Divorce Story | A story from the heart about divorce and single parenting

• Posted: April 6, 2009
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• Author: Adam
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• Filed under: Divorce Stories
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• Tags: abuse, child, children, divorce, divorce story, family, relationship

I am pleased to present another divorce story submitted by one of our readers. He also thanked Adam's Wedding Dress, in his words: "Thanks so much for starting the site in the first place! It has been incredibly helpful for me personally". For me, this is a reward greater then any amount of money, it is success, the reason I started this site! Jonathan's story is typically not so typical. I hope that you find it helpful to your own situation. I hope you are encouraged to tell your own divorce stories!

Preface: I languished for several days over the thought of posting my story here. It was suggested on a thread from an author I commonly read and had commented on, and it made me think. I try not to dredge up the awful memories too often, as they do not serve me. They bring me back to a time and place I feel are better left behind. But I’ve made a commitment—A commitment to myself and a commitment to my children. To use our experiences and share them so that others, who find themselves in similar situations might find comfort and strength in unity. I know it helped me in our hours of need when I felt like I wasn’t alone. Gave me that extra ounce of strength necessary to keep my sanity for my children’s sake. So here I am, with an abbreviated version of our plight that has been an ongoing story for more than two years. It continues even today as I write this, but God willing, we are beginning to see the light at the end of that proverbial tunnel.
It all started over two years ago when I became aware of an inappropriate relationship between my wife and a contractor that was working at our house. Our kids actually attended school together and that was how they came to know each other. I was working two jobs to dig us out of debt, as she wanted to be a “stay-at-home” mom. It dragged out for a while where she was going back-and-forth between being ‘sorry’ (talking about how “crazy” he is and creepy/clingy) and going back and sneaking around with him. Ultimately she was taking our kids on ‘outings’ with her boyfriend if I was at work or otherwise. It was emotionally taking its toll on our whole family and I could see the distress most visibly in my eldest son. I pleaded with her repeatedly not to involve our kids in her affair. She ignored my requests. I became distraught. She and her boyfriend set up a scenario that would surely set me off and called the cops for arguing in front of the kids and made up allegations of me ‘grabbing’ at her. I was arrested and an order of protection placed against me. She brought this to the school and told them it was for the kids as well. They accepted her story as gospel truth, and when I tried to go see the kids at school—they told me that I could not see my children. I asked them to look at the paperwork more closely and to once again, please let me see my children. They took her word for it without question. She took the kids away and moved them out of the house and for two weeks, I had NO idea where they were or who they were with. She had moved them out of the county and informed the school they would not be back in that district next school year. This was in June.

By mid-to-late July, and around her birthday, she became increasingly more communicative, calling and asking me for special favors and wanting to “talk about things”. She wanted to come see the kids, as it was her birthday. I was very leery of this and didn’t want to be around but she manipulated the situation to make it so she was at our house much of the day and went so far as to kiss me before she left that evening. We had a court date the next day in our divorce proceedings, and she actually started making some headway in her case. The order I had keeping her boyfriend away from my kids (although I had reported on SEVERAL occasions she was breaking this order, NOTHING was ever done) as he had some “issues” that were uncovered in his own divorce I was aware of. She was now claiming that he was abusive and she was afraid for her life. He was, in fact outside in her car right then because she couldn’t leave the house without him there. Long, long story shortened; I allowed her to come back into the house that weekend and I left as this was both confusing for the kids and she still had this bogus order of protection against me. I wanted her to be safe, not to mention, of course, my children. When she realized I was NOT going to be taking her back, that weekend, she ended up going back with him and recanting everything she said, saying that my attorney and I had acted in concert with her own attorney to coerce a false statement from her. Her lawyer obviously had enough after this episode and requested (just short of pleading) to be excused from the case. After many delays and her dragging her feet, the judge finally told her that we were going ahead with the custody hearing whether she had an attorney or not. To avoid a trial she offered 50/50 custody with shared residency with some veiled threats to make me accept this. My attorney’s advice was to take it. I did, reluctantly and only with certain provisions, including continuing an order keeping her from leaving my kids alone with her boyfriend and not allowing him to consume alcohol in the presence of my kids.

Obviously living with someone makes it rather difficult to live by this agreement (and other less stringent rules she violated with regularity) so my lawyer said we would go back for full custody when she started violating and I would be awarded custody. Time went by… I ended up paying child support while keeping the house and stability for my kids to have the only home they ever knew and the judge ordered they stay in my school district at least. She had to drive them in every day on her weeks. They missed A LOT of school when they were with her. I paid for all of their doctor’s bills, insurance, extensive dentist bills. I was determined to make sure they didn’t miss out on a single opportunity or activity they wouldn’t have otherwise in a ‘normal’ family setting. I didn’t want them to suffer for the bad decisions of a mother they had no hand in selecting. She didn’t work, and desperately held onto the facade of a “stay at home” mom while her boyfriend supported her and deserted his own kids and family to the tune of thousands of dollars in back support and lost time. She continued to violate the court orders, even went so far as to admit it to me… I asked my lawyer when we could go back to fight. He kept telling me “it isn’t enough”. Our eldest son would wind up in the emergency room with stomach problems due to stress of her doing the most screwed up things (like having the kids make her boyfriend father’s day cards and have me bring them back to her house early on that day to celebrate it with her boyfriend). I finally stopped hanging onto the fight. I gave up. I stopped bringing the kids to their therapist because she couldn’t break through the wall of silence they had developed. (As it turned out, and it wasn’t surprising, she was “coaching” them not to say anything about their time at her house) (I dislike the word “coaching” by the way; it makes a villainous activity sound almost Disney-like). I just dealt with this insane ping-pong game of one week on, one week off and it became our “normal” for a while: until right before this past Christmas.

On December 20th, my youngest son made a startling statement that will prove to be one of the most profound, life changing moments of my life (the extent of which I am sure I still have yet to comprehend). The rest of my story is still pending litigation, and in fact, is still so tentative I am not at liberty to go into details at this time. Suffice it to say, we have delved into a new level of hell that I don’t think Dante himself dared to contemplate. I am still, even with a judge, a children’s law guardian, a specialized abuse counselor and a myriad of supporters behind me, experiencing the discouraging lack of support and outright disdain a father receives when he is simply trying to keep his kids safe from an abusive situation; Especially one that involves their own mother and her bad choices.

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