do they often ask the kids to keep secrets?

[Think About It...]

WOW!  I am so hopeful about your last post Kel!  Please let us know soon what the protective services is up to -

Great job Marc to suggest the letter!  I guess the CAS people realize that judges love letters too.  I can not believe it was something as simple as that - I know at one point I was grasping for anything and wondered if Dr. Phil might help Kel and her little ones!  A letter to CAS really seems much easier now that I think of it - perhaps I have a flare for drama!  Ha.

Kel- make sure you keep posting - how did this weekend go for your son?  How is your daughter?  I think of them so often - I am sending good thoughts for you guys all the time.

Jay

[Jay]

WOW!  I am so hopeful about your last post Kel!  Please let us know soon what the protective services is up to -

Great job Marc to suggest the letter!  I guess the CAS people realize that judges love letters too.  I can not believe it was something as simple as that - I know at one point I was grasping for anything and wondered if Dr. Phil might help Kel and her little ones!  A letter to CAS really seems much easier now that I think of it - perhaps I have a flare for drama!  Ha.

Kel- make sure you keep posting - how did this weekend go for your son?  How is your daughter?  I think of them so often - I am sending good thoughts for you guys all the time.

Jay

[kellaroo]

Hi jay...thanks so much for the post...its so nice to hear from you.

Kids are doing ok.   Daughter is doing a bit better.  No anxiety attacks, no chest pains, etc...but no contact with dad either.

son...he is struggling a bit.   He asked to see the therapist again and is going this week.   He is supose to go for a visit for a week ( ;==) to his dads.   In the four years separated, my exh has never asked for or had them for a week...but of course now, he is.  Son is pretty nervous about it.  I told him if he wanted to visit during the days and come home at night I would fight for that for him.  He says he might want to do that. 

I am hoping that CAS will intervene by then...but I am not holding my breath.   

The kids and I are going camping for a couple days and i am really looking forward to it!

I am hoping that when we get back Dr. Phil will have called and straighten my exh right out!   !   :D

thanks so much Jay for your support and good thoughts... I feel them!

take care!

p.s. how are things in your world?

Kell.

[JoannaK]

Kell, if you had stayed with him until your youngest was, say, 14 or 15, do you think it would have been better for them?  Do you think you would have been able to intervene and avoid any of the stuff that is going on between the ex and your children?  If you had to do it again, knowing what has transpired in the years since you separated, should you have stayed with him longer to protect your kids?

I'm asking because I think yours is the kind of situation that keeps people from leaving abusive spouses...  they are terrified of what will happen to the kids in unsupervised visitation with the abusive parent. 

Would it have been better for your kids to have stayed with him longer?

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[kellaroo]

What an interesting line of questioning Joanna...I used to ask myself that alot but I have quite a different outlook now...

the answer is easy:

I would have left early!

I have no regrets about this relationship ending.  It was the beginning of a much better life for us.  Even with all this chaos still...I am so much happier. 

Fact is , I am a better mother, a better person.   When my exh lived in the same house as him...the focus was him and fighting.  Not me, not my kids.

and yes, the chaos and the abuse does seem to have intensified for all of us at times, I do believe that even my children are going to be better people because of their experiences.

  Also, they see him a visit a week for a few hours and every other w/e.  Well son, does.   Its enough for him to do insane things, but he did insane things when he lived here!   Now they just see that insanity for a few horus a week, not daily.   And because they only see him for short period, they reconize the fact that no one else in their lives acts like him...they reconize that his behavior is not normal...they reconize the effects his behaviors and choices have on them.   

i am quite sure that if he stayed, the effects on me and my 2 kids would have been devasting and spirit killing. 

Its ironic, my exh dad was sexually, physically and emotinally abusive to his wife (exh's mom) and exh and his sister (who is equally as screwed up as my exh).   When my exh and i were together, I used to feel such anger towards his mom.

I often thought...If she had just gotten them out of that house and away from that man when they were younger, then maybe they wouldn't be so devastatingly screwed up now.  But unfortunatley , this chaos, this abuse, this dramatic and painful life...is all they know...it is their norm.  Exh's mom still stands by her man to this day.

My kids and i are blessed to know that those things are not normal.
We are blessed to feel the happiness we feel when we don't take trips to OZ.

   It would hurt me alot to think that even one person did not leave or protect their kids, because of my story. 

Great questions Jo.  Thank you so much.

[John Galt]

Hey Kels,

Some unasked for advice here but...

Visualize CAS on the floor at you looking up, and you make sure that you take your foot and put it over their throat and wiggle it around a little.

How you do this is by following up, and following up and then follow up a little.

I would write a follow up letter and send it registered saying that ''I got your voicemail, thank you, but things are still concerning you. Be polite , firm, and aggressive and a little ruthless never hurt anyone either.

Marc