WhinyLittleRunt
Member
Boy, where do I begin...
I guess for anyone who's willing to listen, I'll write it anyway because I'm sure the act of writing it will clear my head some.
I wrote a huge post back several months ago regarding my divorce but I'm going to spare myself the aggravation of acting as if anyone is going to go back and read the original post, so I'll start again:
Last year in August, I came home early from work to find my house ransacked and most items gone, and a note on the coffee pot. The note basically said she had left, took the kids and moved to a new, undisclosed place. She would be serving me with divorce papers soon after (actually the next day, so it then became clear she was planning this for a while). Now, after the panic attack passed, and she finally answered the phone, I asked her why she did it, and could she tell me where she was... and she said no, not yet. Mind you, this type of behavior would be typical of a person who was in a seriously abusive relationship and had no other way of escaping. I had never laid a hand on her in 10 years. She's batted at me from time to time but I never reciprocated. We fought like most married couples would. Got worse after we had our first child. You get the picture... I admit I can be a dick just like anyone else, but she served me a real sh*t sandwich that day. Let me back track....
Together 10 years, married 6. Had our first child the year after we got married and then we had a second one at the end of 2016. We had a really nice bond, especially at the beginning. She came from a pretty broken family but a grandmother who was her guardian and did everything for her. Her mom died when she was a pre-teen. She had depression and other small abandonment issues. But she was almost like my perfect match from the start. I come from the typical divorced family but had both of my parents in my life all the time until my mom passed away a couple years ago. Other than that I always found myself to be pretty regular. In her case though when we met she latched on pretty quickly. I didn't care. I was in love. She was beautiful, was into my musical stuff, we had a really good time together. Shortly after we met my mom was diagnosed with cancer and it plagued us for basically the duration of our relationship. Also shortly after she had a really bad rollover accident, and apparently a hidden substance abuse problem. Well, I came to the rescue. I loved her, my mother loved her, her grandmother loved me, and it was pretty clear that I was really good for her, and she was very good for me in a lot of ways too. But long story short, year after year we started to decline and I really think a lot of it was my mother's illness. We still ended up getting married though as I thought at the time we were "soul mates" (yeah, I know). I was actually really happy to get married. I really loved her. She definitely had her moments but she was my person, my partner. We bought a house in the same time frame. Things were going well.
Then in 2013, while my mother's illness was still looming but at bay, her grandmother was suddenly diagnosed with cancer and died within 3 months. I was shocked. It was heartbreaking. Like the one thing that I know would break the poor girl more than anything else in the world JUST HAPPENED. It was beyond devastating for her... it was also the turning point for her.
She ended up quitting her job she had been in for 2 years due to "conflict of interest" with her employer, which basically means she didn't get along with her and I guess one too many snide comments got the better of her and she left. She decided to stay home with our daughter and live off her grandmothers inheritance, stocks, whatever she had. I would still work the same job that at the time I was at for 10 years. She started getting tattoos (big ones) and collecting specialty dolls, and then eventually turned that into a business. I didn't know she had that kind of savvy. By the end of 2015, my mom had passed away, and my wife suddenly got into the MLM clothing business (I'll keep the name out of here to prevent searches, but some of you may know what I'm talking about). She got really good at it quickly, got a huge team of people under her and started making crazy money. It got so good in fact, that she told me we could do even better if I were to quit my long-time job and come home to work with her. Also at this time, she was pregnant with our 2nd child. It was definitely a huge risk, but I was willing to take it and anyone who is married knows that it's supposed to be a joint effort. It wasn't without doubt; I don't have that kind of trust in anything that makes you money quickly and in large sums. Plus, multi-level marketing businesses are typically cash cows and work well when the pickin's are good, but when they tank you better not have squandered all of that cash... but I took the opportunity.
It ended up being that I was a stay-at-home Dad and while she ran her 'business', I pretty much took on 100% baby duty. I really mean 100% if you exclude the couple months she breastfed... it was insane. I had no issue doing it either, but it got really boring during the day with the lack of real work. So I bonded really well with the baby and we went out and galavanted a lot. My older daughter, whom I still was primary caregiver for (what I mean by that is, I always put her to bed, took her to school, etc etc all the parent-y things), was going through the rough part of 4 so it was nice to have a little baby to watch develop for a change of scenery. At this point my wife was so involved in this business that all I was doing was shipping items every other night, taking her pictures for the inventory on her site, and doing all baby stuff. It wasn't a lot, really. She started going on these business trips across the country, and also told me she was going on a well-deserved spa trip for the weekend by herself which I happily granted and took the kids while she relaxed. Really, I saw no issue. She was always home. She was always there when I went to bed and always there when I got home from work. I mean the girl never went anywhere. Well, until this business that is... I just never thought anything negative of it. However, she was becoming more and more of a bossy b*tch and it was really getting old quick. It's as if the death of her grandmother, the new tattoos, and this business where she suddenly got the motivation to get up in the morning and be a girl boss really turned her into something I didn't recognize. And frankly, didn't care for. But, I knew she was making bank... we just bought a couple BMWs... went to Disney, other family trips etc... there was money, and I really didn't have to do much for it other than be a Dad...
One day, almost a year in, I got a phone call from her while she was on the road and she mentioned that I might want to start looking for work come the fall. "Business was starting to 'tank' and she was afraid of being able to keep up on the one income." So, like any dutiful husband would do, I went back to my employer and asked for my job back, which he gave me back in a heartbeat (that was awesome, he knew I f'd up) AND, I also took on some nights with my friend working a second job for extra income too. She claimed she was ok with the kids alone, which I felt was not entirely true because I had taken on the baby 100%.
Oh, and did I mention she went and had a gastric bypass surgery for weight loss in the middle of all this? Not that it's important for the story, but... just to add to the transformation...
I went back to work, got all reacquainted with my job I'd now been in for almost 14 years, made myself focus on the job and yet still help her at night doing the shipping and packing. A little less than a month in, I receive an email on my phone from someone I'd never heard of (went into the business email account) saying that her son was very upset and wouldn't talk to anyone about it and if she knew what was going on. I immediately asked her who he was, and she said she had no idea, that it was probably a mistake email. Nice try. Within a few minutes we received another one from the same person saying sorry, i addressed this to the wrong person. Yeah... ok. I questioned it, but she said I was crazy to think she had a "side-guy". A couple weeks later, I left for work like any other day, she was on the couch, I said goodbye and I love you, gave her the signature dual kiss and was on my way. I immediately noticed her car key was missing off my chain. I started searching for it thinking I lost it, but she said not to worry about it and that if it turned up she'd let me know. Later in that day, the business email stopped working on my phone. I figured it was just a server glitch. Completely oblivious. By that afternoon I stopped hearing from her, which was a regular occurrence. I went home early to check on everyone and that's when I found she had left.
Not only had she left, but she PLANNED this move for a while. She had two of her friends from out of state come and move the stuff out while I was at work. When I got the divorce papers the next day, it occurred to me she probably called me that day from the car about going back to work as she was driving away from a law firm.
The next 8 months would be some of the worst I'd ever had in my life. My mom's death didn't even come close to this and that was supposed to be the event that left me damaged. I now find out that she moved about an hour and a half away, almost into the next state. I start to see my 'kids' on weekends which was hard enough to deal with. I stayed in our marital home because hey, she left... I wanted to keep my house. I didn't know if I'd be able to or not, but I wanted to try. I'm told shortly after that she started seeing someone 'casually' within a week or two of leaving (right after saying "I don't have a boyfriend or need one"). THEN... I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, who told me there was some 'chatter' around the interwebs and groups that the baby was not mine... I asked if it might happen to be a certain someone (recall the email?) and she said yes.
The 'estranged' wife apparently saw all of these conversations because before she left, she made sure to steal my iPad and monitor all of my messages until I found out a week later it was actually missing (didn't use it often enough to notice). She finally called me on a Saturday while I had both kids and admitted to the affair, but that she started getting nervous about the timing of the pregnancy and so she contacted him to do a DNA test, and then proceeded to share those results with me. She then told me, as I could clearly see on the report, that the DNA was not a match so the baby was definitely mine. Well, looking now at the fact that the last couple years of our relationship was clearly a sequence of lies and coverups, I took it upon myself to do the horrific task of DNA testing the baby against my own and getting my own results.
I opened the email with the results in it as I was walking into the gym locker room (another thing I suddenly felt like doing, along with not eating). I nearly collapsed again when I read the result and saw that we had absolutely NO genetic relation at all. Why did she lie to me about something so serious? I got in the car, and texted her a screenshot of the results to which she said she can't understand, blah blah blah, maybe it was this one time at the spa when I was drunk, don't know who he is...etc.. Just absolute garbage. Here is someone I had trusted for 10 years, never thought for a second she'd cheat on me or ever be unfaithful, and suddenly I'm sitting here in shambles about to drink myself to death knowing that the baby I just spent 10 months getting to know, bonding with, and taking care of 100% WASN'T MINE??
I got home, and opened a fresh bottle of JD and just started going to town. The texts were still going back and forth. Earlier, I had found out who the affair was with, and had looked up his FB. Turned out he was married too. So, I messaged him. Nothing too incriminating, but basically said I wanted to talk to him man to man and that I had just found out the baby wasn't mine, but apparently wasn't his either. I said this to him because suddenly the email that I got that day from mother jived with the date of the DNA results she had. So it seemed viable he was upset about not being the father. Plus, the way she started talking about him made him out to be a real winner, so I really thought he was innocent in this and there really was a "spa night". As soon as I messaged him, I got a response from her freaking out that I'm endangering everyones lives by contacting him etc etc. Drunk as hell, I kept going, didn't care... I asked him how it could be so convenient that as soon as I messaged him he's already talking to her when this affair supposedly had been over for a long time... and he said he had no idea why I was telling him this stuff, and that the relationship had been over and that he just contacted her asking why I was suddenly going at him. Yeah, right.
The very next day, she told me I'd not be seeing the baby anymore as she is not mine and she didn't feel comfortable letting me take her. How quickly that changed huh? She then told me that she'd be moving back closer to me when her lease came due, so I'd be closer to my daughter. At this point I was fighting to get my daughter back home. It was all I cared about at that point. A month or two later, I get the call that she is moving out of state to be with the affair guy. Mind you, she was dating some other guy while this was all going on. I gave her hell and said she was supposed to move closer... and that's when I finally said "you're going to him because he's the father, isn't he..." and she said yes. And then it all became clear. The hair color, the looks, everything... was this other guy. Now I was destined to get my real daughter home with me. There was no way I'd let this happen.
Cut to the present day. Estranged wife is thin, engaged to affair guy and pregnant. Mind you... she's still legally married to me. She still has crap left at my house (a considerable amount of crap) that I "I" took the time to pack up nicely and organized, in hopes she'd get it out soon (not 8 months and counting...). She's moving 2+ hours away to be with affair guy and a house full of kids. I still see the baby that's not mine regularly, at drop offs and on the ipad (facetime with my daughter). The court would not let her move with the joint custody agreement, so she had no choice but to let me take my daughter full time / primary residence. My daughter is psyched. We have a special bond. Plus, she is going to be the only child in a house of 5 kids (funny my wife could barely deal with 1) that isn't calling this guy Dad, and since her mother seems to think I'm the sh*t of the Earth somehow, she's also linked directly to me in that way... know what I mean? She's better off here with me. For school, for everything. I'll get her at the end of the summer (my choice; want her to finish up school in her current class). Oh and I found out that the estranged wife supposedly now has her new man working with her also. Is that not crazy?
And don't think in between all of this that I hadn't considered doing a DNA test on my daughter also just to settle my stomach, but the thought of finding out she isn't mine would probably push me over the edge at this point and I don't want to go there... I'm satisfied knowing that A) she looks like me and my family, B) she is like my spawn in every way, and C) the wife wouldn't fight me this hard and continue to deal with me if she wasn't my biological child, so, with all if that in mind I actually do sleep well at night.
The thing is, a story like this is a total Lifetime movie or a book. I've been told it by many different people, and I actually tell my story with zero shame to anyone who will listen to it. Because I can sleep knowing this was not me. This was her. This was a sudden change in her life that either made her go manic, or she's just a total narcissist. Maybe a slight personality disorder, who knows. It isn't normal by any stretch: bypass surgery, many tattoos in a short span of time, new hair color, new place, new guy, new ring, new baby... in what, 6 months?
(she wasn't even with him when this all went down). Problem is, it still gets me down a lot. Tonight for example, i came across an unopened picture of us all from a vacation we took. And not only that, but there was a christmas ornament and a friggin' snow globe with it also that had the stupid picture plastered all over the inside. It made me see the person I used to know. And then I did the worst move, by doing the FB search and seeing her new pictures. Mind you, I see her regularly for pickups and drop-offs... and I see him. And it's usually ok because I know she's not a new person and there's got to be something that poor dude is putting up with that he won't admit... but, pictures are deceiving as hell, and I think sometimes they actually make you believe what you are looking at is real. Seeing her happy, smiling and looking beautiful and thin and totally different, really just depresses me sometimes. I'm much happier in the shoes I'm in now, though, trust me. I have no obligations to anyone other than my 5 year old. And she loves me to death. At my age, it's the most important thing in my life. Everything else is secondary.
But, if you made it this far holy crap and congratulations...
This has affected me in so many ways and I'm surprised i'm actually functional. In fact, I've been asked by many people, including 2 professionals (whom I deemed quite necessary after this) how I actually get up in the morning and function. I guess the simple answer is, because I have to. I mean it's not my style to drink myself to death for real, or blow my brains out. I have a beautiful, smart and well spoken child that I care more about than anything else and if I can help it, I don't want to miss out on her future. I know most of her manners and intelligence come from my constant 'lessons' and parenting. I'm not the richest dad on the block, and she's getting used to "daddy can't afford it", but for right now we have our house and I still have my underwater Bimmer that somehow I can still afford, so we can get by ok. The ex has to pay me child support and part of my mortgage (mortgage only temporarily until the end of summer), so that's a nice plus on my side. I haven't had to sell any of my good musical gear, nor do I plan to.
I am sorry for this long-winded story, but hopefully it is something that can make someone else feel better about their life (well, unless yours tops mine, which is entirely possible in this day in age). I always say to people, "just be glad it wasn't you. Be glad it was the other guy". I try to stay as positive as I can as hard as it is because I do know someone else out there does have it wayyyy worse, and this is chicken sh*t. But, I felt I would share...
I guess for anyone who's willing to listen, I'll write it anyway because I'm sure the act of writing it will clear my head some.
I wrote a huge post back several months ago regarding my divorce but I'm going to spare myself the aggravation of acting as if anyone is going to go back and read the original post, so I'll start again:
Last year in August, I came home early from work to find my house ransacked and most items gone, and a note on the coffee pot. The note basically said she had left, took the kids and moved to a new, undisclosed place. She would be serving me with divorce papers soon after (actually the next day, so it then became clear she was planning this for a while). Now, after the panic attack passed, and she finally answered the phone, I asked her why she did it, and could she tell me where she was... and she said no, not yet. Mind you, this type of behavior would be typical of a person who was in a seriously abusive relationship and had no other way of escaping. I had never laid a hand on her in 10 years. She's batted at me from time to time but I never reciprocated. We fought like most married couples would. Got worse after we had our first child. You get the picture... I admit I can be a dick just like anyone else, but she served me a real sh*t sandwich that day. Let me back track....
Together 10 years, married 6. Had our first child the year after we got married and then we had a second one at the end of 2016. We had a really nice bond, especially at the beginning. She came from a pretty broken family but a grandmother who was her guardian and did everything for her. Her mom died when she was a pre-teen. She had depression and other small abandonment issues. But she was almost like my perfect match from the start. I come from the typical divorced family but had both of my parents in my life all the time until my mom passed away a couple years ago. Other than that I always found myself to be pretty regular. In her case though when we met she latched on pretty quickly. I didn't care. I was in love. She was beautiful, was into my musical stuff, we had a really good time together. Shortly after we met my mom was diagnosed with cancer and it plagued us for basically the duration of our relationship. Also shortly after she had a really bad rollover accident, and apparently a hidden substance abuse problem. Well, I came to the rescue. I loved her, my mother loved her, her grandmother loved me, and it was pretty clear that I was really good for her, and she was very good for me in a lot of ways too. But long story short, year after year we started to decline and I really think a lot of it was my mother's illness. We still ended up getting married though as I thought at the time we were "soul mates" (yeah, I know). I was actually really happy to get married. I really loved her. She definitely had her moments but she was my person, my partner. We bought a house in the same time frame. Things were going well.
Then in 2013, while my mother's illness was still looming but at bay, her grandmother was suddenly diagnosed with cancer and died within 3 months. I was shocked. It was heartbreaking. Like the one thing that I know would break the poor girl more than anything else in the world JUST HAPPENED. It was beyond devastating for her... it was also the turning point for her.
She ended up quitting her job she had been in for 2 years due to "conflict of interest" with her employer, which basically means she didn't get along with her and I guess one too many snide comments got the better of her and she left. She decided to stay home with our daughter and live off her grandmothers inheritance, stocks, whatever she had. I would still work the same job that at the time I was at for 10 years. She started getting tattoos (big ones) and collecting specialty dolls, and then eventually turned that into a business. I didn't know she had that kind of savvy. By the end of 2015, my mom had passed away, and my wife suddenly got into the MLM clothing business (I'll keep the name out of here to prevent searches, but some of you may know what I'm talking about). She got really good at it quickly, got a huge team of people under her and started making crazy money. It got so good in fact, that she told me we could do even better if I were to quit my long-time job and come home to work with her. Also at this time, she was pregnant with our 2nd child. It was definitely a huge risk, but I was willing to take it and anyone who is married knows that it's supposed to be a joint effort. It wasn't without doubt; I don't have that kind of trust in anything that makes you money quickly and in large sums. Plus, multi-level marketing businesses are typically cash cows and work well when the pickin's are good, but when they tank you better not have squandered all of that cash... but I took the opportunity.
It ended up being that I was a stay-at-home Dad and while she ran her 'business', I pretty much took on 100% baby duty. I really mean 100% if you exclude the couple months she breastfed... it was insane. I had no issue doing it either, but it got really boring during the day with the lack of real work. So I bonded really well with the baby and we went out and galavanted a lot. My older daughter, whom I still was primary caregiver for (what I mean by that is, I always put her to bed, took her to school, etc etc all the parent-y things), was going through the rough part of 4 so it was nice to have a little baby to watch develop for a change of scenery. At this point my wife was so involved in this business that all I was doing was shipping items every other night, taking her pictures for the inventory on her site, and doing all baby stuff. It wasn't a lot, really. She started going on these business trips across the country, and also told me she was going on a well-deserved spa trip for the weekend by herself which I happily granted and took the kids while she relaxed. Really, I saw no issue. She was always home. She was always there when I went to bed and always there when I got home from work. I mean the girl never went anywhere. Well, until this business that is... I just never thought anything negative of it. However, she was becoming more and more of a bossy b*tch and it was really getting old quick. It's as if the death of her grandmother, the new tattoos, and this business where she suddenly got the motivation to get up in the morning and be a girl boss really turned her into something I didn't recognize. And frankly, didn't care for. But, I knew she was making bank... we just bought a couple BMWs... went to Disney, other family trips etc... there was money, and I really didn't have to do much for it other than be a Dad...
One day, almost a year in, I got a phone call from her while she was on the road and she mentioned that I might want to start looking for work come the fall. "Business was starting to 'tank' and she was afraid of being able to keep up on the one income." So, like any dutiful husband would do, I went back to my employer and asked for my job back, which he gave me back in a heartbeat (that was awesome, he knew I f'd up) AND, I also took on some nights with my friend working a second job for extra income too. She claimed she was ok with the kids alone, which I felt was not entirely true because I had taken on the baby 100%.
Oh, and did I mention she went and had a gastric bypass surgery for weight loss in the middle of all this? Not that it's important for the story, but... just to add to the transformation...
I went back to work, got all reacquainted with my job I'd now been in for almost 14 years, made myself focus on the job and yet still help her at night doing the shipping and packing. A little less than a month in, I receive an email on my phone from someone I'd never heard of (went into the business email account) saying that her son was very upset and wouldn't talk to anyone about it and if she knew what was going on. I immediately asked her who he was, and she said she had no idea, that it was probably a mistake email. Nice try. Within a few minutes we received another one from the same person saying sorry, i addressed this to the wrong person. Yeah... ok. I questioned it, but she said I was crazy to think she had a "side-guy". A couple weeks later, I left for work like any other day, she was on the couch, I said goodbye and I love you, gave her the signature dual kiss and was on my way. I immediately noticed her car key was missing off my chain. I started searching for it thinking I lost it, but she said not to worry about it and that if it turned up she'd let me know. Later in that day, the business email stopped working on my phone. I figured it was just a server glitch. Completely oblivious. By that afternoon I stopped hearing from her, which was a regular occurrence. I went home early to check on everyone and that's when I found she had left.
Not only had she left, but she PLANNED this move for a while. She had two of her friends from out of state come and move the stuff out while I was at work. When I got the divorce papers the next day, it occurred to me she probably called me that day from the car about going back to work as she was driving away from a law firm.
The next 8 months would be some of the worst I'd ever had in my life. My mom's death didn't even come close to this and that was supposed to be the event that left me damaged. I now find out that she moved about an hour and a half away, almost into the next state. I start to see my 'kids' on weekends which was hard enough to deal with. I stayed in our marital home because hey, she left... I wanted to keep my house. I didn't know if I'd be able to or not, but I wanted to try. I'm told shortly after that she started seeing someone 'casually' within a week or two of leaving (right after saying "I don't have a boyfriend or need one"). THEN... I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, who told me there was some 'chatter' around the interwebs and groups that the baby was not mine... I asked if it might happen to be a certain someone (recall the email?) and she said yes.
The 'estranged' wife apparently saw all of these conversations because before she left, she made sure to steal my iPad and monitor all of my messages until I found out a week later it was actually missing (didn't use it often enough to notice). She finally called me on a Saturday while I had both kids and admitted to the affair, but that she started getting nervous about the timing of the pregnancy and so she contacted him to do a DNA test, and then proceeded to share those results with me. She then told me, as I could clearly see on the report, that the DNA was not a match so the baby was definitely mine. Well, looking now at the fact that the last couple years of our relationship was clearly a sequence of lies and coverups, I took it upon myself to do the horrific task of DNA testing the baby against my own and getting my own results.
I opened the email with the results in it as I was walking into the gym locker room (another thing I suddenly felt like doing, along with not eating). I nearly collapsed again when I read the result and saw that we had absolutely NO genetic relation at all. Why did she lie to me about something so serious? I got in the car, and texted her a screenshot of the results to which she said she can't understand, blah blah blah, maybe it was this one time at the spa when I was drunk, don't know who he is...etc.. Just absolute garbage. Here is someone I had trusted for 10 years, never thought for a second she'd cheat on me or ever be unfaithful, and suddenly I'm sitting here in shambles about to drink myself to death knowing that the baby I just spent 10 months getting to know, bonding with, and taking care of 100% WASN'T MINE??
I got home, and opened a fresh bottle of JD and just started going to town. The texts were still going back and forth. Earlier, I had found out who the affair was with, and had looked up his FB. Turned out he was married too. So, I messaged him. Nothing too incriminating, but basically said I wanted to talk to him man to man and that I had just found out the baby wasn't mine, but apparently wasn't his either. I said this to him because suddenly the email that I got that day from mother jived with the date of the DNA results she had. So it seemed viable he was upset about not being the father. Plus, the way she started talking about him made him out to be a real winner, so I really thought he was innocent in this and there really was a "spa night". As soon as I messaged him, I got a response from her freaking out that I'm endangering everyones lives by contacting him etc etc. Drunk as hell, I kept going, didn't care... I asked him how it could be so convenient that as soon as I messaged him he's already talking to her when this affair supposedly had been over for a long time... and he said he had no idea why I was telling him this stuff, and that the relationship had been over and that he just contacted her asking why I was suddenly going at him. Yeah, right.
The very next day, she told me I'd not be seeing the baby anymore as she is not mine and she didn't feel comfortable letting me take her. How quickly that changed huh? She then told me that she'd be moving back closer to me when her lease came due, so I'd be closer to my daughter. At this point I was fighting to get my daughter back home. It was all I cared about at that point. A month or two later, I get the call that she is moving out of state to be with the affair guy. Mind you, she was dating some other guy while this was all going on. I gave her hell and said she was supposed to move closer... and that's when I finally said "you're going to him because he's the father, isn't he..." and she said yes. And then it all became clear. The hair color, the looks, everything... was this other guy. Now I was destined to get my real daughter home with me. There was no way I'd let this happen.
Cut to the present day. Estranged wife is thin, engaged to affair guy and pregnant. Mind you... she's still legally married to me. She still has crap left at my house (a considerable amount of crap) that I "I" took the time to pack up nicely and organized, in hopes she'd get it out soon (not 8 months and counting...). She's moving 2+ hours away to be with affair guy and a house full of kids. I still see the baby that's not mine regularly, at drop offs and on the ipad (facetime with my daughter). The court would not let her move with the joint custody agreement, so she had no choice but to let me take my daughter full time / primary residence. My daughter is psyched. We have a special bond. Plus, she is going to be the only child in a house of 5 kids (funny my wife could barely deal with 1) that isn't calling this guy Dad, and since her mother seems to think I'm the sh*t of the Earth somehow, she's also linked directly to me in that way... know what I mean? She's better off here with me. For school, for everything. I'll get her at the end of the summer (my choice; want her to finish up school in her current class). Oh and I found out that the estranged wife supposedly now has her new man working with her also. Is that not crazy?
And don't think in between all of this that I hadn't considered doing a DNA test on my daughter also just to settle my stomach, but the thought of finding out she isn't mine would probably push me over the edge at this point and I don't want to go there... I'm satisfied knowing that A) she looks like me and my family, B) she is like my spawn in every way, and C) the wife wouldn't fight me this hard and continue to deal with me if she wasn't my biological child, so, with all if that in mind I actually do sleep well at night.
The thing is, a story like this is a total Lifetime movie or a book. I've been told it by many different people, and I actually tell my story with zero shame to anyone who will listen to it. Because I can sleep knowing this was not me. This was her. This was a sudden change in her life that either made her go manic, or she's just a total narcissist. Maybe a slight personality disorder, who knows. It isn't normal by any stretch: bypass surgery, many tattoos in a short span of time, new hair color, new place, new guy, new ring, new baby... in what, 6 months?
(she wasn't even with him when this all went down). Problem is, it still gets me down a lot. Tonight for example, i came across an unopened picture of us all from a vacation we took. And not only that, but there was a christmas ornament and a friggin' snow globe with it also that had the stupid picture plastered all over the inside. It made me see the person I used to know. And then I did the worst move, by doing the FB search and seeing her new pictures. Mind you, I see her regularly for pickups and drop-offs... and I see him. And it's usually ok because I know she's not a new person and there's got to be something that poor dude is putting up with that he won't admit... but, pictures are deceiving as hell, and I think sometimes they actually make you believe what you are looking at is real. Seeing her happy, smiling and looking beautiful and thin and totally different, really just depresses me sometimes. I'm much happier in the shoes I'm in now, though, trust me. I have no obligations to anyone other than my 5 year old. And she loves me to death. At my age, it's the most important thing in my life. Everything else is secondary.
But, if you made it this far holy crap and congratulations...
This has affected me in so many ways and I'm surprised i'm actually functional. In fact, I've been asked by many people, including 2 professionals (whom I deemed quite necessary after this) how I actually get up in the morning and function. I guess the simple answer is, because I have to. I mean it's not my style to drink myself to death for real, or blow my brains out. I have a beautiful, smart and well spoken child that I care more about than anything else and if I can help it, I don't want to miss out on her future. I know most of her manners and intelligence come from my constant 'lessons' and parenting. I'm not the richest dad on the block, and she's getting used to "daddy can't afford it", but for right now we have our house and I still have my underwater Bimmer that somehow I can still afford, so we can get by ok. The ex has to pay me child support and part of my mortgage (mortgage only temporarily until the end of summer), so that's a nice plus on my side. I haven't had to sell any of my good musical gear, nor do I plan to.
I am sorry for this long-winded story, but hopefully it is something that can make someone else feel better about their life (well, unless yours tops mine, which is entirely possible in this day in age). I always say to people, "just be glad it wasn't you. Be glad it was the other guy". I try to stay as positive as I can as hard as it is because I do know someone else out there does have it wayyyy worse, and this is chicken sh*t. But, I felt I would share...