The losing fight continues

"Blessed are you when (wo)men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake." - Beatitudes

 Well, something actually went right this year. I got my tail light tickets dismissed in court! I appealed to the DA for leniency, and I got it, for a change.

Not so in family court... In addition to losing custody via the lies, intrigue, and loophole exploitations of my ex, I am, of course, getting sued for child support. My $90k will get siphoned off of, to augment her $300k salary, while she has the kids 12/14ths of each two week term... Fortunately, the two oldest are past age 21 and are no longer factored in the calculation. I also was saving money in anticipation of just such a trick.

I will also start a second job shortly to keep cash flow stable.

This sociopath I married needs to realize why our relationship is strained: If I had affairs while we were married, then petitioned the courts repeatedly with false allegations of her mental instability (she is anorexic btw) and abusive behavior towards the kids, how would HER demeanor toward ME be affected? I am sure she would be something less than cordial towards me! And, God help me, I haven't been exactly warm towards her through all this litigation...

The most blatant lie of abuse that made the complaint was me encouraging my son to punch me during an argument. This actually never happened in my house. One of my daughters, on the other hand, came to me complaining about the ex's second husband encouraging her to hit him during one of their arguments. We are all human. We have occasional lapses of judgement when parenting. No one here is mistake free. But don't LIE for crying out loud! I wouldn't go to court over an occasional faux pa.

It's mainly about money. Money certainly is the root of all human evil.

Finding a bottom...

 Well, lying and projecting have won the day in court for my ex and the conspiring children, who, in an effort to gain a more indulgent indolent life with mom, painted me as abusive, when all I wanted was for them to clean their rooms and go to church. They even somehow manipulated the judgement to allow visitation only on alternate Tuesdays, with no time on the weekends at all. This keeps them out of church. Just what they wanted. I am appalled at how willingly the judge let himself be manipulated by the false and misleading testimony.

So I am carving out a new life for myself... Taking a second job in anticipation of a looming child support order. My 5 figure salary will now be docked to supplement my ex's household's $500,000/yr income. These are definitely trying times.

I am grateful for the eagerness with which I was hired on as a lifeguard at my local Y. I am grateful for friends, relatives, and colleagues at my primary job, who have offered words of encouragement throughout this horrible year. I am grateful for the 2 year streak of sickness free living I enjoyed throughout this epidemic. I am also grateful for my good physical conditioning, the payoff for the consistent hard work I put in daily exercising. 

My ex girlfriend offered to testify on my behalf in court for this custody battle. I am grateful for that.

In other news, a good friend and gardening partner of mine just died after a long harrowing illness. I will miss him, but am grateful his seemingly interminable suffering is finally at an end.

My ex has joyfully abused and bullied me for years. Perhaps I am too sensitive, but the extramarital affairs and false accusations of abuse do get a man down after a while. It makes co-parenting quite hard. The judge came down on me for not being a good co-parent. He failed to considered the context in which I was trying to co-parent. Some of the blame lies with her, too. It's certainly not all my fault.

More on this later. I shall persist...

Ongoing Struggles

 Life continues to be a challenge. I miss Julie, though I know she won't be coming back. Custody battle continues, with its manifold side effects which negatively impact my efforts at parenting. A traffic stop on my bicycle has complicated my life further. I have misgivings about my children going for their MDs, and that has turned family members against me. And through it all, I keep biking to work. 

First, I do desire female companionship. I hesitate to even try to seek someone out, as I know my lifestyle is not attractive to most. I work out hard. I only rarely drink. I monomaniacally conserve energy, in an effort at a better world for my kids. Monks live more pleasurable lives than I do. So I hold back, and feel melancholy about it.

The ex continues her court pursuit of full custody. The meals are not healthy enough, according to her. This is untrue. Among other efforts, I grow vegetables in the garden and send them to the ex to help feed our kids. I take them to church, and they complain. This gets twisted around into a complaint in the court petition. I feel handcuffed in my powers for disciplining them. I ask them to do chores, and they ignore me or outright refuse. The 64 degree thermostat made it into the petition. It's 68 in their bedrooms at that temp setting. If I exact punishments, this shows up in complaints to the court too. This is the biggest pain in my life.

I installed lights on a bike to ride it home at night so my daughter would have it to ride to work the following morning. The on/off button for the new taillight was in an odd place, so I missed it trying to turn it on. Painted Post Village cop noticed this, and pulled me over, getting angry when I asked him why I was pulled over. He lost his cool and went fishing for other things wrong with my daughter's bike, like the presence/absence of a bell. Now I am facing a court fight over these tickets. I pled not guilty. My current dilemma is whether or not to contact the DA's office to negotiate the tickets, or to await a trial.

I see how overpaid and underworked our MDs are, as I've worked in the healthcare field 26 years, and how incompetent and inattentive they are. I would not want my children to join that crowd. I am too vocal about this. My father was an MD. A proud MD. My rhetoric has rubbed him the wrong way, provoking him to belittle the field I am in. I should just keep quiet. 

The cycling keeps me sane. I feel I am saving energy for my kids' future, plus I get a small workout. The hostile drivers are infrequent enough that this routine is overall beneficial to my life. 

God please, I beg you for a more peaceful, gentle, loving life than what is going on now. Help me change enough to accommodate the existence of the proper components to make this a reality,

Fell on Bad Days

 I am not very creative. I stole from Ernest Hemingway and Henry Rollins for the last blog entry title. This time I steal from Soundgarden.

Breaking up from Julie DOES hurt after all. Big empty spot in my life now, which I vowed I would not attempt to fill until after Lent (Orthodox Lent ends later than Catholic/Protestant Lent.) I actually felt pain a few times when left alone to ruminate on it without any company to distract me. The person I was telling everything to suddenly wasn't there. Boy, that smarts!

Custody battle took on a new level of hostility with the addition of an expensive lawyer representing my ex who is adept at painting the opposing side as villainous. A petition containing many exaggerated and outright false claims that I am neglectful and abusive of my children has been filed. "Blessed are you when (wo)men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake..." That part of the Beatitudes sums things up fairly aptly.

This twin terror of events has darkened my life considerably. It weighs heavily on my heart. I long for better days. 

Out with the sloth, lust for power, vain talk... in with chastity humility patience and love, to the best of my limited ability. I have to try my best. Really, what choice do I have?

Another Chapter or The End of Something

A lot has happened since I last posted. 

I switched shifts to nights. I continued to cycle to work regularly, making, but not recording, observations of the motorists surrounding me and their behavior.

I got petitioned to give up custody of my kids simply because they allegedly voice a preference to remain with their mother. That fight is ongoing.

Most significantly, I watched a relationship take its course.  I met a woman, fell in love. It was the best time I had probably in my lifetime. It grew old. I could not sustain it to her liking. Now she is leaving. She was not specific in her reasons for doing so. I do not know how sad I will be. It is too early to tell. I like to think the hostile divorce I weathered has toughened me and made me resistant to the hurt which accompanies these break ups. Has it?

The mundane tasks which hold my household together remain, and will keep me busy through this. 

I work hard. I pray hard. I hope for the best. I take what life gives me. And that is all I can do.