money...

Such an annoying catch phrase but sometimes that's what life is. Today my ex's deposit went into my account. He sends his whole paycheck to my account because his previous bank account apparently went into the red. Well I did what he asked and transferred his money into his account at my bank. The problem is that they drew the money out for the late credit card from HIS account this time. It came out as a negative balance and then once I put the money in, of course, it wasn't what he expected to be there. I am sorry for this, but I only did as I was asked. I am glad they didn't pull it from me again. I can't afford anymore bills at this point. It's so fucked up. So last night I had paid the insurance for both of us. His share was of course deducted today, as agreed, before I transferred the money. He asked to have this back. I start school next week. I had to buy my books. I really cannot afford to do this for him and I told him I'd try to see what I could work out. He yelled at me before I even had a chance to look at things honestly. He has told me this same thing about paying me anything back the last few times. I can see how he figures this is an automatic no, because apparently that's how he meant it when he said it. So he goes off on me, telling me how little I care, he just had a baby, they're all going to starve. Honestly, he should still be okay. The amount he got should get him through, just barely but yes, still okay. He still had around $800 even with all that taken off! It's ridiculous actually but what did he expect? When you leave a family and take on another you make two households for you to support! In any event he made me feel like shit. I know he will deflect his anger at me at my kids tonight and upset their whole weekend :( I will send food with them definitely. I don't want them to be hungry and now that's all I can think about. I'm so dumb for letting what he said affect me at all. I should go to the store now. Oh his last words to me, "Enjoy Paris on the money that should be for the kids, while we're here starving" I said, "Okay." just so you guys know, Paris plane ticket was paid for by lottery winnings. I am not paying for my trip with money for supporting my kids. He's so bitter. I didn't hear him sympathize at all when they took this money from me last time. Tomorrow, Tom comes home. I need him so much :(

Pictures.

Last night I picked up some pictures that I had recently dropped off. I found about 10 rolls of film around my house and decided to get it all developed. There were pics from my anniversary in there. It actually kinda hurt to look at them. Not because I want that back because it made me realize how quickly things changed. We were happy, really happy. There were pics from New York. Those were not so happy. We looked happy but I remember the pain in that trip. It was like he didn't care. Anyway I put the pictures into a drawer and they will stay there until I am ready to deal with them.

He asked to borrow something today when he brought the kids home. I asked for it back because when I lent him a screwdriver he didn't bring it back. I doubt I'll get it back, it was a wrench but if I don't then he won't borrow anything else. Two things lent without return are enough to deny future borrowing in my opinion. He still hasn't paid back the money he owes. I will probably have to take him to court which will be an open and shut case. I could probably at this point sue for the whole payoff and have it taken out of his check each pay period. He did something that proves that he knows I am not a thief. He has been having his whole paycheck deposited in my account and I've just been giving him his money. If I wanted to, I could keep the money he owes me out of it but I'm not spiteful like that. I do need the money back though so hopefully I will get it back soon. The fight in me is mostly gone. I just can't deal with it. I know I've said it before but it's true and still is. Sometimes I just want to disappear and let him deal with it all. My love for my children is what keeps me from doing exactly that. I would make this longer but to write at all is a change for me. I just haven't had it in me to write lately. I'm not sure why. I think it's gone, the will that is. I wonder sometimes what I have to offer at all.

I just don't know what to do but then, maybe I know and am scared to.

I am scared. Scared that I know what I should do, yet fear the repercussions. If I do what I should do, my kids may know that their father isn't their hero anymore. If I do what I should do, it would shake his world to the very core. If I do what I should do, it might force him into a severe breakdown, and yet this may be exactly what he needs in order to become what he once was. A decent father that his children could look up to.

I know this makes little sense but let me tell the story and then it will. My kids were supposed to come home yesterday. After not hearing from them for all day I went to the gym with my mother. We went around 7:30pm and he called around 8:30pm. My phone was not near me so when I got to it, I returned his call. This was at 9pm. He hadn't left a message. In fact knowing him it wasn't even he that called. He more than likely had my daughter call. I called again at 9:15pm, leaving a message. I tried once more at 9:45pm. Then I decided to wait. 11pm I receive a call from my daughter telling me they had went to the park. Her father had told her to ask me did I want them to come home or to stay another night. I told them they could decide. She decided she wanted to come home but my son wanted to stay. After a few tears from my daughter I offer to meet my ex near his house. He finally got on the phone and assured me that he would talk to her and if she still wanted to come home, he'd bring her. I was fine with that. I know if she was really insistent he would bring her.

This morning around 10am, he brings them home. He looked upset, said my son didn't sleep at all last night and that they'd both been really bad while they were there. He left and I talked to them, telling them that Daddy had been stressed lately and that they needed to give him a break. They said they were hungry, hadn't yet eaten breakfast so I took them out for brunch. While there, my son said something about would I let them loosen the tops on the salt shaker. I looked at him pretty shocked. I may be agnostic. Some think this makes me a horrible person. I like to think that I am usually fairly considerate of others and this really bothered me to think that not only did my son want to do this, he thought I would be fine with it! He tells me that daddy lets him do this, that he and his girlfriend do it all the time. They had recently even allowed them to do this at a Chuck-E-Cheese. I mean seriously, wtf!!?? Some poor whining kid goes to add parmesan cheese to their pizza and dumps the whole thing on it? I reminded my son how much of a baby he is about his food and how upset he would be if this happened to him. He looked ashamed. Good, he needs to feel shame for this. Thing is, he is a kid, at least he has an excuse. What kind of adult father sets this example for a child? Well one sec and you'll know.

So they move on to the topic of the park last night. I asked how the park was. They said it was dark so Daddy would not let them play. I asked what they were doing there, they said they had to meet some of Daddy's friends to get something and that it was in downtown Atlanta and that the friend was half an hour late. The kids weren't allowed to see what was being given to them. I cannot be sure what they were getting from this friend but I can guess. I don't think my guess is far off base. It's just shit. I can't press any kind of court issue, until I have proof. I really need a PI. I need some form of proof. I need something. My kids are in danger. I can't afford a PI but what can I do otherwise? I've got to stop talking and take action. Why am I such a whimp? GAH!

Ignorance, yes just ignorance.

My ex still hasn't paid me back a buncha money he owes. When we split up according to the divorce papers he was obligated to pay the credit card bill, he also was supposed to have my name removed from it or cancel the card. He did not do that, in fact he maxed it out and let it go into default. After 4 months of nonpayment they drew the amount due from my account which if not for my mom could have caused me to lose the house, where his kids live. Anyway he gave me a payment on it that first week but the next pay period I let it slide because I knew he was behind. The next one I gave him a reprieve as well because he was trying to move to another place. So here we are a month and a half since he has paid at all and I ask him for some small payment even just $25 or 50 and he tells me he won't pay it, for me to take it out of the child support. I spoke to an attorney and basically he can be held in contempt of court for violating the divorce agreement and I can sue him for the full amount and have him garnisheed but I hate to have to do that. If it were just about the money I wouldn't have let him slide so long or asked for such a small payment. I just want some sign that he isn't trying to screw me because really I owe my mother back for what she lent me to cover it. He was a complete ass about it and even at one point said so what are you going to tell the kids their dad is a junkie? To be clear, I have not mentioned his drug use to the kids EVER and I haven't spoken to him about it in months either. There just isn't any point. I guess his own guilty conscience took over. What a waste of a life. He also told me I need to get a job so that he won't have to pay so much in child support. What kinda ignorance is that? Ummm child support is based on YOUR income not mine. Smart real smart. Half the time I think his response to what I say is geared toward getting a response out of his ignorant whore. What he says to me doesn't even reflect anything I've said whatsoever. If it's the only thing they can share is a genuine hatred of me, oh well, I pity them. Well I just needed to get this out in my little safe spot.