This is our story, all 7 years of us.
I am hoping that this is going to be the first thing you read before taking a deep dive into the blog that will explain individual situations we’ve encountered.
For the entirety of this blog, the characters names have been changed. The love of my life/father of my children will be referred to as Dad. He has 2 daughters with his ex-wife whole will be referred to as DB. The girls, who stole my heart from day one will be known as Natalie and Zoe.
Spoiler alert, Dad and I also have 2 daughters of our own, who will be referred to as Sierra and Kaley! Any other additional characters that may come into play will also be changed out.
Now grab a snack, a drink, and take a seat. Things are about to get wild!
I met Dad in Spring of 2017… Our first date was at a local Mexican restaurant and the conversation never had a single awkward moment. Everything flowed so easily between us that I felt like I had known him for years. The best part, he was also a gentleman. Our goodbye for the night was short but sweet, a simple “I had a good time” and a sweet kiss. We were going very strong for 4 months and then things got strange. He broke things off. His reasoning was that he just knew things would get harder if we kept dating. I didn’t understand and I was extremely upset… but it only lasted a few weeks because he came back. Back on, we were……. for another 4 months. This time, he finally said he couldn’t do this. He knew he was getting close to me and starting to have real feelings for me, and he “knew what would happen if this continued”. With further explanation, he said he knew that if he brought a woman into his kids’ lives, that his ex-wife would make that woman’s life hell. In other words, his ex-wife would attempt to ruin my life… so back off we went.
Yet again, we couldn’t stay away from each other. We were in constant communication, and eventually we had a conversation about what we both wanted. From that day forward, we were committed.
It took a little over one year for him to introduce me to his kids. He made it clear when we started dating that it would be a while before I’d meet them because he did not want to drag the kids into an unhealthy relationship in front of his kids. He wanted to make sure we fit well together and that we’d last, which I completely respected.
When I met the girls, my life was ultimately changed forever. I could not have imagined how much I would have fallen in love with those girls. Natalie and Zoe were the sweetest little girls and they were as obsessed with me as I was with them. Every single day, they’d be asking their dad when I was coming out, which turned into me just coming out every day, which eventually led to me moving in (it was months later, don’t worry). Our family was official!
Since then, we have added 2 more beautiful girls to our family and we couldn’t be more happy with them all. Unfortunately, through the past 7 years, we’ve experienced far too many situations caused by the ex-wife which has led us to where we are now, which I’m about to explain. Our last 8 months have beyond hell and there doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of this tunnel. You can read the blog posts for all of the individual stories but I will explain the start to the fall of our family here, so you fully understand the magnitude of damage this woman has caused.
Her plan started during a school break. She had the girls for 10 days straight (we had been on the 5/5/2/2 schedule so 10 days was a lot). While they were with her those 10 days, she made a huge false CPS report against us. By us, I mean me. The reports were ridiculous, and honestly, I don’t know how she didn’t get in trouble somehow for wasting their time. Her reports of “abuse and neglect” were things like us feeding Zoe different foods at times than the other kids. Zoe has an eating disorder, she failed to mention that the “different foods” we were feeding her were the doctor recommended foods, and it was never different things. We followed Doctor’s requests. One example is adding extra butter to her portion of mac-n-cheese… stuff like that. Another accusation was that we have a lock on our pantry door and everyone has access to it other than Zoe. Fact, we do have a fingerprint doorknob on our pantry, but it was never programmed. Anyone has access to it, and it was only purchased because our youngest kids (at the time, 2 and 3) liked to sneak into the pantry and make a giant mess of food. This was the kind of things she had listed in her report, and for some reason, CPS actually took all of that and felt they needed to investigate it. We had zero problems telling them whatever they wanted to know. We also brought in all documentation of the harassment we’ve gotten from DB. We also gave them all of our contacts of anyone that knows us and/or the kids and our relationship with them. We wanted to show them we had nothing to hide.
The next step of her plan was the day the girls were supposed to finally come back home. Dad went to DB’s house to pick them up and Zoe refused to go. Natalie had no problems getting in the truck, but Zoe just clung to DB’s leg and cried saying she didn’t want to go. After a short while of Dad trying to convince Zoe to just come home, DB called the cops on Dad. We’re still unsure why because he wasn’t getting aggressive, he wasn’t raising his voice, and she hadn’t even asked him to leave. It was unnecessary…. but it was part of her ultimate plan! The cop showed up, treated Dad like a criminal, and then took the report from DB and Zoe. This time, they laid on the accusations about me, but they were the same types of things that were told to CPS. I “made Zoe go to bed earlier than the other kids one night because she didn’t eat her food”. That never happened. All of the kids eat bedtime snack together, then we put them to bed in order. Littlest two go to bed, then Zoe, and then lastly, Natalie. Then there was the accusation that I didn’t let Zoe play Barbie’s one day because she hadn’t finished her breakfast. That is correct…. because they had to get ready for school. Please keep in mind, she was 8 during this, not 3 or 4 where she would likely not understand that. She sat and told the cop all of this and then the Cop, in turn, treated Dad like a criminal.
Natalie came home with us and spent the next 5 days crying and asking me why Zoe was doing this. She opened up to me a lot about how hurt she was, and how confused she was because, in her own words, “family doesn’t do this”. She also made a comment that she “would understand if something happened… but nothing did!” Not once in those 5 days did Zoe come home. Natalie went back to DB’s after the 5 days and the next time they were home was Halloween. Dad somehow convinced Zoe to come home on Halloween and our hopes were that things would just go back to normal. That day, the girls all got off the bus and came into the house, including Zoe. Natalie walked up to me and gave me the biggest hug ever, for no reason. It’s also something she had never done……. and that’s the last time they came home. They went back to DB’s the next morning and that night, Natalie called Dad and said she wasn’t coming home anymore either.
He kept trying to go to DB’s house on the scheduled days and each time, DB would call the cops. Dad has most of the times recorded, which was suggested to him by our local Sheriff. In the recordings, you can hear this officer treating Dad so poorly. In one instance, he yells at Dad and says “WATCH YOURSELF”. The police report of the day makes Dad sound like he was screaming and being aggressive…. but take one listen to the recording and you’ll question how much money DB paid this officer to make the police report to look like it does.
So ultimately, my children and I have not seen the older girls since Halloween. Dad was able to pick them up 2 times a week to take them to their individual therapy sessions (which I will write about soon because that is a weird situation also) and then one specific day of the week to just hang out… and every other Sunday. They started doing that for a while, and they stuck with how I was the reason they didn’t want to come home anymore….. but now it’s progressed. Dad has not seen the girls, other than during therapy sessions (dad and the girls family therapy sessions), which DB now drives them to because they also refuse to go with Dad.
So here we are…. stuck waiting on the legal system that isn’t helping any, dealing with a narcissist that has flipped our family upside down, and praying that our older girls get the help they need to understand the position they were put in by their mother. Our kids miss their big sisters and we miss our family being together…..
Go to the blog section to read all of the stories that happened from point A to point B, which is right now, and I will continue to update our situation as it continues to worsen (as you can see, I am losing hope).