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.