I am asking. I’ve been asking for a month. Today, specifically, I have asked you five times in the last 24 hours to come stay with me while the power to your house is disconnected.

“All devices are charged. Can tether wifi and computer off the generator setup for the refrigerator.”

Okay.

What more can you say? “I’d love you to come here.” “I have power, coffee, and well-lit places to write, read, or rest.”

I’m not asking the right way.

It was a source of pain in the relationship with the mother of my children. A therapist of hers told her I needed to ask in a more constructive or creative way.

Um.

“Can I give you a backrub?” “How about a nap?” “I can help you with that.”

None of the phrases helped, though. Nothing helped. I seems to me, when you catch someone in a lie, a big fat marriage-ending lie, it is hard to regain the trust for both parties. If the offending party is still exiting the partnership, the efforts of the still-committed partner will be fruitless, and possibly self-harming.

I let go of my marriage. I knew that I would lose 70% of my time with my two children. Seventy percent! Fuck. That’s not fair, it’s not what we negotiated. It’s what she told me at the end of our mediation. “I want the package.”

A few years in, she also gave me the shaft. My employer had just suffered a large client loss. I was going to be late on my child support for a few months. “I am good for it. I will catch up.”

“Sorry about the timing, but, I sent our decree to the AG’s office this morning.”

“You’ve completely fucked me.”

End of signal. End of my semi-charmed recovery. I think my kids liked my house and my household vibe more than their mom’s. They told her about it. How they wanted her to do school morning wakeup and breakfast, “More like dad does.” I can see how that would make her furious.

The part I don’t understand is where that anger went from “asshole” to “let’s completely fuck him over.” She completely fucked me over. And she did it, knowing she was forcing me to sell my house. Without a job. Where would I go? Even if I got my equity out of the house, where can I live while I start applying to new jobs.

My job was fine. I was going to be a few payments late. No big deal, right?

She struck a deathblow. My refi discussions with Wells Fargo was killed by her action. My options, even to rent an apartment, were nonexistent. I moved back in with my mom.

Like an angry person who strikes a former lover, she gloated. She laughed. She feigned concern. “How can I help?”

Um, not fuck me over with the debt collectors of the Texas Attorney General’s Office?

She fucked me over and gloated at the pain she caused me and my kids. Why? How could I even think of striking a financial or damaging blow towards the mother of my children? Yes, I do write about divorce. So, she’s got a beef with me, okay. But, nothing I’ve written has been untrue. A bit raw perhaps. Maybe that’s why she changed her name as quickly as she could, after marrying another emotionally damaged man.

I can’t make amends with my ex-wife. I can still love her for the time we shared, the joy we brought into the world. My empathy died for her when she demanded the standard divorce deal. Child support. (2 – 3 k tax free per month). The house. (mortgage was below the child support payments) The kids. (The Standard Possession Order gives Mom’s 70% of the kid-time. In Texas, moms get the deal 70% of the time. The courts like things to be easy.

For the person on the losing end of the “package,” dads have a much different experience than that of their kids or their ex-partner. I was losing most of my time with my kids. I was needing two full-time jobs at my current earning rate to afford the house (now, her house) and then have money left over to seek shelter for myself. How would I be able to afford my child support and a place to live?

Not her problem, right?

Well, her attacks on me continue to damage her relationship with both of her kids. Even today, she opts out of being helpful or kind. She opts out of sharing information about our struggling son. She takes my daughter on vacation across my birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas this year, 2025. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

Attacking your co-parent will always, always, always damage your kids as well. Don’t.

I learned to only respond to the logistics of my ex-wife’s angry text messages. I quit fighting back. I never gave her the satisfaction of triggering a heated response. “Okay, I will pick them up tomorrow before school, to help you out.”

She would get nothing from me. My blog would absorb the vitriol and vigor. I learned by writing about it, I could transform the experience into something more containable. I could get a handle on what was happening as I wrote about it. In someways, this book, these #hyperfiction novels are not to distant from my blogging.

In the moment. In the emotional lift or drift. I write to understand myself. I write to temper my response to the world.

To let a lover off the hook with grace and ease. That is a harder challenge.

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