An Awakening of Sorts

I had an awakening yesterday at approximately 3:37 pm. This is the moment that I realized how niave and stupid I have been in regards to my ex-husband. Because he has been in default with the courts, his visitation got taken away. Not by my actions, but by his. And not by me...by the judge. Except that is NOT what he is telling his family. Ohhhhhh no and I learned that the hard way yesterday afternoon. My ex father-in-law (FIL) called to see if it was okay that he take the kids for the weekend. I am not one who will punish them for their sons actions, so I was fine with that but I wanted to make sure it was okay with my boys. So I called daycare and talked to them and they didn't want to go. We are having a sleepover this weekend with friends and they didn't want to cancel. So... I call the ex FIL back and told them that we were busy this weekend but maybe next weekend. He paused...slowly said ok and there was an awkward silence. I felt like they needed to know the rules of the no visitation so I started to explain and I got as far as "his visitation has been revoked..." and I got "NO IT HAS NOT! YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT! YOU NEED TO PULL YOUR BLEEPITY HEAD OUT OF YOUR BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP AND QUIT LYING!" (caps because he was literally yelling at me). I try to explain I am not the one who took it away, the courts did for non-compliance and was answered with "YOU NEED TO QUIT LYING AND BEING A BLEEPITY BLEEP!" at this point I was trying to explain the situation and I have no idea what he was saying because he was yelling over everything I had to say but there were sure alot of BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP! word said. And then he hung up on me.

Now. I know that my ex had told the new girlfriends family some major lies about me, because they have stopped my family around town and cornered them about it (oh the joys of living in a small town). I have no idea why I ever thought he wasn't telling his OWN family all these lies as well, but I figured he was trying to treat me with respect. I've been very accomodating. He's been able to see the kids whenever he wants, he hasn't paid a lick of child support in almost 4 years, my family has gone out their way to be respectful of him and his family (which is not the case on with his side of the family) and not once have I said a mean thing about him in front of my kids or to my kids or family. I've gone out of my way to make this whole seperation/divorce process as smooth as possible so the kids didn't get thrown in the middle and get screwed up for life. I've been paying every cent of the legal fees, filing fees, etc not to mention taking care of our kids by myself.

So what does this mean to me? I feel stupid for ever thinking that he would be respectful of me. I feel stupid that I trusted him. I guess more than anything I feel betrayed. Why? I don't know. Our entire marriage was full of lies and him cheating on me numerous times....and for some reason I figured that would change? I still haven't figured out why exactly I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

What have I learned from this? I'm no longer going to be bending over backwards to make this an easy process. His dad kicked me straight back into reality and although I will still be respectful (I refuse to sink myself to his level) I will no longer be so accomodating and nice. I will not go out of my way for him and I will no longer let things slide (like child support). I'm done. And that goes for his family too. Its a hard lesson of life for me to learn, thats for sure. But I am no longer going to be the nice guy. Respectful? Yes. But no longer nice.