How I struggle.....

I really want you all to believe that I am a good person. That's I'm perfect and infallible and everything that my husband says I am. But I would be a liar. Sometimes I'm just not frankly and I REALLY struggle with doing the right thing. Sometimes.

The right thing in this case normally involving my ex-husband.

You see when we first separated and then divorced we actually got along REALLY well. Our divorce was one of the smoothest in history I believe because of our friendship and willingness to go the extra step for the other person. That has somehow morphed or changed and he now really really doesn't like me. I'm not entirely certain why but it seems to have happened, or I noticed it, while he was deployed. I believe it had to do with the ways I was handling the Teenager.

He may be right, that I handled that whole situation wrong and continue to do it wrong. I am doing what I feel in my heart is right for her. But I think he is really, really angry about what I do and don't allow.

I kinda look at it like a person who has never had children before and makes a comment "When I have kids they will never.......". That almost guarantees that not only what you just said will never happen happen to you but it will be 10 times worse when it happens. It's easy for someone to say "I would never allow my daughter to leave the house with her makeup looking like that." But until you've been dealing with a screaming hysterical child destroying your house and rocking back and forth yelling things that require you to send your younger child out of the house so she isn't exposed to it you don't really understand how little caked on mascara will mean in your overall sense of "what do I want to deal with right now".

Mascara will come and go. 3 hour screaming fits over face washing will last a lifetime, at least in your memory. At least that's how I see it.

Anyways, so we don't get along right now. My ex and I. He wont speak to me except in very short bursts about the children. He wont discuss a custody arrangement and wont come to their respective birthday parties at my house or anything I've arranged. Even though the children have asked him too. Even though I feel like Micah and I have made a good effort to extend the Olive Branch for the children's sake.

Brian, my ex, has been deployed in some form or another since January. He volunteered to go. He hasn't had any type of overnight custody of them since then. So he has no real idea of what's gone on this year. I do. I photograph everything.

The last year we were together I started putting together The Book. It's a book of what the children have done over the year so that our families from out of the state have a scrapbook of our comings and goings. Except I do it electronically and it's hardbound. So everything thing we do I do with an eye towards The Book. I did it in 2007 and then in 2008 when we separated. Below is a link to our 2008 book in case you haven't seen it.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Micah has urged me to download the pictures to a flash drive or burn them to a CD for Brian. As a sign of goodwill. So he will know what his kids did this year. Probably because I didn't send very many pictures to him while he was deployed. That sounds really nice and selfless right? Like something someone who was a good person would do, even though he says horrible things to me and has called me Worthless and used profanity at me. (Yes, I sound like a martyr. I know.)

So I'm sitting at my computer, trying to will myself to do this. Trying to give up my selfish urge to tell him to kiss my ass. I know he will make a book for his family this year and I wont be a part of it. And that's okay. His family, I'm sure, doesn't want to see pictures of my wedding or our apparently pre-honeymoon trip to Cancun. They want to see him and his new life and kids without my interference. I'm okay with that. But for some reason the only child in me does NOT want to share.

I want to sit in the corner and cross my arms and pout "But he doesn't DESERVE the pictures. He was mean to me. He's not my friend anymore. He wont play with me so I'm not sharing. "(I know, I sound REALLY mature for a 30 year old, right?) So I know I'm not a good person for dragging my feet. I know I'm naughty for not sharing.

I just don't know how to let go I guess and be the bigger person in this instance. *sigh* But I'm trying.