Then I said that I would find somewhere else for me and the boys and we would leave instead.
Then he said that he wouldn’t let me take the boys.
Then there was a whole load of crying for several hours, and then he said that he thought that if it came to a custody battle, he wouldn’t win as he had no means of supporting them, so he agreed to leave the children with me, and a few hours later, he packed his (very small) "toy" bag and left.
I’d had enough of always being the one that worried about the finances; who had sleepless night after night wondering how we were going to pay whichever bill; who decided which credit card to pay for the car repairs on and then worry about how
I resented the fact that I’d always loved children, and had looked forward to spending time with my own children: finger painting with them; making mud pies with them; building play-doh models with them; but BIFF’s refusal to get a job to support his family had meant that I’d had no other option than working to support us all. I felt that I had missed their childhood, and as my eldest son swiftly approached his school leaving date, that fact came whizzing home that I’d missed it forever with him. There’s no way to fix that. You can’t go back in time and put that right. I can’t possibly, ever forgive BIFF for that, and for that reason, I am certain the marriage is over.
If I was going to spend all day, every day, doing something that I hated, then I damn-well wasn’t going to carry on doing it to financially support a husband who had never financially supported me. I didn’t mind making sacrifices for my children, as that’s what parents do, but the husband could go fuck himself…
Anyway, after much upset and him being at his mum’s house for a while, he came back home. And by the end of the week, he’d arranged a job to start at the beginning of the following week.
At first, I put this down to “throwing him out must have been the wake-up call that he needed to spur him in to doing something” – I was thrilled that he’d finally found work. I rallied in the troops and made sure that whatever hours he arranged to work wouldn’t have any affect on the children. I finished work early a couple of days, and got my mum doing school runs a couple of days. BIFF had Thursday off to sort things out and had to be TOLD that he must pick youngest son up from school!
And today, Friday 24th April, some startling thought fought its way from my subconscious.
BIFF had eventually decided that he wouldn’t fight me in keeping the kids as he’d realised that he couldn’t support them. Is that the real reason he went out and got a job so quickly?
Is he planning that now he knows the marriage is over, he’s making plans to be able to keep the boys? The thought of it terrifies me.
So now, I’m keeping records of what changes I make in my life & work in order to support a) the children now that he’s not their main carer any more (although whether he ever really was is debatable!) and b) him in his quest to become a productive member of society.
So far, amongst countless other things, I’ve arranged to finish work an hour early for the next 2 (or 3) weeks. I’ve begun making plans for the week’s school holiday at the end of May – Tuesday to Friday will be issues for ChildCare. I asked my parents to please think about which days they could have one or both of the boys. I asked BIFF to ask his youngest sister if she could possibly have the boys for a day or two. (Since he’d arranged without asking me that we’d have her son for a week back in the February school holidays)
I’ve tentatively asked my Line Manager about the possibility of changing my permanent working pattern to mean that I get all the school holidays off, and finish at 3pm every day…. However that obviously results in a reduction in my income, and I’m not sure that would be a good thing at the moment… but it would mean that I’d know exactly how the kids were going to be cared for, which is my main priority.
So, now that he knows that I don't love or respect him any more, how has that changed him? Apart from the job he quickly got, he's still sending text messages and deleting them & their replies straight away. He doesn't delete my texts, so its not like he's deleting everything for tidiness or space issues, its more of a secrecy, hiding something issue. It's been going on for a while, and I have a vague idea who it is that he texts.
Also, I don't like how his youngest sister phones his mobile every evening and the conversation goes like this...
"Hiya"
"Hiya"
"How's things between you and [her]?"
"Hard work! I cut the grass for this old couple..."
I can hear every word she says.... so I know she's saying that, and I know he's replying that... and if it's such "hard work" to be with me, why the Hell doesn't he just sod off back to his mum's again?
I've got the childcare issue firmly under investigation, and I know how I'll be financially on my current wage - because the Tax Credits as a Lone Parent finally came through and rather than being on less money like I'd been told on the phone, I would get £192.50 a week, which is a whole £50 more than I was getting before, and £70 more than they told me I would get! If I'd know the amount, I would have been less likely to have caved in and allowed him to come back.
In the end, I wasn't prepared.
I wasn't prepared for the reaction that the boys had. 15yo was constantly crying and asking me to let daddy come home - and this is a child that rarely shows emotion at all. 8yo was drawing smiley faces in hope that his own face would "catch" the smile like people catch chicken-pox and would make him feel better. Since both boys were constantly telling me how much they hated daddy, and 8yo used to say that he wished daddy was dead so that we could have a new daddy, I wasn't expecting quite such a severe reaction.
I also wasn't expecting to start vomiting as soon as my mum had gone home on that 1st night. I puked repeatedly. I couldn't eat anything, and once I'd nothing left in my stomach to come back, the runs started. It left me practically incapable of getting anything done. I'm not sure if it was a reaction to seeing the grief on my sons' faces, or whether I had a virus, or whether it was my body going in to panic, but I simply wasn't prepared for it at all.
I wasn't prepared for BIFF to remember that 15yo had a psych appointment at the hospital on the 1st afternoon after he'd gone, and when he sent me a text asking if he could come, I (of course) said yes. I wasn't expecting him to bring his youngest sister, and I wasn't prepared for her to pass comment like she did in the waiting room, or outside in the car park etc. I wasn't expecting them to both come back to the house to "collect some more of his things" and stay an hour. Nor expecting her to make herself and him a coffee then sit in my chair in the lounge whilst she drank it. It was as though she'd deliberately chosen to do it as she knew how unsettled it would make me.
I wasn't prepared for how I would secure the house. - BIFF didn't take a key with him, but his parents have a back door key, so no matter what I did, I couldn't be sure that I wouldn't come home from shopping to find that he'd come round and changed the locks or something... or that he wouldn't sneak in during the night & murder me... I do have some key-lockable door chains somewhere, but they seemed to have conveniently gone missing so I couldn't fit them.
So, even though I haven't loved him for over a decade, and we've not been physical for well over a year, and I've longed for the time when he's no longer around, I'd not planned enough for the small practical things... and I shall learn from this.
Next time - because there will be one - I'll have the door chains found and ready to fit. I'll have the childcare already in place. I'll have a clearer idea about what my financial situation is likely to be. I'll have an estranged husband who is able to pay child support because he's working. I'll have things in mind to keep the kids occupied whilst they came to terms with the change. I'll have the waterproof sheet on my bed, so when 8yo wets it in a panicked nightmare situation at midnight it isn't a HUGE task to deal with it! I'll have parents who knew it was on the cards and had had time to come to terms with it being a possibility. I'll know that my brother won't be at all supportive and see it all from his own "losing a friend" point of view, rather than "sister who needs support" point of view.
Yes, next time I'll be more ready... assuming that he doesn't just wait until I arrange all the childcare and then change the locks on me whilst I'm at work...
However that's the main consideration about me being the main childcarer... I won't say the kids can't be here when I'm feeling sick. I won't say the kids can't be here when they're sick. I won't change my mind one day and decide that I don't want to be a child-minder any more. I won't worry about whether a child-minder's looking after them properly or whether they like her. And, BIFF can't suddenly throw ME out and decide that he's keeping the house and the kids, because he'll be in exactly the same situation that I was in last week... and I'm now prepared for that. The ChildBenefit and TaxCredits are in my name as the main person meaning no 6-week-wait to get it swapped over, and I'll have already arranged with my employer that I have to work Part-Time/Term-Time.
And, more than anything else, I know without a shadow of a doubt that after the initial grief has worn off, the boys will be far happier with just me than they would ever be with just BIFF
