Currently......

Have I mentioned loathing the legal system and having to make another appearance !?! Preparing for yet a round in court is emotionally, physically, and financially draining. Of course, I would prefer not to have to consider this option but am left with no choice besides accepting the sub-standard care that Cruella provides and I can't do that.

Last July (2007), with the support of my wife, Piglet, we filed for a change in custody. Cruella had been lax about everything but suddenly with a court appearance approaching, she changed her tune. Communication from her did not really improve but her care towards the children improved.

Cruella hated me more now than ever because I was a drug addict taking her to court over custody of the children and was facing the possibility of losing child support. (NOTE: at one point Cruella wanted to put Roo in one of the best pre-school's in the area and asked me for more money to do so. I couldn't give her more as I was barely surviving on frozen pizza's daily for meals and was doing well to keep medication on hand. She said she could take me back to court for more money and I said "go for it".) Cruella couldn't circumvent the compiled information at this point but still tried to make things look good on the outside to the courts.

Health insurance for the children, their education, dental health, mental health, and physical health were the issues at hand. There was no way she could lie her way through this. The health insurance had been a battle for a long time. I wanted to put the kids on my insurance because it was a better choice. Although, I tried to have Cruella share with me details of her insurance for comparison, she never would. I provided her with my insurance information but she never shared. Cruella wasn't paying any attention to Eeyore's homework and it was showing in his grades. Eeyore's dental health was poor at best until I stepped up to the plate and took responsibility. For example, I spent $1000 out of my pocket to have his teeth repaired by a pediatric dentist. Cruella didn't care one way or the other. Nor would help with this cost. Eeyore's mental health was also deteriorating because of the mixed environments: Cruella's with no structure, boundaries, or consistencies versus mine with structure, boundaries, consistencies, and expectations. I pushed to have him in counseling and was of course meet with resistance from Cruella. Eeyore was also having problems with encopresis. Part of this is his diet and aprt of this seems to be emotional. Fortuantely, Roo is far healthier than her brother, Eeyore. Roo, at some point, may tell her mother to kiss her a**.

Anyway, we set off for another court appearance scheduled for December of 2007. From this hearing, Piglet and I leave with shared physical custody, and the authority to make any health and academic changes. We elect to leave the children in the same school despite an overwhelming desire to put them somewhere better but we do elect to put them on our insurance.

We return to court in May as expect by the appearance in December. The judge made the shared-physical custody changes legal but we went back to trying to co-parent. Sadly, since May of last year, Cruella has not changed and is clearly unwilling to change even to benefit our children.

Treatment and beyond.......

Now, in no way, shape, or form am I blaming Cruella for my cocaine use. However, I was exceptionally pissed off that Cruella would use every once and every inch to work this mistake against me and more pissed off that she let the children suffer through my mistake. It was very hard for me to move forward knowing, experiencing, and having these feelings.

I worked through my job, worked through 2 drug treatment programs, paying for an exhorbant amount of child support, paying for drug treatment, and counseling. DAMN !!!! This was so difficult and so painful.

Prior to my marriage going bad, I was always a very laid back kind of person. I tried to take everything as it came and trusted almost everybody.

Now that I had experienced divorce, my views drastically changed. I finally saw Cruella for who and what she was and didn't trust woman as a whole for a looooong time. Even now, I look at women, and men, a lot differently than I used to. (Please accept my apologies to any women reading this as I know there are exceptions). Perhaps I was niave to people and what they could do. Today, I am exceptionally selective about whom I surround myself with.

After the drug treatment program and everything I survived until this point had made me a much stronger person. To give an idea, I considered on many occasions some drastic measures but these ideas would've only hurt the children, the ones I was trying to protect and love.

With my found strength and perserverance, I again focused on the children and waht was best for them. I had to attend a co-paretning class with Cruella and follow-up with co-parenting counseling. Of course, this didn't amount to a hill of beans because Cruella still was unwilling to be at all cooperative, flexible, or think of anything besides herself. The children were struggling with school. Cruella had no structure for their education. Cruella neglected the health of both children.

Cruella neglected Eeyore's dental health badly and physical health. He has had several temporary crowns by about 8 years old. He had a tooth that was approaching abscess and she did nothing. He was struggling with encopresis and a very poor diet while in her care. Eeyore had been bitten by Cruella's dog and this dog did not have any of his shots. Roo had not had the last of her shots but fortunately, her teeth were in good shape.

I had long began keeping notes on everything, everyday. I called the kids everyday and had done so since seperation. I missed and love my children that I could'nt let a day go by without talking to them. My persistance in keeping up with them and noting everything about their daily lives and the neglect Cruella offered, I felt would pay off.

Cruella was not going to change for anything or anybody. Everybody was supposed to be at disposal. Everybody was supposed to do what she wanted. I wasn't going to do this any longer. I was about the children and wwhat's best for them. I'll be damned if I'm going to simply sit back allow her or anybody to use, abuse, or neglect these precious children. Children aren't trophies to put on a wall and take down for occasional dusting. Children want to be loved. They want to have someone offer them comfort, security, adn reassurance. Children want and need parents that will be involved with them and teach them the right things to do.

A a note to Cruella's parenting, when I removed myself from the marital bedroom, she almost immediately had Eeyore sleeping in the bed with her and referring to him as her "little man".
After I left the marital home, she had him sleeping with her 4-5 times a week. I was alarmed by this behavior, expressed my concern, but was ignored all together. I approached my concerns with Eeyore's counselor whom in turn expressed concerns to Cruella. This had little impact. Cruella said it was perfectly natural for a boy at 6,7,8,9 years old to sleep with his mother.

This behavior was not conducted with Roo who is 2 1/2 years younger. As a matter of fact, before I left the marital home, Cruella and I had a fight over taking Roo out of her crib and putting her into a bed. Cruella was pissed off that I had taken the crib down and given Roo a bed. Roo was about 2 years old as I recollect but Cruella liked having Roo in one place without freedom of movement.

Prior to that, Cruella often liked to leave Roo in a high-chair with a solied diaper and go back to bed. I'll never forget finding Roo like this while Cruella was on the 2nd floor sleeping. Roo was also sleeping in her food.

Moving forward....

Well, I had hired an attorney, set a court date to seperate, and was staying drug free but things continued to get worse with Cruella. I had a good chance of getting full custody of the children but screwed myself with some of that when I signed over the title of the house to Cruella and accepted the full tax refund for that year in exchange. This was a mistake because that left Cruella with ownership of the family home, something most judges prefer for children.

I didn't want any money out the family home because a big portion of the down payment came from the sale of the previous home. Much of those funds weren't mine to ask for. Besides, I didn't want anything that wasn't mine. Nothing.

For Cruella, she wanted half of everything I had !!! Everything. She did nothing to earn half of what I had accummulated. I had some power tools for woodworking that I bought second hand, a small coin collection that I had before marrying her, a collection of NASCAR toys, and some family heirlooms. She did nothing to earn or warrant any of these things. Her desire was to hurt me more and provide her with financial security.

My tools and toys, I "gave away". I removed my coin collection and some family heirlooms from the marital home for safety. It really sucked that Cruella wanted only to hurt, steal from me, leave me bleeding in the streets.

After our first appearance in court, there was some peace coming, or at least I was hoping so. I moved mandated by the court with a temporary custody arrangement in place. But, Cruella continued to bust my ass with anything and everything. Now, she switched modes using the children to hurt me and putting them in the middle of an adult situation they had not place beeing. She didn't care. It was all about her and her pain and her being rejected. But, the marriage to her had always been about her, her wants, her needs, her sex toys, her naps, her time, her money, her whatever.

After physically seperating, I was continually berated by Cruella as just a drug addict. Over the years, I have struggled with cocaine addiction. At this point, I had been coke free for almost 10 years but that didn't matter to Cruella. I worked hard to discount what she said but it kept coming like a broekn record.

The stress of trying to seperate, sperating, trying to protect the children, wanting things to move forward as smoothly as possible, and more, I found myself at the wrong place at the wrong time and used coke. At that moment, I figured "screw it if she's gonna continually accuse me, produce a falsified drug test, I might as well use and enjoy". I did and that was such a mistake for so many reasons.

Before our next court appearance, she had me drug tested using hair follicles and I tested positive meaning she would have full custody of the kids, collect child support, and have me by the b*lls. This was so painful. Probably the most emotional pain I've ever experienced because my kids were taken from me, I could only have supervised visitation, and had child support coming out of my check from my employer. Cruella made this as difficult as she could.

Upon our next court appearance, I had already started drug rehab 3 times a week in an out-patient program, had at least 3 weekly urine tests for drugs and alcohol, and a couple of weekly NA meetings (narcotics anonymous).

Following court, I could see my children supervised 2 hours on Wednesdays and every other weekend. If I didn't have supervision, Cruella had to agree to this of supervisors, I didn't get to see the children. Cruella kept me to this standard and took advantage of this situation.

I finished 6 months of rehab, subsequent NA meetings, and counseling sessions with success. It offered some healing but I was angry as h*ll at Cruella's intention to make it as hard on me as possible and more pissed off that she was using the children against me as well. A month or 2 after my completion, the supervised visitation was lifted.

Some where in the middle......

The final straw of any hope that I might have of saving of marriage was dashed when I meet another woman. Suddenly I found myself getting what I had longed for: touch, communication, companionship, and yes sex. These stirred feelings that I hadn't had in so many years. These were things I asked Cruella for but she either couldn't, would'nt, or both. I'm not sure.


In the blink of an eye I knew what I had been missing, what I needed, and what I wanted versus living the life of a father with a cold, distant wife. I was tired of being the bill payer, the single parent, the one to clean up after the kids, the one to clean up after the wife. I was tired of not feelings happy, content, wanted, loved, etc.

I never admitted the last affair nor the couple before but she had an idea. Despite having this idea, there still was not aceptance of her role in the failure. At this point, I didn't care. I wanted out. I was finished but I would not and did not simply walk out. I refused to do that for the children. Cruella was most upset with my convictions about the children. She threatened me, insulted me, berated me in fron t of the children, and even had one of friends just tell me to leave. I would not without some sort of seperation agreement and custody arranged. Cruella would not be at all flexible with this idea either. (Imagine that) I tried everything including preparing our own seperation agreement and custody arrangement. She wasn't willing.

As time went on, Cruella changed like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hype. Suddenly she was leaving the house dressed like a street walker, bathing in perfume, staying out all night at times, and sleeping with what men she could get.

The first man she became involved with, she brought to the marital home. He parked his truck in the driveway and spent the night on a couple of occasions. NOTE: Long before this point, I was sleeping on the sofa on the first floor versus sharing a bed with Cruella.

The second man she slept with was someone in the same office building that I work in. The 3rd man she slept with had previously paid for a night in a nice hotel in our city but couldn't make it at the last minute. He contacted Cruella suggesting she take one of her girlfriends and enjoy. Instead, Cruella took yet another man to spend the night with her in a hotel paid for by #3.

When Cruella was at home, she didn't do anything for the kids or with the kids. It was all left to me, as usual. She was medicating herself with sleeping pills and someone else's prescription medication. She would take every opportunity to bust my a** even bringing the fight to my office on a couple of occasions. She would through 2x4's at me, curse at me, follow me through the house just berating me more and it didn't matter that the children where witnessing this. There was no real way out except for court.

It took months for me to decide court was the only way to go otherwise my sanity and health were going to become increasingly compromised. My mental health was already taking a beating at dealing with a failed marriage, a wife that was just nasty, my desire for a smooth transition, my love for my children, and the desire to protect them through this.

None of that mattered to Cruella. She only wanted to hurt me: emotionally and physically. It felt as if she wanted to bury me. It became evident that she would use anything she could find to hurt me.

Knowing how venedictive she had become, I quit smoking pot knowning she would use this to cripple me in any way, shape, or form. With that out of the picture, I had some ground to work with. I was willing to workout shared pyhsical custody but wanted full custody. Cruella wanted me to be only a weekend warrior dad, pay huge amounts in child support, and shut the hell up.

Well, by now Cruella had the clear idea that the marriage was over but didn't want to accept any responsibility for this failure. By her admission, it was all my fault, not hers and I was reminded of this like a torrential rain.

Cruella had the notion prior to our first visit to court to begin rotating weekend visitation with the kids while we lived together. This was a little odd but was willing to go with the flow to keep the peace as much as possible until we could find some finality.

During one of my weekends with the children, we went to spend the weekend with my sister. During this particular weekend, Cruella had the local police department come to the home to do a search for pot. The police came, brought drug sniffing dogs, and found only a pipe. Shortly after my return to the home, I found an over-the-counter cocaine test with positive results hidden in a crawl space of the house. Somehow she managed to obtain this positive cocaine test.

So many things became evident at the end. I also learned that Cruella had been given a 20K bonus several months before, unknown to me, and she had spent every penyy of it while I continued to pay the mortgage and utulities. To this day I have no idea how someone could spend 20K and have nothing to show for it. Further, I could only imagine how many other work bonuses she had received and didn't bother to tell me about it.

After finding out about this bonus, there was a problem in our home with the electric bill. I had specifically asked her to pay it. It was now $1000 and we were now into the 3rd month of it not being paid. I confronted her because of a fear that the electricity would be cutoff. I confronted her on a Friday evening about 6:30 while she was in bed and almost unresponsive. She was obviously heavily medicated and I didn't now from what and didn't care. She said she would get the money from her parents to pay part of the bill.

Cruella has lied to her parents, friends, and other family memebers about the course of events. This was not the first as I was learning at this point in time. To this day, I don't think Cruella has it in her to be completely honest about anything if there's any consideration that it would tainted her f*cked up imagine of having that big house with the white picket fence.

Time continues to move forward and her true colors are becoming more evident. I become some-what hard on myself for not seeing a lot of this but she has done well to keep it hidden.

Let's start from the beginning....

In late 2003 I was at the end of my rope with my marriage. My wife at the time, Cruella, preferred to sleep, take long bathes, read books, and wanted plastic sex toys instead of her husband, Pooh, me. This had been going on for many years without an end in sight. We had 2 children together. She birthed them and I took care of them. During both pregnancies, she remark many times that she carried these babies to term but they were my responsibility until they were 18. The more she made this remark, the more serious I took it.

Ah, the children. When we married, there were 2 children already: one that was hers and one that was mine.

Kanga, my daughter and the oldest, had a lot of history. For example, I learned of her existence when she was 8 years old and in the custody of the court. So, I stepped up to the plate at 25 years old, took a blood test proving paternity, and gaining custody. Unfortunately, Kanga had lived a very hard life to this point and now she was thrown into the life with a man she didn't know. Her mother was into drugs very heavily and some prostitution. I can only imagine the turmoil Kanga experienced during the first 8 years of her life.

I worked to establish and build a relationship with Kanga but she was a very angry girl because of the sh*t she had lived through. She didn't know who to trust or who to talk to. I certainly wasn't the one she wanted to talk to or trust. Relentlessly, I continued trying and still work with that today.

Somehow through Kanga's life, she had learned independence and responsibility. I stayed involved with her education but that was minimal because she did her work without the requirement for me to hover over her. I also coached a couple of years of softball with her. Being an involved parent is important.

Tigger, my step-daughter, seemed to have little parental interaction with Cruella. Not because she didn't want it but because Cruella was simply disconnected. I accepted her, loved her as my daughter, raised her as my own, and treated her like my daughter. I had the same expectations of Tigger as I did of Kanga. However, Tigger didn't have any real structure or expectations. So, I deployed, or tried to deploy, structure and expectations.

Cruella was never very organized and did not offer structure to our family. There was a time when I tried asking her to help keep the house clean and neat. She balked. So, I narrowed it to asking her to keep her computer tidy. Her response was "you just want me to change" and she walked away without another word. This was very typical when I attempted to ask her about helping with something around the house not to mention being involved with the kids.

Cruella had pets: an big dog that was housed and chained outside, a rabbit that was kept caged in the garage, and a few cats. Sadly, one by one, the pets deminished. Cruella didn't care for the rabbit meaning she didn't feed and water this animal. During a hot summer, the rabbit died probably from malnutrition, dehydration, and extreme heat. The huge dog broke free and ran. We never saw him again. And, the cats one-by-one disappeared. She always wanted these pets but could never properly care for them.

Early in my marriage to Cruella, problems began to rise between Cruella and Kanga particularly as Kanga reached puberty and those early teenage years. Because Cruella was my wife, I wanted to and did support my wife believing her over my daughter. I trusted Cruella explicitly and mistakenly took Kanga's words with a grain of salt. To me everything looked like it was going well. That is to say that's what was presented to me by Cruella.

Sadly, things weren't exactly as they were presented. Cruella and Kanga butted heads far more often than I was lead to believe. Things finally boiled over between the 2 and a physical confrontation was the result initiated by Cruella with Kanga. Keep in mind, Cruella was pregnant with our unborn son. The resulting confrontation meant having to make a choice between Kanga and my pregnant wife. What a dreadful position to be in. I was absolutely devastated by having to make this choice. I love Kanga so much and had worked so hard with her over the few years I had her and I loved my wife and unborn son but had to choose between them.

After a couple of weeks of talking with extended family, my sister, the Fairy Godmother, it was decided to shift Kanga to the Fairy Godmothers home. I was absolutely distraught and emotionally torn. How the h*ll does a father get faced with making a decision to choose between his daughter and the pregnant wife. In any event, the proposed solution was the very best I could work out.

I couldn't understand then how these troubles between Kanga and Cruella were only now surfacing and how I didn't see it coming. Later I would learn that Cruella was just a b*tch to Kanga at every opportunity that I was absent from the home. I also learned that the expectations and structure I worked to implement with Tigger was also torn apart when I was away. Tigger was told by Cruella not to worry about what I said or asked of her. Cruella blindsided at every opportunity.

As a person at that time, I was a very easy going, laid back individual taking things as they came. Perhaps I was also niave to who I had married. The end of our marriage would surely give me clarity into the person I did marry.

Over the years married to Cruella, she sexually neglected me opting to lock herself in the bedroom with her pink box of vibrators. She embarrased me about this topic in front of my friends particularly when I asked for sex. I would never beg for it but did ask and she merely laughed about it.

Cruella was also emotionally neglectful and disconnected from me and the children. It was her world and her way and to h*ll with everbody else wanted or needed. Again, I didn't really see this for a long time. I wanted our marriage to work and that's what I strived for.

The first real red flag was my first affair 5 years into the marriage. I couldn't understand why I did it. I was absolutely baffled by behavior knowing that I took vows and commited myself to Cruella. for a couple of weeks following, it occured to me that I was truly being emotional neglected and abused as well as physically being neglected of the love and nurturing that I longed for. I wanted the touch of my wife but she refused. Somewhere at the end of our marriage, I figured we had a little less than 4 times a year over the last 10 years.

Despite the first affair, Cruella and I expected our 2nd child. A complete "whoops" didn'nt mean for that to happen. Knowing we were pregnant for the second, the responsibilities that came with it for me (after all I was responsible for this child again until they were 18), I discussed a vasectumy with Cruella and she became furious at my suggestion. Damn near enraged. I had to have her signature on the physicians consent form to get it completed and she did not want to do it. If she hadn't finally agreed, I was going to deny having a wife to have it completed. I was not going to have another child with this woman.

A year or 2 before the end of our marriage, we bought another house. A house that Cruella loved. I thought this might improve our relationship, marriage, and family life. That thought and desire was simply a shadow of lies to myself. Nothing changed. In fact, things got a little worse.

The day we moved into our new home, Cruella sent me and some back to hte old house to finish moving our belongings to the new home and did so, When I arrived at the new home, Cruella had been freakin sleeping. I was infuriated. It wasn't enough that she slept all the time but had to also sleep on the day we were moving.

Now, we have a new home, 2 small children (Roo and Eeyore) and a teenager, Tigger, and a wife that is bathing more, sleeping more, reading more, less sex, and less family activity. This was frustrating. I will say that Cruella did cook but didn't clean afterwards. Dishes would stay in the sink until those dishes were needed for another meal. At times, days later. I tried to handle some of this amongst taking care of the kids , doing laundry, yard work, trying to spend quality time with the kids, maintain my job, etc.

I was quickly coming to the end of my rope feeling used and abused, after almost 10 years. I wasn't able to do much for myself and needed to do something to help myself and care for myself. I joined the gym asking Cruella to assist with transporting the kids so I could workout twice a week. That was met with resistance from Cruella but ultimately, she finally agreed. Part of me felt guilty for this but I knew I had to do something healthy for me.

My feelings of neglext and abuse only grew with time. I was working out once or twice a week abd beginning to get mentally healthy again. Little did I know but there would be a lot more work to do on this front. In any event...............

August, 2004 I began to let Cruella know that I was very unhappy and didn't have anything left to give to the marriage. Not sure if she understood or wanted to understand. Probably didn't want to understand at this point.

6-8 weeks pass and suddenly Cruella finally gets the picture and demands that we suddenly spend some weekend time alone leaving the children with her parents. She's now suddenly suggesting that we spend a couple of weekends doing a marital counseling camp. This was a little to much, a little to late. Over the years, she hadn't wanted to do anything to listen to me, my feelings, my needs, my wants, my expectations. Whoops. I need to apologize here because first and foremost I wasn't supposed to have any expectations of Cruella.

I refused to do the weekend marital counseling but did agree to seeing a counselor with her hoping to find some help seperating as smoothly as possible for the kids. This niave idea went over like a fart in church. OMG !!! Cruella went absolutely bolistic when she finally realized the marriage was over. I had absolutely no idea what kind of woman I had married until this time.

Part of the reason.......

Why I'm doing this is because over the course of several years, I've gone from having supervised visitation because of a cocaine use and have now gained 50% shared physical custody of my chidlren. I ahven't done this alone but have a great amount of help and support.

Cocaine is something that I've struggled with since my late teen years. I've managed to go many years without using but Cruella, from the beginning initiation of wanting a seperation and divorce, always threw it back in my face that I was just a f*ckin cocaine addict. She was very belittling, condescending, and hurtful with this unpleasent reminder. Before we finally seperated by a court order, it had been drilled into my head that I was nothing, at least that's how I was feeling. Keep in mind, while I was a recreational pot smoker, I hadn't done coke for almost 10 years. It's a damn waste that time was flushed down the toilet because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I ran into someone that had some coke and I figured "if she's gonna accuse me of being a coke addict, I might as well use" and did.

As you can imagine, she had me drug tested using hari follicles and lost the shared custody of kids that I had at that point. Of course, she lorded that over me holding me a bay with strict supervised visitation considering me to be a threat to the kids. Granted, some might read and say "there may be a legitimate concern" but I was the parent of these children while marriade to Cruella. She birthed them physically but had no real connection with them.

Cruella, and her narcisitic ways, wanted to be alone and unbothered by the children opting for bathes, books, and naps. She never wished to participate in activities with the kids but instead sent me out with the children while she slept. Of course, my bond with Eeyore and Rue only grew while Cruella didn't seem to give a damn. I was the primary parent and caregiver of the children: bathes, showers, feeding, laundry, etc.

There's more coming.....

Wondering......

It seems since the initiation of seperation a few years ago has led to an unyeildingly busy life figting for visitation and custody with my ex, dealing again with a cocaine addiction, finding the love of my life and new wife amidst the chaos. But wait, there's more. :) There have been many turns of events through the tumultuous times of seperation, divorce, and custody. Sadly, like so many others, this is also carried into my second marriage. Fortunately, both of us are aware of the "brought forth" backage and work through much of it as it comes. Sometimes fun and sometimes not fun but in the end, it only strengthens our relationship and resolve for each other.

Well, back to the subject header.......

I'm hoping that this blog may reach others offering some insight, understanding, and compassion for some of the sh*t divorced fathers have to work through. Although, everybody's story is going to a variable, I'm certain there will be commonalities and will share my story in this forum as the need arises to write. In any event, in large part I'm hoping to add some healing to me. Lord knows I can always use a little more.

So, I'll introduce myself as Pooh, a beloved character by me since childhood and I think my personal character is close to that of Pooh and my wonderful wife and best friend is Piglet. The ex is Cruella and the name is certainly fitting given the circumstances. There are primarily 2 children involved, Eeyore (boy 10yrs) and Rue (girl 7yrs), that are.....well, the apples of my eye and more importantly, my heart.

This concludes a brief intro and will post more later.

Testing my Blog

Hmmm......Could it be this easy !?! As a techie, one might think I should know about this but I don't. Let's start here and see where it goes.