Month: April 2016

And this is why I try so hard.   For the past few days, life has been magical again short of re-injuring my pelvis to the point of blood coming out of my orifice.  He has written beautiful notes to me and has been generally kind and supportive.  This I can live with.  This I enjoy.  This is what needs to continue.  I will share more of what transpired between last post and this post soon. For now, this sleep deprived mama needs some zzzzs.

I was feeling so good! I created a blog, a potluck group, and met a new mama who I’m going to do playdates with.  Then this man who calls me a bitch, says he understands why I was beaten, threatens to spit in my face, calls me a cry baby when tears fill my eyes, and repeatedly says he doesn’t care about me or what I feel comes traipsing in.  Huh? You just want to stroll on in like nothing happened? I don’t thing so.  I may have a broken pelvis and have no family around to help or money to support us but I will not be a victim.  Oh no- not this warrior mama.  I was subjected to that as a child and it has taken my entire life to recover.  Apparently I haven’t even recovered if I’m in the same type of situation since it feels comfortable and familiar to my poor sweet nervous system.  But I adore my kids too much to put them in a similar scenario.  The difference is he is kind to the kids and my father was not.  However, he does hate me and treat me similar to the way my father treated my mother.

So I’m putting my baby to sleep and he comes in saying he wants to so I let him.  She starts wailing.  I give him 15 minutes.  She’s wailing to the point of screaming and throwing up.  I come in and her face is swollen and blotchy, her nose is bubbling with snot and her eyes are puffy pink lumps.  My poor darling.  I swoop her into my arms and she momentarily relaxes.  The man just hovers looking at her.  I ask him to leave since it’s weird that he is just looming over us.  She’s not going to bed but sneezing and rubbing her eyes and blowing raspberries.  I deduce that she is teething since she won’t take my boob and is drooling incessantly and gnawing on her fingers.  After an hour of her not going to sleep I reluctantly give her some infant liquid acetaminophen for the pain and within 5 minutes, she’s asleep.  Right after I gave her the dose, he lingers there.  He says he wants to try putting her to sleep again.  I say I don’t feel like leaving her since last time I did, her face puffed up, she got a snuffy nose and became worked up.  He said, “don’t blame me! if you would let me play my music for her, she would be asleep already. But your stupid rules don’t let me put her to sleep!”  I had to ignore him since I have to focus on my baby girl and he is just trying to find something to throw in my face and argue with me about.  His music is Cambodian pop music and always keeps her alert and awake.  Regardless, now this man is my back room.  I wrote him the following text that I watched him read, but he did not respond.  He’s just lingering in my guest room.  Creepy.  Go away.  Here’s my text:

“You call me a bitch, say I deserved to be beat up, threaten to spit in my face, call me a cry baby for starting to cry, say you don’t care about me, and punish me for asking for 2 hours to myself by leaving for 1 month. I can’t live like that. Cambodian New Year was great- that’s the man who makes me happy. The other one makes me feel like I’m dead inside. I can’t live with a man who feels such hated for me. Why did u come back? You don’t feel sorry and say I deserve it which no woman does. So if you don’t feel sorry and it will happen again and it’s how you feel- why are you here? The back and forth is fuxking with my and the kids’ heads. The happiest time of my life is being robbed. No matter how hard I try, you hate me and will put me down and spread your unhappiness to me. I can only move forward with love, kindness and understanding. Unless you feel those things for me there is no reason for us. I’m pretty sure I know your answer since you tell me over and over you don’t care about me and would rather get away from me…. So go- stop hating and punishing me. I deserve love, help, comfort and support. That’s it. And gratitude. When you came home my energy left and my spirit died. How can I share a roof with someone who wants to beat me up? Bad energy.”

So he kept true to his promise and didn’t come home.  Although I still set him aside a plate and continued to glance out the window for his van, I felt invigorated today! The absence of his negativity actually increased my energy! 🙂 I am a powerful beautiful woman who will not believe the lies he tells me about myself.  I have done everything in my power to make him happy, yet it is not enough.  I did not cook when we met much, but I cook these elaborate gourmet meals that are his cultural cuisine in order to please him.  I support him having week nights away from the home so he can relax and sleep without being awoken by his children.  I am intimate with him whenever he is in the mood, in fact, I initiate it most of the time. At least I can be proud of myself for doing everything I possible could to make my children’s father happy.  The rest is up to him.  But there will be no more emotional abuse.

In order to ensure this, I will create a community of fellow like minded women.  A tribe.  A sisterhood.  This unity and bond will strengthen us so that this type of situation does not rear its unsavory head in our lives again!

So you don’t think I’m insane for even entertaining this man in my life, there is always a flip side to every coin.  I have flowers every week from him.  He writes me little notes on toilet paper the mornings that he is here.  He laughs and plays with the kids.  He has provided financial support thus far although he does threaten it.  As well, he reduced the amount significantly by a thousand dollars when I begged for him to spend the weekend with his children.  He is never affectionate with me, never says sorry, never asks me how I’m doing.  In fact, when I do share, he says he doesn’t care.  If I say Im tired, he responds that he is moreso and we should swap places and he can stay at home and I work.  No comfort, no love, no compassion, no sharing.  Whats wrong with me? Sounds like my father when I was a child!  Goodness grief! How did a post about his kindnesses turn into one about his meanness? Because the scales weigh heavily in one direction.  Don’t abuse your children, because it hardwires them to accept and normalize that type of behavior in their adult lives.  I must find the courage to leave.  I have an education.  I don’t want to miss my kids’ childhood by working but staying at home being emotionally abused isn’t enabling me to be very present anyways.  What’s worse is his family justifies his behavior and no one believes me.  They say I must have made him angry.  Geeezzz. I must stop this cycle.

So baby daddy stated that he needed ample notice if I wanted a few hours to myself even if it was when the kids were asleep and he was already home.  So I informed him of my intentions for the weekend: return a kitchen pan, get my dog’s prescription, put batteries in the children’s toys and adjust the cameras around the home.  He responded, “whatever, I just go with the flow.” Hah! I reminded him that he recently just flipped out because I wanted to go to a movie and he wasn’t given enough time to prepare for that.  For that very reason I gave him plenty of advance notice of my weekend chore plans so he wouldn’t be frayed.  He became upset stating that if I was so stressed out that I needed a few hours to myself then maybe he should get custody of the kids.  He said it would be easy as they would sleep, eat fast food and watch TV all day.  Hell no! My children will not have their bodies and brains rot in such a manner! This is the man who smokes in front of my kids, lets my baby play with his lighter and staple guns and is furious at me when I remove them and tell him those activities are unacceptable.  I think not! I said that he gets 2 days off a week to do whatever he wants free of the family or any responsibility, but I just wanted 2 hours.  He replied, “You are just a jealous woman.  How about this, I won’t come home for a month and then we will see how stressed out you are!”

So there it is.  No stress for a month.  Granted no baths. No help with yard work or heavy lifting or taking out the trash.  But also no put downs, no negativity, no ingratitude, and no more cooking speciality intensive foods for him.  I feel freer and happier already.

Oh, I forgot to tell you another nugget of loveliness about this delightful man.  When I was upset with him about not permitting me to have 2 hours break, he said that he understood why I was beat up as a child.  The way I act is deserving of such.  Wow! Who is this man!?

I swear to you, to the rest of the world he is an angel, the man I fell in love with.  He told me that the reason I get this side of him is because I know him.  He has no close friends, so everyone gets the surface him, and no one is around him enough to trigger anything inside of him or piss him off.  At least if he agrees to visit the kids they will get to enjoy that side of him.  After all, it’s that side of him that keeps lassoing me back in.  He never apologizes per se, he just turns on the charm and I forget the belittling comments, the insensitivity and think that maybe it was just all my fault.

That’s where the blog comes in.  I will have proof and evidence of what occurs.  It’s not FB so I don’t have to concern myself with smearing his good name.  It’s an anonymous blog so I can be as free as a bee in a tree singing whee! xox 😉

So as this mother’s day approaches, I am reminded of my first mother’s day 2 days after my son was born.  I asked his father what he was planning for me for mother’s day and he stated, “why would I get you anything for mother’s day? You haven’t done anything as a mother yet!” I spent 33 hours in labor and 9 months carrying our child, not to mention years of preparing myself and my surroundings to be appropriate for motherhood, yet he feels I have done nothing as a mother.  The following year, when my son turned 1 year old, he still did not feel the need to do anything for mother’s day so I got myself a facial.  This year, I’m thinking that ridding myself of this man will be the best mother’s day gift ever.

                    

I am livid. I’m exhausted.  I don’t sleep because my 23 month old is transitioning from his crib to his own car bed (since he was climbing out of his crib).  I am trying to transition my 6 month old into the crib since my pelvis is not healing with her sleeping in the bed (being drained of milk all night lying on your side with extra hip compression is not conducive to repair).  My kids’ father stays away 2 nights a week so he can get uninterrupted sleep and the nights he does come home, it’s usually 7:30pm. Do you know how hard it is to function without sleep? Do you know how difficult it is to function without breaks? Like zero? Eating your breakfast at 1pm because that is when you have a tiny overlap of time with the children’s naps?

So the other night I’m so excited because I cleaned all the dishes, put away all the toys, folded all the laundry, emptied all the trashes, put both kids to sleep and took a shower all by 9:20pm! Miracle! Their kids father was home that evening so I asked him if I could go see a 9:40 showing of Batman vs. Superman since the kids were in bed and everything was taken care of in the house.  He drained my hopes within seconds.

“You are a mother! You can’t leave the house! What if the kids need you?” I was dumbfounded.  Are you serious? I responded, “You are their father- if they wake up rock them back to sleep, but they are fed and sang to and rocked already so they should be good for the next two hours.”  He said, ” for a stupid move? This is dumb.” I replied that I needed a break.  A two hour break is nothing.  Federal law gives everyone lunch breaks but mothers get none.  I just need two hours to veg out and relax.  Two hours in two years is nothing.

I’m fried.  I’m to the point where I stare out the windows with glazed eyes.  There is no creativity going on with my kids.  I’m not able to dance and laugh and find inventive projects for us like I was in the beginning.  I am burned out.  Zero breaks.  Like zero.  No help.  And when I try to share my exhaustion or my tales or needs with baby daddy? Hah! He says, “I don’t care! You want to go to work and stay home? No problem- it’s easy.  I will just sit them in front of the TV and we will sleep all day every day.” If I cry, he calls me a cry baby and says how dare I complain when his mother took care of 7 kids in the projects and never complained.  I have to add that his mother had welfare to pay for food and a husband in the home to help as well as older children, a sister and friends nearby.  He then tells me not to compare despite him bringing up the comparison in the first place.

I look at my firstborn’s precious eyes as he yearns for my participation.  I hate his father for robbing me of any energy that I need so I can be the mother I can be, I want to be, I beg to be!

So after guilting me he finally says, “fine, go to your movie- just go!”  I reluctantly leave, but know I need it so I can be more present and available to my kids.  Just two hours.  However, as I’m driving I’m so fed up with him and his reaction and his lack of compassion or understanding and self-centeredness that I start screaming! I pull over the side of the road and scream until I lose my voice.  I want to leave him.  I want to kick him out of my house, but I know that I will suffer a greater loss.  No baths when he is home.  No grocery shopping at 9pm when he is home to supervise the kids while they sleep.  No one to play with my son and take him on bike rides while I nurse my baby girl.  No financial support so I can stay at home to raise my kids.  Yes, I will accept this bullshit.  I just have to stop expecting him to be reasonable and thoughtful and understanding.  He is an asshole and the sooner I can get that through my thick skull the happier we will all be because I will not be disappointed.

I drove home and just went to sleep only to be awoken in two hours by crying babies.

Two days later and I’m exhausted. I only sought after the two hour break out of desperation- my breaking point.  My eyes are glazed and I cannot focus.  I just have so much resentment and anger and desperate need to have a few moments to relax.  This morning was filled with my son hanging on my leg screaming as I held my baby and tried to make them breakfast.  He reached for my tea and it spilled, wetting bills, photos, a deck of cards amongst other piles strewn on the table.  Baby girl was exercising her new found skills at throwing by launching her pureed carrots and black beans onto the family room carpet.  Attempts at changing poopy diapers resulted in butt skidding across the same bean smeared carpet.  I hurriedly scrub up the evidence so my baby girl doesn’t do tummy time on feces.  As I scrub, pieces of food bounce out of the carpet so I take out the vacuum and clean up the floor.  Meanwhile, it becomes nap time and as I try to alternatively put my babies down (which fails most days because each one needs attention), I find a bowl of two day old food that their father left in our bedroom in a corner.

So I’m pissed.  I have no one to call to complain about it to because there is no time.  I cannot seek comfort or solace from baby daddy because he always responds with an, “I don’t care”.  This is true mind you.  Almost every time.  So right now- in order to function- in order to vent- in order to focus- I sprinkled some urine on his dirty laundry.  I had to get back at him.  It felt good.  Damn good.  No one saw me.  My kids don’t know.  But I do.  It’s not as though I’m not urinated on all day long with my baby.  And it was just a tiny bit on his dirty clothes pile so it won’t even affect anything, but when he wears his stupid clothes, I will laugh inside.  Finally, gaining some sort of humor.

No Fear- Only TRUTH

Here we go embarking on an adventure of sharing, truth, laughter, anger, compassion… everything that is comprised of being a real mama.  I am a mother of two precious children under two.  I have a broken pelvis.  I have no family nearby and baby daddy is rarely here.  Face to face contact feels almost impossible at times given my scenario, so in order to maintain sanity, in order to have an outlet to express myself, in order to connect with other mamas out there, real mama is born. I love you my fellow sisters on this journey and I hope for any brothers out there- you listen with an open heart.