It is stressful.
It's been difficult, at best.
The first two days/nights after they returned, he was slamming doors and banging crap around after I had to be in bed. It was infuriating, and it also resulted in me not getting any sleep, which then resulted in my mental health issues being exacerbated. I slept elsewhere the third night because I was seriously not okay. I also sent him a message asking if he was going to stop or if I needed to check into the women's shelter.
He has two vehicles and he's been parking them side by side, forcing me to park at the bottom of the driveway. (It's a hill. ) That results in me having to carry all of my bags (school books, laptop, work stuff, etc.) up the hill every day when I arrive home. That doesn't sound significant on paper, but it is, especially with my neck issues. AND HE KNOWS IT.
I asked him nicely to park one vehicle behind the other and he did, ONCE. Last night I reiterated that his choice was creating a potential medical hazard for me, one that could easily result in me having to quit work (read loss of income) and school for more medical care (read expenses) and to please be considerate. There IS space for three cars to park side by side if he parks his properly. Today he apologized and said he would remedy that.
For 16 years, I have had a specific spot in the living room where I sit. It's by a window and allows me to maximize my exposure to sunlight. That corner is set up with my shelves which have my school and crafting and bill information on them. Since he returned he has been pointedly sitting in my spot. It's notable, because he (and everyone else) has NEVER EVER sat there. Even the kids have noticed.
Today he messaged me that I seemed irritated. I replied with the above info (much more succinctly) and said that, all combined, it appears that he is intentionally attempting to manipulate and control things in order to make me miserable enough to leave to preserve my own health and well-being. YES, I find that irritating. He apologized, and said he would remedy it and that he wasn't trying to make me leave.
However, he has reneged on our previous agreement that I would keep the house, has said that if anyone (read GG & my sister, who have maintained parental-like relationships with the children) wanted to see the kids they'd have to make arrangements through him. (He has not insisted on the opposite, that his family needs to make arrangements through me.)
His behaviors SCREAM passive-aggressive manipulation, intended to force me out so he can maintain control of everything & I am left with nothing (no home, no kids, etc.).
I'm not impressed.
He noted that he's made dinner every day, food I can't eat, and that he's helped with projects on the house, arbitrary if he's going to kick me out and keep it. These things aren't helping me.
He threw a fit from hell, with guilt trips everywhere, over me not agreeing to him taking the kids camping the first weekend they were home (which was also the last weekend before school started and thus my only weekend off work/school until at least January). He told me point blank "I'm trying not to be selfish, but..."
I pointed out to him that none of this is ACTUALLY about him and me anymore, and there is no excuse for him being "selfish" in regards to doing what is best for the kids. There is a huge difference between taking care of oneself and being vindictive. His efforts to reduce my contact with the kids and make anyone else's contact difficult is vindictive.
On another note, I am back to school and happy to be here again. There's a peacefulness about being on campus, even with the additional stress of the responsibilities.
I still don't know if I am going to be able to get the winter part-time position with the railroad yet. My boss has been out on medical leave for 2 weeks, so we haven't gotten the bid. The one person who has seniority won't say one way or the other if she is going to take it or not, so everything is up in the air. This is very stressful.
I love the job. Even if I don't get the winter position, I will return in the spring, because the atmosphere is awesome, the people are awesome and the opportunities for advancement are better than anywhere else I have encountered thus far.
The dark is increasing. Winter is coming. Summer is at an end. That scares me, especially with the additional stressors in my life. Depression and anxiety are always in the background. So far, I have been managing them quite well, but the changes in the family have been dramatic and telling. None of them are positive for my mental health.
I only see my grandkids once every month or two. That has been heartbreaking.
My oldest child is barely speaking to me because she feels like me not seeing the kids is my fault for not capitulating to Maca's demands.
SweetPea is struggling under the pressure (partly of his own making) to hold everything together while the family falls apart. This has resulted in several stressful arguments between us, which is rare. The positive side of this is that both of us are REALLY good at coming together, apologizing for our emotional breaks and resolving things, usually within minutes.
SourPea is struggling and she doesn't as easily express it. She often asks everyone, "Are you okay?" because she senses the tension, but doesn't really understand it. Of course, she loves everyone, and she feels like this is all quite insane, that everyone can't love each other the way she does. It's frustrating for her, and dealing with her behavioral outbursts and passive aggressiveness is frustrating for everyone else, like, refusing to take her vitamins/medication, which results in her not keeping up with chores/homework, things along those lines.
It's all very heartbreaking watching my life's work (raising the kids) be fucked to hell because of someone else's demand to have control over me as a person and subsequent vindictiveness because I refused to capitulate.
I really struggle with the resentment that he is destroying what was essentially my career the last 24 years. I feel like he could show more care and respect for the massive amount of work I have put into giving our children every edge, and taking them away.
SweetPea very likely won't be able to go to college in California, as we planned for and worked towards all of these years. Maca has destroyed every financial edge I'd created to make that happen. Unless someone offers SweetPea a full scholarship, his dreams have been dashed. He knows it; he mentions it occasionally. But mostly he's decided he's just going to say "fuck it" and move to Europe after high school, wander around with a backpack and work in dive bars (his words). He's become frighteningly nihilistic on account of having the one dream he's been working towards since he was six thrown to the wayside by his dad's refusal to even CONSIDER how his choices are negatively impacting the kids.
Maca's so hellbent on ensuring that he doesn't have to support me in any way, that he never paused to think "Maybe I SHOULD do this for my son, whom I love and who has nothing to do with any of this. The only child I have who has put over 10 years of his childhood to the sidelines in order to focus on building a future based upon me sending him to college. Maybe it would be worth supporting my ex-wife, whom I loathe, long enough to ensure my son doesn't lose his dream. And then she can fuck off."
He doesn't even know how devastated our son is, because SweetPea won't discuss it with him. He just says, "I'm staying with my sister. She needs me." He's right, of course. She does need him.
Unfortunately, while Maca could have helped us get moved to Cali, as planned, and she could have HAD SweetPea, AND SweetPea could have continued with his dream to go to college, to earn a Bachelor's in Psychology and Music, followed by a Master's and PhD, so he could open his own Music Therapy Group. Maca instead chose to tell me to get my ass a job because he wasn't going to continue covering my expenses, and he flat-out told me he would not help us move, which means we can't, because the money that was put aside for the move is in his cash balance retirement account and no one but he can access it. (He has 3 retirement accounts. Only 1 is a cash value account.)
So... yeah. Lots of BS. Small steps, small progress, a lot of heartache.
