the kids are back. is this a good thing?
I’m going to keep this fairly vague. I had a horrible divorce from a woman with a cluster B personality disorder. We had two children together. I married someone else and we attempted to blend our families but the ex-wife worked hard to ruin things. Even then I didn’t know how bad she really was. If you can think of a dirty trick someone would do to cause a schism between people she did it. Along with a few things that are less common, like trying to have me committed, stalking me and my wife, false claims of abuse to DCF, and even having friends of hers stalk us. I had to call the police several times, and although I believe this stopped some bad things from happening, it was made very clear to me that any bad behavior on her part would be referred back to probate court unless she assaulted one of us physically.
Through all of this I worked hard to maintain my relationship with the kids. Her household was chaotic with random men coming and going, a really disgusting hoarding situation that some unknown party referred to the authorities and constant disparagement of me and anyone close to me. The trash talking made no sense…my used vehicle was a “luxury sports car” when she wanted more money and “a broken-down deathtrap” when she wanted to paint me as an unsafe parent. I was either a feckless playboy or a strict hardass, depending on the day of the week.
Unfortunately it can be easy to influence children, and although it took many years, she was eventually able to convince them to cut off contact with me. A few years ago I decided to stop begging for a relationship they obviously didn’t want. I stopped trying to communicate and, with many tears and a daily Zen practice, moved on with my life.
This year both my now-adult kids reached out to me and we have been having polite text conversations, sharing memes and getting caught up with their lives. I was prepared for one of three things…either
1) The kids would maintain no contact and wouldn’t speak to me for many years
2) The kids would grow up/have a change of heart/feel remorseful and come to me with a new attitude
3) They would show up acting nice and then would pivot to someone needing money/stuff/material assistance/an organ donation.
This has been none of those things…it’s been sort of a tepid fourth option where we are having innocuous and very superficial conversations. Almost entirely about them.
Part of this is good. My ex’s family is, by and large, a total trainwreck. A lot of addiction, incarceration, religious fanaticism, MLMs, unemployment…the works. And a pretty profound history of violence. But my kids are leading pretty good lives, hitting age-appropriate milestones. The older of the two has a steady job, long-term partner and a nice apartment. The younger one is doing well as a student. This is an incredible relief and makes me and my wife feel good about our efforts.
On the other hand, even though I haven’t been asked for a kidney, the kids have basically asked no questions about my life, how I’m doing or anything about any of the rest of the family, all of whom were cut off as well.
In the course of these conversations, speaking very delicately, I learned some things about my ex and it appears that she has recently done a very horrible violent thing. The kids buy her explanation and don’t see what I see, but if my wife and I are correct it’s the kind of thing people get incarcerated for and would be a major escalation into psychopathy for her.
The other night I had a full-blown panic attack. I’ve never had one before. I was afraid I was having a heart attack but it was a textbook, according-to-Google panic attack. Part of what led to it was a concern that my ex would do something violent to me or my family, as retribution for the kids breaking that hold and restarting contact with me.
Since trying to mess with my marriage was a part of my ex’s tradecraft, and something the kids were recruited into, we are also obviously very alert to any of that stuff restarting and I can foresee my contact with the kids causing issues with my marriage if not handled properly. I have no idea what “properly” is in this case. We are in unknown territory.
This was half to vent and half to seek commiseration or advice. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.