The Upper Hand

Summer draws to a close, the boys go back to BM's house on a road trip with her parents. Before we know it, she's telling DH that he has to call her parent's house, and they will call her, and then she will have the boys call DH. There's some mature parenting!

About a month later, Labor Day weekend, DH and I are on our way the eat at the restaurant we had our first official date at, and as we pull into the parking spot, he gets a phone call from BM. She's got the "sick voice" on, and tells DH that she can't care for the boys and he needs to pick them up, since her parents won't.

She asked her parents first? DH was living in the same state as them, about 40 minutes away, and her first thought is the boys should be with her parents????? I'll tell you what her first thought was - who can take them so I don't have to send them to their father! For whatever reason, her parents said no. I'd like to believe they knew deep down that the boys belonged with DH. But they have and still are paying the price for refusing to do that for her. She has held them emotionally and financially hostage ever since.

We made the 14 hour drive that night, only stopping at DH's parents' house to let them know what was going on, and had the boys back in our state, enrolled in school and filed Temporary Custody paperwork by Wednesday.

We did not know at the time that this would be the end of the custody issue, and the beginning of BM's assault on us. We also did not know that she was 5 months pregnant with Perpetual Fiance's baby. It would also be the last thing worthless lawyer #1 accomplished.

Summer 2000, Part 2

During the summer of 2000, I was still in a delusional fog. DH and I had moved in together before the boys came for visitation, and had about 3 months of bliss. We ate out when we wanted, slept in when we wanted, and basically were only apart for work. We went to concerts, spent time with friends and family, took day trips.

When we got back from vacation in my home state, I treated the boys as I had the children I had nannied over the years, with affection and support, but not as a parental figure.

Oh, so naively, I thought I could befriend BM. After all, she had been unfaithful in their marriage, she had wanted the separation, she had moved away, she had a Perpetual Fiance (and later we would find out, a new baby on the way). Surely, she had moved on. Apparently she just wasn't over the Boyd's Bears yet!

After a couple weeks of hammering things out, she and I were able to negotiate terms for the divorce (at this point, DH and her could not carry on a civil conversation for a minute!) DH would pay back taxes, child support and medical insurance, she would maintain custody with DH having summer visitation and alternating Winter vacation. Papers drawn up by worthless lawyer #1. Papers served. All goes to pot over some stupid Boyd's Bears figurines that she thought DH had taken, and she insisted that she didn't have them and she wanted them back or she wasn't signing anything. (She probably found them later when she unpacked her storage unit!) They must have been very sentimental, since they cost her custody of her children.

The beginning...

I met DH in a sports bar the weekend before our home team was about to play in the Superbowl. Not a football fan, per se, but looking to hang out with friends. We arrived at the bar and there was not a seat to be had, except one...

DH had just left the bar, started to head home, and after stopping for some fast food, turned around and headed back...

guess who was sitting in his seat???