Blended: True Colors
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
People are complex. The mind even more so. As much as we would like to feel as though we are in control of all our actions, the truth is, sometimes we do and react to things without ever really knowing why. The confession of my husband’s ex-wife told me one thing, very clearly. Our situation wasn’t as simple as an ex-wife’s dislike and/or jealousy of the new wife. She had a myriad of childhood and adult traumas plaguing her. From the outside looking in, it would seem her mind contained a maze of thoughts and emotions, each one intersecting with the next, and logic playing no part. I bet if you were to ask her today why she didn’t like me, she couldn’t give you a solid answer. Not one that made sense anyway. And I’m sure whatever answer she DID give would be purely based on assumptions and emotion. If asked, I’m fairly confident she couldn’t even tell you something I actually did TO HER.
I’ve heard many of her responses to this exact question.
She stole my husband. - How do you “steal” a husband?
She broke up my family. - How? HE chose to divorce her before he ever even met me.
She’s disrespectful. - In response to what action’s of hers? What did she do to ME to illicit a disrespectful response?
She didn’t respect me as a mother. - How? When the first message I ever sent her was me saying exactly that, to which she responded basically "How dare you and don’t text me”…
She tried to act like my son’s mother. - How is showing affection, being inclusive and treating a child like you treat your other children “acting” like his mother? To me, that’s just being a decent human being and a good stepmother.
She posted pictures on social media to make me mad. - Tell me again why she was looking at MY social media in the first place? Mind you, she was blocked. How could I make her mad if she didn’t first look?
Blah blah blah…..
But mostly the running response was some variation of She broke up my family and stole my husband. For her to say anything else would mean acknowledging her part in its failure. He didn’t leave her for someone else. He just didn’t want to be with HER anymore. A choice made long before we met. I wasn’t some evil temptress that lured her husband away. She drove him away. Nonetheless, although she seemed determined to stick to that story, I now accepted, as much as it felt that way, it wasn’t personal. A lot of it had to do with her own personal triggers. It was quite possible she didn’t even know why she acted the way she did or the answers to certain questions herself. I use to contemplate often: If I could just talk to her… Explain everything to her… Let her know that none of it was what she thought… Surely she would understand and move on. We could be cool. I could make her like and accept me if she only knew I didn’t steal anything from her. This is all just a big misunderstanding. However, years of experience dealing with her taught me no amount of clarification would ever make her like me, accept or understand the truth. She believed what she NEEDED to believe for the sake of her own emotions. I was collateral damage. The truth didn’t matter.
So… Once I fully understood this I stopped trying. The best I could do was be kind. I had to wrap my mind around the fact that her issues extended far beyond anything I did or said and was beyond any help I could offer. Be kind, is what I would tell myself. That was all I could do. After the conversation of her childhood, we’d go about a month without speaking at all. At best there would be a text exchange to confirm a drop-off or pick-up but never anything beyond that. However, as much as I wanted to ignore her and go back to not speaking at all, the logical part of me just couldn’t shake the idea that I could figure her out. Whatever problem she had with us, SURELY I could fix it. Rookie, ROOKIE mistake.
TEXT
Me: There are some things I need to talk to you about. Can you give me a call when you’re free?
Ex-wife: Can I call you a little later this evening, literally haven’t been sleep since about 2 yesterday morning, just got home and I need to lay down.
Me: Of course
Ex-wife: Ok will text you before I call to make sure it’s a good time.
Me: Ok.
We wouldn’t actually speak until the next evening. The conversation would go well. I’d basically explain to her my position on all of the conflict we’d been having recently. My goal was to clear up any misconceptions. I wanted things to be cool between us again because it made everything so much easier and she seemed to want the same thing. But in order for me to move forward, I couldn’t think too hard about all the weird things she’d done up to this point. I never even mentioned the photo from my wedding album to her. We hung up coming to an understanding. Or at least I thought. Things would only stay cool for exactly 36 days.
After our “understanding” I went out of my way to be friendly to her. I also went above and beyond to make her feel included as a parent since that seemed to be her issue. She felt we didn’t communicate with her as his mother. Noting this, I would make sure to text her about things going on with our son.
Me: Not sure if you’re awake or went to work but umm… [Son] slept in the bathroom last night. I’m very perplexed.
Ex-wife: He slept in the bathroom Tuesday night as well. The clowns have him freaked out. I’m pretty pissed that anybody would even do that. I told him not to read about it or talk about it anymore. It has a lot of people freaked out.
Me: Clowns?! I clearly missed something. I need to google. I heard something but I didn’t know it was that serious.
Ex-wife: Yes they even tried to snatch a 1yr old baby out of her mother’s arms yesterday up north.
Me: Oh goodness… Good grief!!
Ex-wife: [Link to story]
Me: Ok I’m going to have to read this. Sorry for texting so early but I can’t reach [husband] right now to ask him and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something else. I can’t find an emoji to accurately describe my face right now. Lol
Ex-wife: No worries I’m awake and at work and even if I wasn’t it’s never too early concerning [Son]. Yea I can’t put into words exactly how irritated and disturbed I am by the shenanigans.
Me: I’m very annoyed. Especially this close to Halloween. Did you join the iphone fam? Your bubbles are blue!
Ex-wife: Yes I came back to the darkside. [Husband] and [Son] insisted since Samsung got the galaxy note blowing up I figured why not. I miss my note though but it’s only been a few days.
Friendly right? I then showed her how to use a bunch of emojis on her phone, sent her some new ones to download and a slew of funny emojis I knew would make her laugh. We chatted for a bit more and that was that. I didn’t really have to communicate anything to her. I could’ve figured out what was troubling him by simply asking. But that wasn’t the point. I wanted to make her feel involved. I thought it would help ease her mind and promote a better general attitude. I thought to myself Finally. Maybe we could finally get this right. I never even suspected how short lived this peace would be, at least until trouble found me.
Raising a teenager, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult phases of being a parent. You literally have to watch every move they make. My daughter decided to get herself into a bit of trouble and when I found out I. WENT. OFF. She got some old school discipline and it was the most trouble she’d ever gotten in up to this point. All of her privileges were taken away and she was more or less in teenage jail. So when she went to school the next day she was pretty distraught. For me it was simple. She disobeyed me. She got a whooping, a punishment and that was that. But when her teacher saw her crying she asked if she wanted to go speak with the school counselor. My daughter said yes. When the counselor started asking questions about what was bothering her, my daughter told her about being in trouble and getting disciplined. They asked how she was disciplined, if she was physically hit and it all went downhill from there. Because I physically disciplined my daughter her school called CPS on me. It was a nightmare.
They had her stay a few days at my mom’s house while they did a home check and interviews. My other children were able to stay with me. They said it was standard and called a “cooling off” period. After a few days (assuming nothing was found during the interview process and home check), she would come back home and that would be that. To me, it felt like they were treating it as if I was potentially beating my daughter. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I called her father, of course, to let him know what was going on and that they may possibly try to call him too. He and his wife told me to let them know if I needed anything at all. He was upset with her as well. We had no idea what she’d actually told them to illicit all of this. They weren’t telling us anything. Although my husband’s son was with his mom when this whole situation happened, they told me it was possible they’d also be contacting his ex-wife. Literal Nightmare. Things might have been cool between us all at the moment but this was still the last thing we needed. There was no telling how’d she react. I told my husband to warn her. I didn’t want her to completely freak out so I also sent her a message later. If necessary I was prepared to tell her the whole story so she didn’t assume the worse. This was it. How she handled this situation would tell me everything.
Me: [Husband] told me he let you know about the situation with me and [Daughter]. If you have any questions or concerns and I can answer them for you then I will. I'm not sure if it will go that far but if so, I'm sorry If [Son] has to be involved.
Ex-wife: Well it has gone far enough for me to be concerned since they pulled [Son] out of class today and drilled him about both households (even though we shouldn't have been drug into this). So I would like the name and phone number of the social worker that talked to my son today. I'm sure you have the info.
Damn. There it was. The tone. There was no “Omg, I heard. That’s awful. Is everything ok? What happened? Do you need anything?” Nothing like that at all. Just attitude. This was the perfect opportunity for her to show me she was this person she kept telling me she was. Yet, at the first chance she got, it appeared she would show me she was exactly who I feared she was.
The fact that they had already spoken to him was a shock to me. I’d never gone through anything like this. It was all unfamiliar territory for me. I still had no idea exactly what they were told or who was handling the case and they weren’t giving me any information. I had only talked to one person at this point. I had no clue who’d talked to him.
Me: I'm not sure who that is. They don't give me that info.
Ex-wife: Whatever social worker or DCFS person that spoke to you spoke to [Son] or knows who did.
This comment made me think about her past. Ahhh, maybe SHE had experience with this. Remembering her history of abuse immediately made me cut her some slack. Maybe she was triggered and assuming the worst.
Me: If I can find that out I will let you know but as of now nothing further is happening.
… Or at least that’s what they had told me.
Ex-Wife: I'm sure someone along the way gave you a name and number. They wouldn't interview an entire family and not leave contact info.
Again with the experience... I only had one person’s info. I called her and told her what my stepson’s mom was asking. She said she was the one who actually spoke with him. I told her of the troubles we’d had with his mother in the past and my concerns if they contacted her. The social worker told me she was so sorry but it was protocol they request a home interview with her as well. She added that because we were technically separate households she could say no. She asked for my cell so she could text me a picture of her business card to send his mom. I forwarded that picture of the card to her.
Me: The same person I spoke with, spoke with him. Her name is pronounced [pronunciation]. They will ask to visit your home but you have the option to say no. Here is her card.
Ex-wife: Thank you. No you don't have that option, if I say no a DCFS hell storm will ensue.
What? This comment again made me wonder about her experience with this type of situation.
Me: You do. She told me you do. Because you are not directly involved you can say no but she said they still ask.
She said nothing else. I really wanted to cut her some slack because of her possible history with this type of thing but she was making it hard. Later that night she would call my husband and ask him about what happened. I was standing right there in front of him.
Husband: “Why don’t you call Jill? I wasn’t even there when it happened and she already told you she would answer any questions you have. Everything is supposed to be cool.
Ex-wife: I don’t trust her to tell me the truth. I asked earlier for the number of the person who talked to our son and she pretended like she didn’t know and then when I insisted she sent me a picture of a business card she had all along. YOUR his father. I should be able to talk to his father about it.
This was so insane to me. I couldn’t believe she was acting like this. Their son wasn’t even there to witness it. The whole thing was MY situation to talk about. I almost felt like she was using this as an excuse to talk to him because she had no reason not to ask me.
Husband: You’re being ridiculous. I wasn’t even there. I didn’t see anything and she has no reason to lie.
Her and my husband ended up getting into an argument and he hung up on her. Wow. So here we were again. She went from texting me smiley face emojis just days prior to this? Why did I try so hard with someone this determined to dislike me and think the worst? And the crazy part is… this was all over a situation that really had NOTHING to do with her OR our son. No one had done anything to her at all. She was simply involved by default. We would never be cool. It was very apparent to me that’s not what she wanted at all. Triggered or not, she had every opportunity to hear the full story from me if she had any concerns but she didn’t take it. The truth wasn’t what she wanted. The way she chose to react to all of this told me everything. Aside from pick-up and drop-off communication, we went back to not speaking at all. The whole CPS ordeal would take about 4 days in total and the case would close just 2 days later. Things would go more or less back to normal in my home. It would be 10 months before I voluntarily communicated anything else to her at all again.
Our teenagers were about to start their freshman year of high school and as luck would have it, our son would be with us on his first day of school. Having a child start high school is monumental. It makes you realize how little time you have left before they are off living their own lives for good. Having a daughter the same age, I understood the feeling well. We took all sorts of pictures of them starting their first day of school. Memories. However, on this day in the back of my mind, I also reminded myself to be kind. I thought about how I’d feel if my daughter were starting high school and I wasn’t there to see it or send her off. So, I did the kind thing.
Text to ex-wife: Because it’s a major milestone and every mom deserves a pic of their baby’s first day of high school. [insert photo]
There. I could live with that. If she got mad I texted her she would look insane and if she didn’t respond that was ok too. The goal was doing the kind thing. But to my surprise, she responded.
Ex-wife: I really appreciate that. Thank you!
Me: No Prob
… and that was that. That would be the start of cordial and very occasional texts. Nothing as friendly as prior interactions. Just kind communication where necessary. Pretty much the kind of communication I wished we would have had from the start. A kind message about a pick-up or drop-off here… a little light joke about the kids there... But nothing as in-depth as a burgeoning friendship. I didn’t desire friendship from her. I knew she wasn’t capable. Only mutual kindness. The ability to sit in the same area or a room together without pleasantries being a struggle. We would have this for almost an entire year. That is… until I caught wind of a little story she was telling and VERY publicly. A story spun of so many half truths, twisted lies and her timeline of events was so completely off it was laughable. However, by this point I can’t say that I was surprised or that I questioned her sanity. I knew exactly who she was. Yet, I did learn one thing. I now knew exactly how she told stories to make people believe she was telling the truth…