One way or another

Greetings, Friends of For Children's Sake! So... as those closest to me already know, my ex and I split up, and rather than leaving with clothing, he took the computer and is holding my writing and data files and my image files hostage because he wants the sofa back, which he only paid half for in the first place. His contribution was about the value of the camera he stole. And worth tens of thousands of dollars less than the data and image files. Which he says may not even be "salvageable." Which indicates that they were not only stolen, but he attempted to destroy them.

No matter. Anyone who knows me knows that I am resilient. What he wanted with my stock photos and my personal photos and videos of my daughter's Christmas program, pictures of her friends, or my family's birthday parties, is beyond me. 99 percent of the files were mine.

But I have memories. And I have my intellect. And I have my sanity back. He has my son. Which is heart-wrenching. So, this is the first time I have made a trip to the library to write a blog since he threatened to kill me and my daughter, a month ago yesterday.

It hurts to talk about parenting right now. Although I think I am pretty good at it. My daughter's behavior has shown a complete 180 since leaving the situation. And my son apparently asks his father, who told me he will never allow me to see this little boy who was not born from my body but who still somehow initiated lactation (!) "Where's Momma?" every night. All night. Good. I hope that is very convicting for someone who has lied to his entire family about me and about his behavior and habits, and who lies to himself daily.

In my daughter's words, while discussing how much we miss his son, who she calls her "real brother," she said "At first, [he] was a good Daddy. He was so good, I almost forgot about my real dad. But then, he started being mean to you. And then he started saying mean things to me about you. If this happened back then, I would really miss him. But now, I don't really miss him all that much. Thank you for making us move, Momma." I never told anyone, but she didn't bring up her bio dad in therapy. She brought up her "step-dad." To-be. And how he treated me. And how much it upset her to see me like that.

And yet he claims that the protective order was a ploy to pick through his belongings. Funny, as I recall it, I was the one with all the furniture and the dishes and the fully formed apartment and the storage unit full of appliances and even more furniture and furnishings when we moved in together and he started calling me his "wife," "spouse," and "fiancee," depending on the day. He was lying about the reasons for his relationship with the bio mom's ending and living with his parents.

But no matter. No matter that my baby's father has told me that I will never see this child again, who, in truth, he barely knows, because he checked out and left me to act almost as a single parent for nearly two years. No matter that he never wants to "see [my] face or hear [my] voice again." No matter that he doesn't realize that it would only be helping himself to be cooperative and put the best interests of his son at the forefront, not his own hurt pride and masked shame over the things he has said and done. Perhaps my son will come across a picture of me one day in a newspaper and something in his heart will jump because he recognizes my face. Perhaps he will hear my voice on a radio interview or on television, and remember the voice that sang to him from 5 months old. That whispered him awake in the mornings.

Perhaps.