Vent Post: More P Drama
I ended up having three teeth removed yesterday. Turns out I had a pretty severe infection in the one tooth which had yet to erupt, which doesn't make any sense to me. Most things haven't for the last few days--despite the pain medicine, I am still not sleeping well. My anxiety has really been so off the chain, I can't remember the last times didn't wake up in the middle of the night, convinced I am being bitten alive.
No, it isn't bedbugs; I vacuum our bed and switch our mattresses monthly. Also, there are never any bite marks, or itching. It feels like my nerves are misfiring to make me feel things to wake me up or keep me from sleeping. I don't know why, and even the melatonin I've been taking doesn't seem to be helping much.
I'm staying with Martyr and Mayhem to recover, and she called them to ask if they could watch H for a couple of hours. Fine, it's not our day, so whatever Martyr does or doesn't agree to isn't any of my business, even if I am under her roof. P dropped him off around 2, promising to be back to get him around 5.
She didn't roll in until almost 8, and because I've been this side of Narnia thanks to the Vicodin to deal with the pain, we finally had a chance to talk about her Halloween freak-out. It turns out the real issue wasn't about failing to say no when H wanted to take a pumpkin home; she was pissed I'd bought him a Halloween costume without talking to her.
Okay, big eye roll for once again not owning up to what the actual problem was. But a Halloween costume? Seriously?
Apparently, she felt like my purchase of the costume meant she had to use it. I found this to be confusing, since I had told her when I got the costume that I was buying it for the Birth Center's Halloween party, held the Friday or Saturday before. In fact, last year, we did the same thing--we each had a different costume for the different kid events we had going on. It turned out that the Birth Center ended up cancelling their party anyway and that was the last I heard of the costume until I took the kids for their Halloween pictures.
So it seemed weird to get that worked up over it, especially since when we did the hand off, she didn't even ask for his costume. I actually found it upstairs a couple of hours later and sent her a text message, offering to bring it to her. She told me not to worry about it, that they already had arranged something else. So, really, what was the issue again?
Oh, yes. That I bought it, instead of taking her up on the suggestion we go shopping together. This is also something I want to roll my eyes over, because when it was H's birthday a few months ago, she decided she wanted to buy him a bike. B and I were fine with that, but I requested that we pick it out together so we could make sure to have an identical one at our place for him. Since pretty much everyone drives compact cars and the hand-offs are done through the daycare (at the time) it didn't make sense to have the bike go with him. She was enthusiastic about the idea, but she was never available, and his birthday came and went. To this day, I have no idea what his bike looks like, and so B and I ended up scrambling to come up with something else.
Seriously. Such blatant double-standards, I can barely stomach it.
I think that there must be some trouble in paradise. As I mentioned, our previous conversation about Really Heavy Things revealed that she's still not over the break-up with B. But today, she announced that she and her live-in have decided that they're going to get married in the near future. It wasn't quite an engagement, but given that it's been less than two weeks since she told me she's still got a thing for B, it seems like this is a very bad idea.
I don't want her to be unhappy, but I worry about what's going to happen to H. Since she left B, she's been involved with three other men, including the one she's with now. H doesn't need a rotating door of father figures--I'm not against single parents dating, obviously, but with each one, P's met them, gotten involved, moved them in, and had H calling them "Daddy" within weeks. Considering the shit storm she kicked up when B and I moved in together (after years) it also illustrates yet another glaring hypocrisy with her, but the bigger issue is stability for H.
I'm sure we'll be discussing this all in family therapy next month. I'm not looking forward to the session just because I really don't want to hear about the Alleged Cardinal Sin I committed by not telling H "No" about the damn pumpkin or his Halloween costume or whatever her bullshit excuse for her behavior is, because God knows she won't up to the real shit.
Like a few weeks ago, when the therapist asked her why I was kept from being involved in H's life. Do you think P actually said, "Well, you know, I was still harboring the belief that B would see he was supposed to be with me, and I went out of my way to force his hand to make that happen. Like when I found out AMP was pregnant and told B that if she didn't have an abortion, I would make sure that he never saw his son again"? Of course not. She put all the blame on her mom and Martyr, saying that they felt if H couldn't be with either herself or B, he needed to be with a biological grandparent. That's true to an extent, but if she really wanted to be honest, she should have owned up to her part in that.
At least the therapist called her out on going to Martyr about her issues with me. That was a small victory, but nevertheless an important one, since I've had the exact same conversation with Martyr. I usually just bite my tongue in these sessions, because she's already reluctant to be there and the sessions themselves are not designed to be Air My Grievances by nature; we're trying to work together to move forward for H's sake, and some of that involves letting the shit go that she put me through and continues to try to put me through. There are folks who would say that she has plenty of axes to grind against B and I, but to that, I just shrug. They weren't there, they don't know, and if they met her in real life, they'd probably be as snowed as my idiot in-laws, too.
Anyway, I have no idea what her actual deal this past week was. I don't really care. If she can't be direct enough with me in person to own her shit, then do it in therapy. We're paying for it, the least she can do is actually utilize it.
I told her that I just think that the discussion is better saved for a third party. I don't think we're at the point where we need to start relying on a mediator to communicate, but I definitely feel that there have been some steps back lately, and I'm not sure why. I hope it isn't her love life because despite my concerns above, I do genuinely like the guy she's with, I think he's good to H, and she's much more pleasant to deal with when she has someone in her life.
No, it isn't bedbugs; I vacuum our bed and switch our mattresses monthly. Also, there are never any bite marks, or itching. It feels like my nerves are misfiring to make me feel things to wake me up or keep me from sleeping. I don't know why, and even the melatonin I've been taking doesn't seem to be helping much.
I'm staying with Martyr and Mayhem to recover, and she called them to ask if they could watch H for a couple of hours. Fine, it's not our day, so whatever Martyr does or doesn't agree to isn't any of my business, even if I am under her roof. P dropped him off around 2, promising to be back to get him around 5.
She didn't roll in until almost 8, and because I've been this side of Narnia thanks to the Vicodin to deal with the pain, we finally had a chance to talk about her Halloween freak-out. It turns out the real issue wasn't about failing to say no when H wanted to take a pumpkin home; she was pissed I'd bought him a Halloween costume without talking to her.
Okay, big eye roll for once again not owning up to what the actual problem was. But a Halloween costume? Seriously?
Apparently, she felt like my purchase of the costume meant she had to use it. I found this to be confusing, since I had told her when I got the costume that I was buying it for the Birth Center's Halloween party, held the Friday or Saturday before. In fact, last year, we did the same thing--we each had a different costume for the different kid events we had going on. It turned out that the Birth Center ended up cancelling their party anyway and that was the last I heard of the costume until I took the kids for their Halloween pictures.
So it seemed weird to get that worked up over it, especially since when we did the hand off, she didn't even ask for his costume. I actually found it upstairs a couple of hours later and sent her a text message, offering to bring it to her. She told me not to worry about it, that they already had arranged something else. So, really, what was the issue again?
Oh, yes. That I bought it, instead of taking her up on the suggestion we go shopping together. This is also something I want to roll my eyes over, because when it was H's birthday a few months ago, she decided she wanted to buy him a bike. B and I were fine with that, but I requested that we pick it out together so we could make sure to have an identical one at our place for him. Since pretty much everyone drives compact cars and the hand-offs are done through the daycare (at the time) it didn't make sense to have the bike go with him. She was enthusiastic about the idea, but she was never available, and his birthday came and went. To this day, I have no idea what his bike looks like, and so B and I ended up scrambling to come up with something else.
Seriously. Such blatant double-standards, I can barely stomach it.
I think that there must be some trouble in paradise. As I mentioned, our previous conversation about Really Heavy Things revealed that she's still not over the break-up with B. But today, she announced that she and her live-in have decided that they're going to get married in the near future. It wasn't quite an engagement, but given that it's been less than two weeks since she told me she's still got a thing for B, it seems like this is a very bad idea.
I don't want her to be unhappy, but I worry about what's going to happen to H. Since she left B, she's been involved with three other men, including the one she's with now. H doesn't need a rotating door of father figures--I'm not against single parents dating, obviously, but with each one, P's met them, gotten involved, moved them in, and had H calling them "Daddy" within weeks. Considering the shit storm she kicked up when B and I moved in together (after years) it also illustrates yet another glaring hypocrisy with her, but the bigger issue is stability for H.
I'm sure we'll be discussing this all in family therapy next month. I'm not looking forward to the session just because I really don't want to hear about the Alleged Cardinal Sin I committed by not telling H "No" about the damn pumpkin or his Halloween costume or whatever her bullshit excuse for her behavior is, because God knows she won't up to the real shit.
Like a few weeks ago, when the therapist asked her why I was kept from being involved in H's life. Do you think P actually said, "Well, you know, I was still harboring the belief that B would see he was supposed to be with me, and I went out of my way to force his hand to make that happen. Like when I found out AMP was pregnant and told B that if she didn't have an abortion, I would make sure that he never saw his son again"? Of course not. She put all the blame on her mom and Martyr, saying that they felt if H couldn't be with either herself or B, he needed to be with a biological grandparent. That's true to an extent, but if she really wanted to be honest, she should have owned up to her part in that.
At least the therapist called her out on going to Martyr about her issues with me. That was a small victory, but nevertheless an important one, since I've had the exact same conversation with Martyr. I usually just bite my tongue in these sessions, because she's already reluctant to be there and the sessions themselves are not designed to be Air My Grievances by nature; we're trying to work together to move forward for H's sake, and some of that involves letting the shit go that she put me through and continues to try to put me through. There are folks who would say that she has plenty of axes to grind against B and I, but to that, I just shrug. They weren't there, they don't know, and if they met her in real life, they'd probably be as snowed as my idiot in-laws, too.
Anyway, I have no idea what her actual deal this past week was. I don't really care. If she can't be direct enough with me in person to own her shit, then do it in therapy. We're paying for it, the least she can do is actually utilize it.
I told her that I just think that the discussion is better saved for a third party. I don't think we're at the point where we need to start relying on a mediator to communicate, but I definitely feel that there have been some steps back lately, and I'm not sure why. I hope it isn't her love life because despite my concerns above, I do genuinely like the guy she's with, I think he's good to H, and she's much more pleasant to deal with when she has someone in her life.