In the summer of 2021 I had a dream where I was walking through an endless dark tunnel with only a headlamp to light my path forward. All three kids were tied behind me in a chain. And as much as they complained and whined I had to move forward. I had to encourage them to keep walking or we would all go down. Yet I had no idea how much farther we had to go no matter how many times they asked. “No, we can’t stop walking. No, I don’t know what it will look like when we get there”. The dream went on and on. The four of us just walking and walking.
Leading up to the hearing about a hearing, I knew B and May were playing a game, I just didn’t know the rules. Everything was calculated. Words were carefully chosen. Moves were thought about for days before executing. Even the subtlest things came from a place of an intention to disrupt. To throw me off. To send a message.
When you grow up in a house where someone’s mood dictates how the rest of the family maneuvers around them you get very good at picking up on all the little things that usually get overlooked. You look for signs to tell you what is coming and how to avoid eruptions. You want things to be as smooth as possible. So you watch, vigilantly, and sometimes even change yourself to not cause disruption. It’s the reason I knew when B and May were up to something. I called it their “serial killer vibes”.
Any one of the things I could list in and of themselves would seem harmless, even weird to bring to light as to say this was intentional and manipulating. It wasn’t any one thing, it was all the things. It was the language they used, particularly around how I behaved as a parent. Both a mixture the projection of their own behavior and gaslighting. So not only was I experiencing it myself but I was being blamed for doing the very things I was experiencing.
They would then double down and tell the kids I was the one doing whatever behavior they were highlighting. The behavior that they in fact were doing themselves, sometimes directly to the kids. It was unnerving that this was how I had to parent. At times it was maddening. I know for a fact that the judge himself would not want to live under this level of control. He wouldn’t make it a day. He had no idea what it actually felt like to co-parent with B, only that B’s involvement made him seem like the most engaged parent on paper.
One night during the summer of 2021 I had a challenging video call with my son. He showed up with a scowl on his face. He said, “I had a big day”. He clearly didn’t want to talk. I tried to massage out of him, knowing ears were listening, what was actually going on. “Are you nervous about coming back next week? Are you tired? Can you tell me what’s going on?” He gave me nothing. He turned his camera on and off. I could hear B’s voice say, “No hands on the computer”.
I suggested we end the call, then he called me a jerk because the suggestion apparently upset him. He walked off for a moment then May chimed in, “You need to get back on the call”. B and May were both there, trying to encourage him to talk about random events that he should share with me and his little brother, but he was clearly not interested. So after seven minutes I said, “Enjoy your dinner. I’ll talk to you another time.”
Ten minutes later I was trying to transition my son to bedtime. He had lots of questions about what just happened. Questions I can only guess the answers to. When those kinds of calls happen, they don’t just happen to me, they happen to him as well. He missed his brother and sister. He didn’t understand why they would act so differently towards him. Sometimes he would even bring attention to it on the call. “Why are you acting weird?” Or, “Is that B and May talking? Why can’t I see them?”
I was starting a bath for him when B texted me, “It’s been a big day. He got some seltzer. We gave him a big hug. He has some exciting things to share with his brother.” Fuck that. No way did I want to get back on a call scripted by B and May. Nor did I want to send any words his way to engage in some weirdo banter over text. I especially wanted to shield my youngest from any dictated interactions involving B and May. Who writes to someone else, let alone a co-parent in this adversarial high conflict situation, “We gave him a big hug”? I got chills up my spine. It gave me what I call “serial killer vibes”.
My guess is the intention here was a little bit of a reminder that they have him and I don’t and a little bit they are better parents than me and here is how I should handle bad calls in my house. Next text, “He is connected!” I didn't text back. In fact I never texted back. I didn’t reconnect. I knew our son was uncomfortable and I didn’t want to force him or myself to play along. I felt like the right thing to do was to save us both from this horrible experience.
Fifteen minutes later a notification came up in the co-parenting app to alert me that B left a journal note. He had copied in his texts and then wrote, “Mom did not respond”. It was never ending. If I engaged, I was baiting him. If I didn’t engage then I was neglecting to communicate. I didn’t want to play this game. At. All.
It was during a different video call over the summer that I finally got to see what B and May had been up to. What was lurking right there under the surface. B had the kids announce to me that they had officially bought a house in my town. The cherry on top of the narcissist’s sundae. They had coached the kids to act excited on this call, knowing I would be completely freaked out. I thought I might throw up right there on the call. There I was being told my worst nightmare was coming true, watching the kids being watched as they feigned excitement and I was stuck pretending, all of us actors in this twisted manipulating show. Trial wasn’t over, nothing had been decided about our custody situation, but to sweeten the pot, B and May knew that buying a house here would sway the judge.
I hadn’t moved to get away from B and May, but I was grateful to have some distance between us. Now I was going to be living with the sick feeling of knowing that at any time, I could run into them again. They could fly in for a school concert, a kid’s game, or even just drop in for a weekend like a B and May bomb. It felt like the walls were closing in on me and it’s exactly what they wanted me to feel. On top of being ambushed in the immediate moment the kids told me while they creepily watched from the sidelines.
I got off the call as soon as I could without making it seem weird or show that I was in fact reacting to what I took as terrible news. I had no understanding of how they were able to swing this financially as they complained about how much money they were spending to travel and going to court all the while not spending a dime on the kids for the things they needed here and not paying child support. The kids told me later that B and May were making the house an Airbnb rental. Of course they were. They made visiting the kids, looking even more committed to the judge, into a profitable endeavor.
Right ahead of the kids coming back from their summer away, there was one final video call that revealed the start of B and May’s part-time residence campaign. It started out with my son telling me to sign him up for tackle football. Not just asking if he could play tackle football but telling me when and where I needed to go to sign him up. Then my daughter told me she had decided that she was going to play soccer and I needed to sign her up as well.
B’s household was now dictating the activities in mine. Not only did they pick the sports but they picked the leagues and the schedules that my house would be living by. I tried to explain that I was listening to their interests but added that we would need to discuss it when they got back. I could see the wincing on their faces. Not out of disappointment but from fear. That someone was on the other side of the computer screen feeding them this agenda and they looked terrified of the consequences of my push back.
This is what the judge could not see. The guardian saw it. He wrote in his extensive report that B and May criticized my household to the point that Hank and I were left to parent “from the shadows”. That they overreached their boundaries and dictated how things should be when they shouldn’t. He also had interviews with doctors and teachers that had said B’s behavior was demeaning and aggressive. The judge could turn a blind eye to the undercurrents because when he saw B, he saw a dedicated father trying to stay connected to his children. Sure, he was dedicated but dedicated to what exactly?
After the sports hiccup, the video call went on to discuss back to school shopping and supplies. May had printed the required school supplies lists for the kids from their school in my town. They held them up to show me on the call. They began to question me, to ask me if I had purchased the required supplies yet. They then told me they had gone school supply shopping that day. But they didn’t buy anything on the list mind you, just fun things that would stay at their dad’s new house for when they went to school from there.
So B and (mostly) May had riled the kids up about school and told them which activities they needed to sign up for. But they weren’t going to do any of the work like sign them up, buy sports equipment, take them to practices, or even see if the activities they were pushing fit in with the new schedule the school was taking on this year because of the bus shortage. They didn’t even know when the buses ran. They weren’t going to buy one item from the required school supply list, backpacks or shoes. Just all that glitters. And they bought a house near us so they could manage me and point out what a shitty job I was doing. I was like a nanny to my own kids.
Worse yet, they were going to fill the kid’s heads with that idea that I was not doing what I should be, load them up with anxiety and gaslight them into thinking I was not capable of buying school supplies. To try and make them forget that I am their mom, that I’ve got this. In my own way, but I’ve got this. It’s like B and May chose a recipe for a cake, demanded that I bake it, wouldn’t buy any of the ingredients, but when it was done would come in to scoop off the icing and shove it in their mouths after I did all the work assembling it layer by layer.
How did B and May have so much time for their campaign when I was spending all the time I had on the actual work of parenting? They both had jobs. Did they spend their work hours scouring the internet for activities and stalking the school PTO’s Facebook page? In a world without B and May I would be a “typical” parent. In the world of B and May I was a loser, a slacker, a BAD parent, failing to do my job to overschedule and overstimulate, to give them a growth mindset and make my kids into high achievers. I was a fucking failure through their lens. In reality I knew I was not. So why did I feel like one? Bullies (and sociopathic narcissists) for co-parents will do that. And there was nothing I could do about it. They were going to continue to judge me while they fed the kids lies. I had to persevere, no matter how much it sucked or how much rage welled up within me. I had to keep going.
When the kids came back after summer, our son started attending the school his sister had been attending for the last three years. It was a high achieving school so I was nervous about him attending. Not because he wasn’t smart but because he had a long history of not being able to pay attention. Now that he was finally on medication, I was confident he had a shot. He got the cool teacher, the one who deals with kids that aren’t so great at sitting still and following rules. When I walked into his classroom I saw he had pictures of super heroes all over his classroom. I knew our son was in good hands.
Three days into the first week of school, I was at the bus stop waiting for the kids at 5:30 pm. It was a crazy time to have kids come home from school, but there I was with my youngest who I had pulled there in a wagon, watching the bus app on my phone. They were forty-five minutes late that day. So far the new staggered system to get the buses running smoother seemed like the same old game, only later. Then my phone rang, it was the school. It was my son’s teacher on the other end of the line with not great news. He had had a bad day. Bad afternoon really. Afternoons were really challenging for him. That day he was throwing pencils, lied about it, admitted he lied about it. He was then very disruptive in the bus line touching people’s bodies, their hair, he admitted he was doing headstands.
I informed his teacher that he was going to start OT for this behavior. He asked if it’s possible the medication is wearing off in the afternoon. We decided to give it a few more weeks before adjusting anything or going back to his doctor. The next morning I sent B an update email, which instigated yet another shit storm.
First B emailed his last special education teacher from his old school including the principal of the new school and his new teacher asking about his IEP. That was weird. She responded saying he’s no longer in her caseload. Duh. Then he emailed the new teacher copying in the principal, complaining that they had ignored the email he had sent the week before. The one that told the new school they had to follow the old school’s communication plan which included him and his wife on every single phone call, email and correspondence the school had about our son. The one they ignored because this school doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.
He was upset because the teacher hadn’t called him as well about our son’s behavior. But they didn’t need to because I had told him all about it. Mind you, it is a Saturday. And the principal of this new school where my daughter already attended had shut down this request many times when he had asked for it for my daughter already. B also emailed because he wanted everyone to know he is now a part time resident and he has an equal say. All because I kept him in the loop. No response to me and my update, just crazy email after crazy email going out on a Saturday to all the poor soul’s at our son’s new school.
During the second week of school, our son’s behavior wasn’t improving. This time he was attending school from B’s new part time residence. I received an email that he used his school chromebook to do a search on the word boobs. That he was watching a video called “Fuck Minecraft” and got caught. B continued to blame my household saying it lacked structure and that is why our son acts like he does at school. That in his part time residence they had strict rules around screen time and inappropriate behavior was not tolerated. He told the teacher he and May would surely be talking to our son about his behavior and there would be consequences.
I had put our travel plans for the kid’s fall break from school in October on the shared calendar six months ahead of time, but B decided our agreement gave him unilateral control to decide when his visits with the kids in our town happened, even if we already had plans. The kids still weren’t vaccinated but he told me he was flying them to Florida to visit his mom. This was the same guy who didn’t want them to return to school in person. I stopped fighting him even though my lawyer said we could push back by filing a motion for an emergency hearing. I decided to add it to the pile of evidence, confident that the judge would finally see how out of control B had been since we were last in court. I saw all these battles as proof that our agreement wasn’t working to benefit the kids. I was holding out for our final day in court for things to get better.
November finally came and the lawyers met with the judge to have our status hearing. The hearing about the hearing. In this hearing, the judge kept throwing out dates to restart the trial but each lawyer had their own conflicts and the soonest they could all line up was February of the following year. We would have to keep on waiting. At least we had a date set for when it all would end. Or so I dearly hoped.