Blogging In The Moonlight

I have so much to do tomorrow and I should be sleeping, but I can't. I'm too pissed off.


It was supposed to be the ex's weekend with O. She called him because she hadn't heard from him all week and needed to know when he was picking her up. He wanted me to bring her to him. I said no. I had a lawyer draw up a letter when we moved out here (an hour west of him) saying that he would collect her on Fridays and I would pick her up on Sundays. Because I've had to go to his part of the state frequently, he's only had to pick her up here once, in the three plus months we've been here. He went a bit nutty on me when I refused to drive her out there tomorrow, but I said I wasn't going to, that I had too much to do tomorrow to take two hours to get her to him. I said he could get her Saturday morning if that was easier, but I wasn't making the trip out there just for his convenience. He then asked to talk to O.

While on the phone with her, he tried to convince her to skip school tomorrow so he could get her in the morning. She said no. It's her last day of school and she wants to say goodbye to her friends and collect her stuff and all that. He tried to make her feel guilty, but she was adamant about going to school. She then mentioned that she had a soccer game on Saturday morning and if she missed it, she'd get kicked off the team. He got very angry with her because, apparently, they were all going to Maine on Saturday morning. This is the first O and I had heard about this trip.

I got on the phone with him to see if he was going to get her after the game or just wait until Sunday or what he wanted to do. He said "What, she doesn't want to come to Maine?" I said, no, that she never said that, but that if he wasn't going to get her, she was going to invite a friend to the party we're having on Saturday and she needed to ask the girl tomorrow, so we needed to know. When I asked when they were coming back from Maine, he refused to tell me. He said I didn't need to know that. Um, what? You're taking my daughter out of the state, you weren't going to tell me about it and you aren't going to tell me when you'll be back? I don't fucking think so. I don't mind if he takes her to Maine, but I do mind very much not knowing about it and not knowing when he'll have her back. He tried to get me going, tried to throw all kinds of things in my face, but I somehow managed to keep calm and didn't blow up at him. When he wasn't getting anywhere with me, he tried it on O again, trying to browbeat her into skipping school and soccer. Then he told her to forget it, he'd go to Maine alone and that was that. I think she actually hung up on him.

It just infuriates me. She said "Dad, you KNOW how much soccer means to me! I don't want to get kicked off the team," and all he could do was lay a guilt trip on her. She kept trying to say that she wanted to go with him to Maine, but she wanted him to wait until after the game. The game's at 9 a.m., so it's not like it would hold them up that much. And they're going to his sister-in-law's - they don't have reservations anywhere, they don't have plane, train or ferry tickets, they're just going up for a visit. But he refused to listen to her. Said he'd go without her, expecting, I'm sure, for her to call him up, crying and begging him to come get her. I don't think he understands what he's doing to her when he does these things. She cares that she doesn't see him - I'm not going to lie and say she doesn't care - but she gets so mad that she's just as glad not to, at that point. Plus, she has such a bad relationship with her stepmother that it's almost a relief to her when he doesn't get her. She hasn't seen him in 4 weeks and it doesn't seem to be phasing her at all. She doesn't call him, she doesn't talk about him much, I really think he's driven her away.

And part of me is selfishly glad.