Where to begin in Fresh Start

So, I’m not even sure where to start. I’m trying to think of my latest post and where I left things. I’ve remarried and my wife is absolutely amazing. I believe it truly was the right decision. We are coming up in 2 years in a few days of our wedding anniversary. I’ve never had anyone love me for me. That may sound dramatic, but I feel it to my soul. In two years we have overcome her getting breast cancer, custody battles and many other things. We were just told last week that she now have thyroid cancer. Though the doctor says if you have to pick a cancer to have, you want Thyroid Cancer. She is patient and she is kind. We have our disagreements, but we aren’t attacking each other. For the fist time in my life, I don’t feel alone. It’s funny because I have prided myself on my ability to walk alone. I made it a great way on my own and there have been people that were by my side for a while, but none that stuck by me.

Here are the highlights to update everyone. The drama with my ex has ended. It finally came out that thean she ran off with would get physically abusive and she finally had to take out a restraining order on him. Unfortunately she didn’t choose to leave him and they moved across the country. She finally left him last fall and things have calmed way down. My son wants nothing to do with her because the abuse he encountered at her ex husbands hands. She has agreed to allow my wife to adopt him and relinquished all rights to him. She initially asked for 1 hr on my daughter’s birthday and one hour at Christmas for visitation before she moved across the country. We now have agreed that since she isn’t with him, she can fly out here and see my daughter for a week in the summer and she will have a day with her at Christmas. I have left the door open for my son to choose if he wants to go visit. If he does choose to, I’m not preventing it, but at the same time he isn’t forced. There’s a part of me that feels I should feel victorious, but I don’t. My heart is sad that her choices have left a wake of destruction. I hope my son is at least able to find forgiveness towards his mother, if only for his sake. I’m thankful my ex and I can communicate and I don’t feel it is a game of trying to avoid the next trap. I can tell you it was pure hell for years. I don’t wish that on anyone

I’m able to reflect and see that I am better off at this point. Early on I was afraid of the scarlet letter of being labeled as divorced. I invested 15 years of my life and I would have spent a life time of being unloved and disrespected to avoid that label. But God wasn’t surprised and had a better plan for me. I’m loved more that I could have asked for and she is a wonderful mother to all 4 or our children.

How comes the drama. Why does it follow me? Her parents have not adjusted well. My wife was single for about 10 years and her parents stepped in to help. They built a strong relationship with my wife’s 2 children. It’s been 2 years and after the first year we felt we had given everyone some time to adjust and started asking them to include my two children in activities. The short story is that they have rejected it. We tried multiple times to have discussions about it, but they ignored us. After months of trying to address the issue we finally said we needed to step back to avoid a big blow up. So, they decided to develop a relationship with my wife’s ex to avoid addressing our issues of my two children. They have gone around running me into the ground and telling everyone I have “trapped” my wife into a situation where I am isolating her. It’s absolutely insane! There’s so much more, but th myat my be another post. I can walk through things in a chronological order, but not today. However it is important to note that they didn’t have a relationship with her ex prior to us having conflict. In fact, when I ask her dad to marry her, he made me swear that I would not allow her ex to continue to avoid child support. He was about 10k behind.

Their newly developed relationship and the fact we were taking action to make him pay child support has spurred her ex to try to modify custody. The thing is, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve walked through the pits of hell in custody and child support fights. There’s no way that he is going to be able to exploit the situation as he sits back and refuses to support his children in their extra curriculars and other things they need. As he refuses to take them to see a doctor when they are sick and waits until they come back to us to address anything. No, he is in the big boy leagues and if he wants to fight for custody to avoid child support, I’m well versed in how this story goes. The reality is that he has as many non school days as we do and he is too far away to be able to support a 50/50 schedule. I believe the court nonsense will stop after he sees that isn’t the path he wants to take. Every ofer I have ever received was not favorable to the other party. This isn’t a game. And honestly we are trying to hurt him. He’s out kid’s father. Noone is replacing that and we have been clear with the kids that, that’s not something to stress about. In reality, I can make my own spot in their lives and I have.

The drama with my wife’s family is much worse than the custody battle. Mainly because the custody battle has no merit. My wife’s parents have tried to tell the kids we are holding them hostage and much more. I recently blocked her sisters because they had ignored my wife in a hurtful way.

I’m falling asleep. More to some.