Shhh…. I have a secret

I started talking to guys in the PNW. I knew as soon as I could pack up the kids and get the Hell out of OK, I was going to. No reason not to. The ex hadn’t bothered to see the kids but a handful of times in months, despite having to basically pass our house on the way to work.

I was tired of his excuses, and the heartbreak my kids felt every time he didn’t show up for stuff, like birthdays…

Finally, he told me that the whore didn’t want my kids around her darlings. Because I had raised brats.

Yeah, one was severely ADHD (we thought at the time. (Spoiler: another story) And one that was autistic.

But, sure we’ll go with ‘brats’.

Like he didn’t have anything to do with how they were raised. I guess, to be honest, I did do 80% of the raising on my own. However, they weren’t brats. They were just kids that didn’t understand the situation they were in.

Sure my daughter may have poured a bottle of Nair into the whores shampoo, I give all the credit to her for that idea. I only learned about it after. How did she know it wouldn’t effect the kids? Apparently, she had a special expensive shampoo that no one else was allowed to touch.

When the daughter told me what she had done, I did scold her. Made sure she knew that it had not been a nice thing to do.

We went out to dinner that night.

Totally unrelated.

She did a few other things that I don’t remember now. It has been a long time. I do know that she did her very best not to do anything that would hurt the twins. She knew that they weren’t at fault for the games her dad was playing. She was devious. But, she didn’t tell me most of it until after we moved.

Even at 10, she understood the concept of plausible deniability.

All in all, it was probably a good thing that the kids didn’t spend any time at her house after the whore slapped my son. I shudder to think what the daughter would have done. But I am sure it would have been epic.

I’m almost sorry they never went back.

Almost.

The horrible sad thing about all of this? She was daddy’s girl. She absolutely adored her dad. And wondered for a long time afterward what she did wrong that made him want to replace her with another daughter.

Bastard. We would have stayed in OK if he had made an effort to see his kids.

But he did not.

Which prompted me to seek out new friends online from the PNW.

I talked to quite a few until one stood out. Said all of the right things. We started talking on the phone, after chat seemed to be to slow. (remember, this was before cell phones and free long distance calling. Not cheap!)

We both knew that we were both in the process of divorcing and that neither marriage was salvageable. Hell, I even talked to his mom once. She clarified a few things for me about why his marriage blew up.

I believed everything that she said. I think SHE believed everything she said, and that he said.

Sadly, all was not as it seemed. But I was not to find that out until much, much later.