Don't let this happen to your kids

It goes without saying that my mom and I have a love hate relationship.

Growing up with her was not easy and she made it hard a lot of times. We grew up in hard times and my mother would always move us for one reason or another be it we couldn't pay rent or she had a fight with her relatives and wanted to move so they couldn't find us.

Never do something to punish people at the expense of your children. We rarely saw our aunts, uncle, and grandparents because of this unless my mom needed a baby sitter. She would always be very condensending to us and to just about everyone else as well. Even to this day when she has her own things to deal with, like her husband in a previous post.

There is one thing that my mother did, well a few things, that has made everything even harder to deal with.

My parents divorced when I was really young, I was 4, my sister 2, and my brother was just a baby. She said she left my father because he didn't care about his family. She said he was cheating on her with someone he worked with and decided to leave him one day. Took the car and drive us across the country to Cli from North Carolina where my brother was born.

From then on i remember visiting my father once vaugely. I believe we lived in National City at this time. That was where I had started going to school. from there we moved many times in that county. I had gone to 5 different grade schools before I got into middle school. Even after that we moved another 3 times. 2 of which were caused by evictions. In all that time I remember getting one x-mas gift from my dad. It had arrived in a package and has left at our doorstep. I saw it was from him and was very excited. at that time i was in the 5th grade at my last school i had to transfer to in grade school. The first time I had talked to him since that visit from my father was in high school, i was gettin a letter for golf and we coudln't afford the jacket so my mom made me call my father. I felt bad that the first time i will talk to him, after what seemed like an eternity, was to ask for money. I felt embarassed. my mom never had us call him on holidays or on our birthday and as far as i could remember he never called either. one time my mom said he was taking us to court over $1 on child support and she was going to make sure that he paid even more. I thought that he was going to be there so I asked her if I could go with her. I was disappointed because my father's attorney was there and not him. I felt betrayed.

Throughout my life growing up with my mom she had nothing nice to say about him, mostly how he was hiding behind his wife's girdle, not paying his child support and that he didn't love us.

After going with my mom I was afraid it was true.

It was just before my wedding when I was planning it that i had told my mom that i wanted my father there. She was not happy. She asked why. I said why not. He is my father and I thought he should be at my wedding. that should have been enough, it was my wedding after all. She got into a funk and between tryign to make arrangements for my husband's family, who is very religious, and my own arrangements, i am pagan so i couldn't have a handfasting without offending them, my mother said she was not going to help me pay for a wedding. I was crushed. I was only working a part time job and my husband was only in A school. We didn't have enough money for the small wedding I was planning. She refused to help me because I decided to have a wedding in a small chapel, her reason was because it wasn't my beliefs and I shouldn't be changing them to suit my husband's family. I just wanted a nice wedding and that was a nice place. It was going to be recorded and I would be able to have a video and send it to everyone. I would have it to remember and watch while my husband was out to sea, like now. Because of that small reason she would not help me, would not even talk to me about it. I tried to talk to my husband's mother about it and she was fed up as well and wouldn't talk to me about it either. She could only go on and on about her oldest son's wedding. I tried to talk to my husband about it as well but with the stress of being in A school at the time he was gettin even more stressed and was talking about calling off the wedding. I was devastated. So I turned to the last person I thought would care, my father.

I used a paid people finder so that I can get his phone number and found out that he had lived inthe same place for many years and had the same number for just as long. My mother's excuses for why he had not called us started falling apart, it was her that kept changing the phone numbers and moving while he had stayed in the same place.

After gathering up the courage I needed to call him I did. We talked for a while and I was so happy to hear that he didn't forget us, that he had missed us and at the end of the conversation he said that he loved me and always had. He was happy that I was gettin married and wished that he could be there for it. Since it was a short month away he wasn't able to make arrangements to come down. That was ok I said. I understand. After talking to him I felt like I was able to talk to my husband about our wedding again. I told my husband that I thought it would be better for us to just go to the court house and elope. We didn't tell anyone but my aunt who i had wanted to be there as our witness. My mom didn't care that she couldn't come, she wouldn't take time of for it at all. Vince felt better with that plan and we got married.

I stayed in touch with my dad to get to know him all over again. last year he was able to take time off when i was going to be in san diego and he dorve down from WA to see us. I told my brother but not my sister. My sister is one who always clung to my mom's skirt and did everything my mom said even to the point of thinking what my mom told her to think. My sister did not spend any time with our father and the only time she talked to him before she left was in a private conversation between her, our mom and father. My mom made a comment, if you want to spend time with your father you can, i won't hold it against you. I think that is why my sister wouldn't do it. We had a reserved day playing mini golf and fishing before finishing the day off at a hookah lounge. Neither my dad or my brother had been to one and we all smoked so i thought it would be nice to lounge around and just talk. My mom was pissed to hear that i took my 19 year old brother to a hookah lounge. and we had a fight that night when we got home. My sister wouldn't say anything so i asked her, why don't you tell mom about the hookah lounges that you have been to i japan, you told me about them yesterday. She said that I was lying. So i said who are you lying to now, me or mom. she didn't say anything else. Cameron my brother jumped to my defense so she rounded on him so I jumped to his defense. she wouldn't or couldn't argue with both of us so we all stopped talking. The next day was the last day my dad was in CA with us so he wanted to make sure my brother had some direction so he wasn't looking for work we had taken him to the navy and army office. The navy wouldn't take him because of his GED at the time and so dad took him to the army office since my dad was previously inthe army when he and my mom were married. They would take him and with cameron taking care of everything and going through with everything he is serving his country and out of my mom's house. He is doing much better now. I know very well my mom never tried to help him and only took him to work with her when she needed help. The night before he left he left us all with gifts. He gave my brother a digital camera since he liked to take pics. He gave me a laptop since I did not have one and was able to e-mail vince from here instead of on my cell phone. To my sister, since she is in the navy he gave her a pendent, one of those saints who protects travlers. It was gold with a gold chain. I had hoped that she would thank him and atleast give him a hug, i was disappointed.

last dec my brother was graduating boot camp and my mom wouldn't come out here and see him at fort benning like she had flown to IL to see my sister graduate the navy boot camp. I told my dad and he made plans to be out here. Mom was going to fly cameron home from atlanta the day he graduated and i knew that it was going to mess up our plans to spend time with our father so I asked her how much would that ticket cost. She was going to spend over 400 for a one way ticket and i told her that was outragous. I did a search that would fit our plans and I told her since cameron had about a month of leave that if he left from the jax airport on the day i picked it would be a scant 250. So she sent me the funds and I bought the ticket. we had a wonderful time spent with our father and Vince met his father in law for the first time. dad and cameron spent their time at our house since we insisted that they stay here. I was surprised that my dad asked about hotels in the area. We have a 3 bedroom apt and were only using one, I insisted that he is going to stay with us. It was wonderful. My dad bought us our first x-mas tree for us, i told him, that we coudn't afford one with our bills and everything and that he couldn't because it was too much. he said it's what parents do.

This x-mas I get to go and visit him, his family and met the brother I never knew i had until i talked to my dad back i 08. He and his wife bought me a round trip plane ticket to go there for x-mas weekend since my husband is gone and buying tickets to go home is too expensive for the holidays. My mom didn't care, hasn't even asked me what i was doing for the holidays since vince is going to be gone. no one from either side of our family has asked even though i have told them that vince is going to be gone. Even though i chat with my mom every other day it is about her problems and how she is doing.

I have talked to my dad about what had happened and my aunt, who i wanted to be our witness at our wedding ahd asked what had happened. Dad said that he had found bills and signs that mom had someone else at the house while he was gone and a 400 phone bill with lots of calls to the marine base. He had gone out one night to the bar with his friends and when he came home we were gone. I asked him about holidays and he said he sent us cards and packages for holidays and birthdays, we never got anything that said it was from him except for that one package. I guess mom would recieve it and mark it from santa. I remember those packages were always wrapped differently from all the others.

When my dad bought the plane ticket i was overwhelmed. My mom couldn't find time to visit me in ga even when i offered to buy her a plane ticket. to that she said she doesn't like flying. My sister however offered to buy her a plane ticket and spend time with her in HI and my mom jumped on that. My mom was going to take a month off to spend with my sister but it never went through since our great grandmother died the month before my mom's plan to stay with my sister.

So please, if for whatever reason you get a divorce and kids involved don't keep them from the other parent. It is not fair to punish the other parent and hurt the child's relationship with that parent. growing up in that situation it has been so painful, so confusing. It is utterly terrible. these conflicting emotions caused by my mother's actions.. I knew she lied to make herself look better, she told us to do the same when she was having affairs and took us out with her new bfs. So when my dad told me that she ran away to san diego that is where my mom was with my youngest brother's father. I knew it to be true. in the beginning we never stayed with family we already had our own place with him. To see the lengths at which my father will go to spend time with us when my own mom cannot take the time to spend with us but she will for only one daughter.. It is confusing and disappointing to say the least. it also upsets me and angers me as well.

Don't do any of this to your kids. It just isn't fair to them and if they have not done wrong don't do anything that your children will see as a punishment to them. I felt wronged by my mother and loved by the father she said didn't love me.

there is my piece, thanks for reading. Have a nice day/night.