When your kid is not safe…

Heya.

                So I have to get this off of my brain and onto paper before I lose my mind.  I’m sitting here on a Friday night knowing that my little girl’s stepdad has been drinking all afternoon, and she’s stuck there with him.  And when you are not sure how he is treating her, it messes with your mind. 

                Now you have to understand this guy is a textbook Napoleon Complex with a beard and big ears.  He gets his self-esteem from being a tyrannical domestic enforcer with an “As long as you live in my house” mentality that makes me insane.  I know this one; if he was 6 inches taller, he’d be my dad.  He controls who she has as friends, where she goes, what she does, extracurriculars, the works.  He hates me with a passion.  And he takes that passion and uses it to malign me to my daughter.  Not just talk me down, but punish her for being my daughter.

                And I am not just being a bitter dad dinging the guy that married my daughter’s mom.  I have heard horror stories of the way he talks to her.  Tales of yardsticks and making her pull her pants down, belts, screaming, temper tantrums. And making her cry as a control technique.  This has been going on for years.  He works her like chattel and then makes her get his beers.  He firmly believes he is acting in her best interests and is not doing anything wrong.  And if he is right, then why change?

                And it makes me sick.  I want to beat him until my arm gets tired. I’ve tried calling him out, talking to his wife like shit, ignoring him, trying to talk to him.  May as well talk to a Chihuahua with beer breath and a lisp.  If my daughter was not involved, he’d be pathetic.  But since he thinks he runs my daughter’s life, he is a bully and dangerous. 

                Not to mention fake.  He threatens her with her life if she calls him on his actions, and he makes her pay for defiance.  He’s all smiles and hugs at church or the basketball game, and then flips like a switch when they get home.

                Case in point.  I recently had Cambree for my holiday visit, and a friend of hers was having a slumber party.  So she went to hang out, and the following day they wanted to go skating.  Well I had no problem with that, and she stayed an extra night.  And that night we got a monstrous snow that closed businesses and made travel dangerous.  So I figured rather than go out in this crap, she can stay.  I mean it is a half hour drive on roads that were covered in ice.  It made sense to me.   SO I informed Cambree’s mother that she was in Superior and she could pick her up there.

                The next thing I know, I get a call from the mother, Heather, that Robert called growling at her and was on his way to pick her up.  I have Cambree until 7:00 PM on that holiday, so I told her not to release her to him until then.  And since he was such a shit on the phone, when he shows up she starts recording and sets the phone down around the corner.  So we get to hear Mr Rich call me an ass to my daughter, which he apparently does often because she seemed unsurprised to hear it.  He then tries to bully her into leaving before 7:00, and she wants to stay.  So he screams at her, she bursts into tears, and he walks away.  On his way out the door, he spends over 2 minutes berating me to Heather, whom he does not even know.  So he bitches about me to a complete stranger in front of my daughter, who has been crying this entire time.  Sounds like a pattern of behavior to me.  And with a final “You’ll have to deal with me when you get home”, he leaves.  Yeah, that’s a tough guy.

                So Cambree loses it, has a panic attack, and I get called to come talk her down.  The police arrive, and we make a report.  And since I KNOW he will make it difficult, I take her home with me so they can come get her, which they do.  And when they get her home, they search all her stuff and toss her room.  And to make his point, he orders her into the bedroom with her mother and has her strip-searched.  For what?  Standing up to him?  Following the rules?  No.  He needed to make sure she knew the penalty for defying him.  And so he degraded her into submission.  The entire thing was a mega mind fuck to break her spirit since she tried to stand up for herself.  And he thinks it is justified.  He even said so to the police.  He called it a “consequence of her bad behavior”.  And I still have not heard shit from them regarding it.

                Now understand, I have NO problem having a kid strip searched if the need arises.  But for one thing, Cambree is not a discipline case.  There has been no history of ANY actions that would justify being strip searched.  And don’t get me wrong, if the need arose, I would have it done.  And I told Cambree that.  But you don’t do it by brow-beating her into submission, or without notifying their other parent.  You communicate with them; decide on a plan of action, and then act.  I’d take her to the police station, or a clinic.  Once again, he knew there would be blowback, so he did whatever he wanted. 

                And that is his pattern.  He ignores the court order at his convenience, violates my little girl’s space and trust, berates her, humiliates her, and causes her endless anxiety.  And while I have not heard of physical punishment in quite a while, I know he is capable of it.  And THAT will escalate the situation rapidly into one that requires a very different resolution.  He is negative and disrespectful of authority and a drunk.  And he makes me heartily sick.

                And on nights like this I worry what she is going through.  Did he go off on her again and now she’s curled up in her room crying?  Is he screaming at her mom and Cambree is trying to ignore it?  What kind of shit is he stirring right now?

                And who does this dude think he is, not giving me any respect as my daughter’s father?  I had to show her a birth certificate when she was 7.  Yes.  This guy and her mother, in all of their sick and twisted thinking, told my little girl that HE was her dad, not me.  And then put the fear of God in her if she talked about it.  So after a few weeks of noticing something was wrong, she tearfully told me what they had said.  And I dutifully took out the birth certificate I have with my name on it, since her mother uses the one that says “Unknown” after refusing to add me to it, or give Cambree my last name.  Who does that to a child?

                And the list is endless.  They miss visits, ignore calls, do what they want, talk about me like a social disease, and basically make life miserable, because THEY are miserable.  When Cambree is here, she is happy, and they cannot stand it.  And it has been progressing.  It is getting worse and worse. 

                So I filed for a Protection Order.  I am not sure I can get it, but filing it will show the court how serious it is.  And if I do, then he will have to do what is right, or stay away from her.  And I am ok with that.  Because it is like they do not realize that she is watching all of this.  She knows what is true and what is false.  They still act like she is 7 and is incapable of understanding the whole situation.  She hears what they say, and watches what they do.  And one day her neck is going to be full, and all the mind games and bullying will not stop her from being over it.  I wish we could co-parent effectively, or at least not be horrible to Cambree about it.  And I have tried.  They refuse mediation as ordered.  They take off with my daughter to Colorado during time that is supposed to be mine.  They order her into activities that she doesn’t like to interfere with my time during the week.  It’s like this is some big game and their role is to make it as difficult as they can and break all the rules while I have to follow them.

                I don’t know why.  I have done nothing, even in retaliation, in years.  SHE is the one that left and then lied.  SHE made me choose between my world and my daughter.  SHE is the one that pulled a gun on me.  SHE is the one that lets this little bully manhandle our daughter.  SHE is the one in denial.  SHE is the one that refuses to take responsibility for her part of this.  THEY are the ones talking shit to everyone they meet about me.  Heather is not the first person I have heard that kind of thing from. 

                I have grown and learned and CHANGED.  I am going to make this into a service that helps other fathers going through hell.  Maybe if I can save someone else the tragedy of a shitty co-parent, it will make more sense.  If someone had told me when this started the steps to take to make it easier, I would have listened.  And since they are incapable of changing, they will never believe that I have.  They can only understand from their point of view.  And that, sadly, is unlikely to change. 

                And I am not perfect.  I have to admit that I like getting in some digs when he was talking shit to me.  Hey, I’m human.  But I am getting better.  Every day.

                And that is all that anyone can reasonably expect in this situation.  I mean, look at how I talk to them now.  They just cannot take it, and think it is a game to make them look bad.  LOL, I don’t need to make them look bad.  I have THEM to make them look bad.  And in time, if I do what I am doing and they do what they are doing, that will all come out.  And I know that.

                But it still tastes like shit.  Like, a lot.

                In fact, I need some tequila to rinse that taste out. 

Come do a shot...