Hearts and Minds

Well I guess, the ugly part of an ugly divorce is starting whether I wanted it to or not. Saturday morning I called my husband's mom to ask her to keep me in the loop whenever she calls the kids to set up time with them. I told her I wanted the kids to be able to see their grandparents as often as she wanted, but asked her to let me know when plans were made. She said ok. I said thank you and hung up a little relieved that it had gone so smoothly.

Five minutes later my oldest calls from their house, where he was helping his grandfather and getting ready to go somewhere with him, very confused and upset. He asked me why I told Grandma he couldn't go with his Grandpa anymore. I was floored and told him it wasn't true. After we got our comms straight, I asked to talk to Grandma and asked her why she said that. I pointed out that my son's name or what plans they already had weren't even a remote part of the conversation, during which she interrupted me and said I wasn't listening. I responded that I called HER to ask a question and she needed to listen to it before she interrupted ME.

That was the wrong thing to say, I wasted my time because she went off and I hung up.

Then in my anger at her boldfaced lie and her need to involve my child in this mess I drove over right away to get to the bottom of it and to take my attorney's number to them. Earlier in the morning I got their letter from their attorney about a change in the power of attorney dated well before my husband feigned uncertainty about when or if he was going to actually execute this PoA and coupled with his cleaning out our bank account, they probably need to know who my attorney is and that the temporary restraining orders attached to the filing would supersede and alter the PoA they were trying to execute. All that kind of fell on deaf ears disintegrated into asking my husband why he wanted to make all this so hard to which she answered for him, that I basically had it coming to me.

She was pissed I had pre-empted them and began shouting again so I asked her to stop being disrespectful, that I wasn't going to tolerate it and she brought up my hanging up on her. I told her that she was being disrespectful over the phone and I wouldn't be tolerating disrespect telephonically, either.

It didn't go well.

Anyway, the conversation didn't go much better in person and yes, I know. From now on everything will have to be in writing and via an attorney.

In other news, apparently, the kids were interrogated while they were over there this weekend as to what they were eating at home, if I cooked, did I cook, did they etc etc.  They were worried that they had said the wrong things while they were there and while they love their grandmother this new behavior along with how to handle it was causing some distress.

A simple trip to Verizon to turn on my son's smart phone ended with an embarrassed service rep telling me I had no powere over that account either. My son was so bummed. He'd been waiting for weeks to have that phone for his sophomore year.  I really don't care what they say about me. I don't. That part of my life is over, but my kids. Messing with their hearts and minds????  Whoa...THIS and THIS alone is what makes me angry. They are children and my husband is impaired. He may be angry and hurt at my wanting to move on, but he's never let that affect his children until now.


This blows.