Be Careful What You Teach

How does he not understand?

I was divorced from my daughter’s father when she was only five. His hatred towards me was and still is very intense. We had to go through a class together after our divorce was final. In front of all the other divorced parents who just wanted to finish the class and get on with their new lives, he announced that he will always have “control” over his ex wife.

He is a control freak. It was my idea to end the marriage, some of my poems in the past have hinted to just some of the reasons I came to the decision to leave him. The other reasons I have yet to write about.

His hatred for me however has spilled over to our daughter. Not that he hates her, but he does not hide his hate for me. When she was younger, he would not allow her to call me when she was on “his time.”

He would not allow her to take my calls when I would call his house during “his time.”

He would tell her she should not ask for me or cry for me when she is on “his time.”

This rule he would remind her of, over and over again. Now nine years later she has this lesson memorized, learned and understood.

I provide a cell phone for her. She can text her friends or call them whenever she wants, at my house or his. He will still monitor her phone for when she is texting me. He will take the cell phone away from her if he catches her communicating with me too much during “his time.”

The one thing he failed to understand throughout the years while pushing this lesson, is the lesson goes both ways. I have never told her she could not call her dad or talk to him if she wants. The lesson not to talk to the other parent has been pushed in her head so much by him that she doesn’t think to call him or text him when she is not with him.

So now he is yelling at her for not communicating with him while she is with me. He is telling her “You don’t love me, you are so selfish.” He even went as far as not to give her Christmas presents one year because she did not call him the week prior to her visitation with him.

She is confused, and she should be. These were the head games he would play with me. The difference was I could be done and walk away from his cruelty. She is in a parenting plan that will last until she is eighteen. He will not allow her the freedom to choose visitation at sixteen. He will not allow her respect, which she has earned. She is a great kid, and because he is wrapped up in his hate, he is missing all these wonderful childhood moments with his daughter.

I want to tell him how selfish he is being. How his cruelty is going to drive her away from him…I learned the hard way, he does not want my help. He only wants the illusion of control.

I have fought for years within the court system for her. Yet, I will have to wait for him to learn the biggest lesson for him all on his own.

No one can control us, unless we let them.

I chose no more; some day she might choose the same.