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Tumult:  Santa brought someone a dictionary.

1/6/2013

7 Comments

 
I heard a rumor that a New Year started.... but, thus far it's the same sh*t, different day in my world. lolol

Day 14 rolled into day 15 and day 16.  Then I reached out to one of El Capitan's friends.  He was passively "helpful" offering me "advice" and a shoulder to cry on... offering to buy me lunch and "give me a hug". 
He said I needed to "get over" El Capitan and Yoga Girl - to "accept" that they are together now and 'move on'.  He said that I didn't "owe" them anything and I shouldn't even be "thinking" about Yoga Girl - they should mean nothing to me.  To which I replied.... "Oh, I wasn't aware you and Yoga Girl were friends ......"

You see, there were reasons, business reasons that Yoga Girl's identity was kept "secret".  El Capitan said no one knew who she was.... not even his friends.  But, I guess after making the rounds during holiday season at parties and the movies and whatnot.... the cat is out of the bag.

I replied to the friend that if *they* aren't bothering to keep Yoga Girl's identity a secret anymore... then why am I still keeping their secret?  If, in fact, they mean "nothing" to me - and I shouldn't "think about" them at all - then why on earth should I still continue to keep their identities a secret?

Now. Let's be clear.  That's not a threat - simply a question.  Let's also be clear...... *WE* put up a sign to sell our home.  We never discussed keeping *anyone's* identity secret.  We never dreamed in a million years that *all this* would happen from one stupid sign.... 
Never.

When the first reporter called, I called El Capitan immediately to ask him what to do... take the interview?  Politely decline?  He told me to take it - that our home would be "on the news" and it would "sell by Sunday".

I had just spent three weeks cleaning our home, packing and moving 50% of the contents of the house - and it was summer:  I was sweaty and tired and exhausted.  I was not camera ready.  I was a mess, physically, emotionally and personally.

But I agreed, selling the house was important - and selling it fast was even more important.

However, hindsight suggests to me that El Capitan saw the flash of the camera and shoved me in front - only to use my larger than life personality (and... eh-hem... size) - to hide behind.  And he has stood there, alongside Yoga Girl, ever since.
Imagine that.

It's a rare kind of coward who shoves his wife, the mother of his children, into the firing line.  It's not enough to be married to an adulterer, to someone who betrays you and destroys you... but to find out he's a coward on top of it all .... well, it sucks.

So, El Capitan's friend *has* a point..... I owe them nothing. 

I knew that the friend was lying to me, that he would be turning over the short notes of our conversation to El Capitan (or at least I assumed it) - and..... I also knew that while El Capitan hadn't bothered to be protect me or even protect our children - he *would* surface to protect Yoga Girl.

And he did.
I'm thinking someone must have *amazing* skills involving 'chrome' and 'trailer hitches'.... just a thought, of course.... just a thought.

The conversation between the friend and I had started genuine enough..... I had thought that we *were* friends.  I was genuinely hurt to find out that this friend is now "friends" with Yoga Girl - this person was supposed to care about my children.  They were supposed to be *my* friend as well - hence the offers of lunch and hugs.... but then I realized that their words were baited and leading..... and so I thought I would answer his leading questions honestly.... though understanding that my honest reply was not what they were hoping for.

At 2:30am on day 17, I got an email.  An email that sounds and looks like nothing I've ever seen El Capitan write - however an email none the less.

It skips over *what* has happened these last three weeks.... glossing over it like a master painter re-creating a Monet where a finger painting in feces once was. 

Needless to say: it didn't work.

What El Capitan refers to as "Netflix account issue's"  I still refer to as stealing.
What El Capitan refers to as "being out of contact" - I still refer to as 'disappearing'.
What El Capitan refers to as "his property from his storage unit" - the law, the contract and I still refer to it as MINE.
What El Capitan refers to as "simple", in regards to his desire to make "simple" our co-parenting - I refer to as complete and total nonsense..... lying, stealing and manipulation rarely make anything' simple'.

So I told him as much.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of being a single parent.
I'm tired of being *the only* parent - who is not only left dealing with her own emotions which are constantly manipulated and tread upon.... but who then has to pick herself up and try to help her children deal with their myriad of emotions as well.
I'm tired of being left behind to live the life *we* were living.... the life *we* decided on:  alone.
Oh... and then while I'm doing that the *best* that I can... I'm tired of being punished for it by El Capitan.

El Capitan walked away... renewed, fresh, and starting over.
A new car.... a new apartment, a new girlfriend and a new life - full of new computers (a Toshiba PC), a new cell phone (which he denies having and won't now give me the number too), new clothes and a whole new life that he crafted for himself.

A new life he made for himself out of the ashes my life that he burned down.........

I'm tired of living in fear of him taking me to court. 

The truth is, I do live in fear of our family court judge and how El Capitan might spin things in a courtroom and what that might mean for me..... I'm sure that having this Blog could be a bad idea... however.... does it not occur to El Capitan that if there was no lying, no manipulation, no disappearing,.... no harm being done: then there would be nothing to blog about?  Is there not some kind of shared responsibility for the contents of this blog by El Capitan himself?

But mostly, I'm just tired.  Tired of being lied to, walked on, walked over.... tired. Tired. Tired.

So I wrote El Capitan back and for the first time in 10 months I shot straight down the middle.  I called a spade a spade, a lie a lie and I left it at that.

I told him that I will read up on how to re-introduce his visitation to the kids.  Were it not for The Boy's dream last week, I'm not sure I would even think twice.  However, based on what The Boy said, he clearly feels abandoned by El Capitan's most recent 'time of being out of contact'.  (I still refer to it as 'disappearing'.)  I advised El Capitan that I would fine some relevant readings on the subject and get back to him.

While I fully understand children are resilient - they can bounce back from almost anything it seems.... but even if they were made a of rubber:  even a rubber-band can be stretched too many times and eventually snap.  As their Mother, i would like to see them thrive and grow, not just 'be resilient'. That's not living.  Being stretched and pulled and having their hearts feel abandoned and loved... abandoned and loved... only to be left stretched out and snapped.... that's not an acceptable outcome to our situation. 

You see.... in spite of *all* of this.... and by ALLLLLLLLLL - I mean the last five months of blog entries and lies and betrayals.... I'm still vested in making sure these children are whole people.  I'm still vested in them having some kind of positive relationship with their father... though now *I'm* the one who feels like I'm trying to craft a 'Monet' out of El Capitan's finger painting in feces. 
sigh.

And here I thought that after both my children graduated to the potty from diapers that I was done dealing with other peoples sh*t...... double sigh.

Let me be painfully clear.  *I* am not the one keeping *anyone* from *anyone*.

I am not the one who rented an apartment with no room for my children.
I am not the one who lives the life of a single man..... who simply "visits" (in the most literal sense of the word) his children.  Those are all things done by El Capitan:  not me.

Anyone is free to choose to do the wrong thing...... but I will continue to do the right thing.

The right thing is to continue to encourage and help facilitate (as best i can) a healthy relationship between my children and their Father... but that responsibility lies mostly with El Capitan.  I only need to not 'poison the waterhole' as Woody would say.  My job is to create a safe place for their hearts and all of their emotions - about El Capitan, about me... whatever:  even Yoga Girl.

I've mentioned it before, but The Boy is very worried that Yoga Girl doesn't like him.  This morning he said to me......"I don't think XXXXX [Yoga Girl] likes me, Mom."

"Oh.....? Why would you think that?"  I asked him.

"Because.... you know how at school 'Justin' always comes up and takes the yellow Legos from my building - and doesn't share?  Well... you know Mom, 'Justin' is a bit of a bully... I don't think he likes me."  He replied.

"Ok....."  I said.

"And... Daddy's girlfriend is a bully because she took Daddy and she doesn't share him..... so I don't think she likes me."  he stated while staring at the floor.

Now... in my mind - I high five the kid and I scream with glee:  that's right Yoga Girl is a bully and a bitch and you should never ever trust her..... bwahahahahahahaha (insert evil ex-wife laugh here).

Instead....... I said this, "When you're at school and 'Justin' takes your blocks, do you let him take your blocks or do you try to work it out with him?"

"Well... sometimes I try to trade him, and sometimes not."  He said.

"OK, well, may be in time you can work out a 'trade' with XXXXX[Yoga Girl]?  But, it's important to remember that it doesn't matter if she likes you or not, because first of all, we love you and second of all, she hasn't gotten to know you and everyone who gets to know you;  love you."  I told him.

He thought for a moment..... then he said, "Yeah... you're right Mom... never mind."
and then he ran off to play.

Note.... I didn't say - "Your Daddy and I love you" - because the books say that that is no longer my job.  If El Capitan loves his children that is a message *he* needs to give them.  However... in light of the "two teams" conversation - I didn't want to just "Mommy" thereby implying Daddy and Yoga Girl don't love him..... so  I just said a collective "we".  I thought it was safer for him.

Then, I didn't discuss Yoga Girl and who she likes or doesn't like.... I simply stated the truth:  she doesn't know him and everyone who does get to know him, loves him. 

Problem kind of/sort of.... solved.

However... deep down, The Boy already knows Yoga Girl... she's the kind of kid on the playground who steals others' people's toys and doesn't even feel bad about it.  The kind of kid who grows up to have affairs with married men:  who does, infact, steal other people's fathers.  I guess she was in need of one?
It's remarkable to me how perceptive and intuitive The Boy is.  How he takes things into his heart and into his mind and processes them in his own terms and his own words....... really. 

I don't know who Yoga Girl is going to be to the children... is she just a 'means to an end' as El Capitan has continued to refer to her for the last 10 months?  Will she be my kids step-mother?...... either way, I'm fairly certain I'll never warm to her ..... but the door has to remain open for the children.  Though... I would hesitate to call her any kind of step-mother and think 'big sister' might be more appropriate.
Which later had me wondering if El Capitan has now destined our children for the same fate he suffered, the same fate he claimed to hate his own father for doing to him - and that giving him a step-mother who he referred to as 'fake mom'... and still does.*********
sigh. sigh and someone f*cking just kick me while I'm down and put me out of my misery.... SIGH.

So I'm tired on sooooo many, many levels, but it's a New Year and I ... whether I like it or not - have a new life to lead.... and unlike my life before - if this one fails, it's my fault, not El Capitans.

So... New Elle is not going to pander.
She's not going to believe El Capitan's puppy dog eyes and sorrowful looks and talk of how he's only "living with her" because he has "nowhere else to go". and such......
She's not going to play the game any longer because it takes two people to play.

She's goign to focus on being the Mother she wants to be.
Finding a new career and a home for us to call our own.
She has to take some time to get herself ready for this new life.... and may be even her 'Edward' will come along.  Because.... in the last three weeks Elle (yes, I'm talking in the third person for the added drama here) - Elle has realized that El Capitan was not, in fact, her 'Edward'.  she thought he was... but he wasn't.  And while realizing that has been brutally hard - it's also made her realize that that only means that her 'Edward' is yet to come.... and it's better not to waste time thinking about what wasn't - when life is going to be much more rewarding preparing for what is to come.  However long that takes... whatever form it takes... my children won't learn to grow up to be whole people in spite of this loss, unless *I* am one.  Period.  That is part of how I teach them, *show* them how to heal and move forward... by doing it myself.

As such.... I am 10 miles and 2 more pounds down that road...... on - and plus ONE better attitude.


**********On the note of El Capitan's parents.... they are much written about in the book because our strife with them had much to do with early issue's in our marriage..... I do think the title of 'fake Mom' is a bit harsh.  I think we all make do with what we have to work with..... and how El Capitan now treats me is how I often saw him treat his parents in the early years of our marriage.  I realize now that they may have had a point about who El Capitan really was and I just didn't want to see it.
Hindsight.... she's a bigger b*tch than Karma sometimes.










7 Comments
Alyson
1/7/2013 12:46:55 am

Elle - my heart breaks for you. Though I did not have a 10 year marriage with my ex, I have been through a similar experience. I wish I handled it as well as you have. My ex left me when I was 9 months pregnant. He "disappeared" for years (having our son only when it was convenient to his dating life). When he found somebody to marry and start his THIRD family with, that is when he fought for 50/50 custody. It was heartbreaking in the sense that he could build his entire life away from us, for himself, and take no responsibility to the son he left, but then just come along when there was somebody else to raise our son with him. 5 years of me going at it alone for the most part, listening to his excuses. Just this Christmas him not wanting our son because he had strep throat and didn't want to get his "family" sick. So, I had to take vacation days and stay home Christmas through New Years with our sick son because his father didn't want a sick child in his house. And yet, I have to smile through it all when I get that email full of the BS excuses like El Capitan supposedly wrote you. Because ill-advised responses to previous emails have shown up in court that I am not encouraging the father/son relationship. I know my ex's emails are not written by him either. It took me years to get over the fact that who I married was not the man I thought he was. So, just so you know, all you do at home with your kids, all the right things that you DON'T say to them, all the encouragement you give them with their father - those things cannot be proven. What can be proven is your blog and emails back to him. For some reason, the courts don't care about El Capitan's disappearance, should it come to him fighting you with custody. They care about your words, assuming that if you feel this way on your blog or via email with him, then you are projecting that to your kids. It sucks, it really does. Because I never say a cross word to my son about his father. Never. But my emails of frustration, of putting him in his place, my own blog - they have come back to bite me BIG time. Maybe what you can do is put a password on your blog for your viewers so he cannot read it. Though I am sure there is some satisfaction to you knowing that he is reading it and that we all know what his and Yoga girls' true character is. She is one of those girls. She sucks. She believes him. She will be you one day if she marries him. I stood by my ex when he ignored his daughter from his first marriage (I was his second, after a failed engagement in between). I believed all the shit he said about his first ex-wife. I supported him in not seeing his daughter because of all his "reasons" and then fighting for her when we got married. Now, I am his second ex-wife and the MO has not changed. It will not change when his third marriage fails. And it will. It'll just be a matter of time before Yoga girl is you. It won't take 10 years this time. It'll be much less, because El Capitan sees how easy it actually is to leave his family.

I believe every single thing you are saying, that you don't poison the kids. But the courts won't care. They will say that even if you don't say something, your "feelings" still permeate and affect the kids, albeit unknown to them. Please, feel free to email me privately any time. I truly am heartbroken for what you are going through. The affects of divorce are so far more reaching than just your kids or family. Everybody is so concerned about "who" can get married but nobody is concerned about who can just up and leave their family.

Reply
SHELLY
1/7/2013 12:50:28 am

Great Job ! Chin up ! No more fear !

Reply
Taun-Taun
1/7/2013 01:21:23 am

**YAY** Dancing, Dancing, Dancing! Elle, you are coming back. Out of the fog...into the light. The pain is there, I know...but I see the resilient you in the first part of your book kicking her way through El Capitan's mess.

The only sweet Karma (sort of) is that this new relationship of his is a rebound. And rebounds...they don't typically work. ESPECIALLY when he's the one rebounding from the chaos he created. My guess is he'll leave another mess in his wake and one day Yoga Girl will be sharing her heartache...See Karma...although a small part of me feels bad for her. There's a reason he chose a 22yo...because a real adult woman wouldn't have settled for that treatment in a thousand years!

And, I can't wait until you find your Edward....because you will. HUGS to you. As always, YOU are doing amazing.

PS...I think you should create a cartoon series about El Capitan and Yoga Girl. Not about the real people necessarily...but the principle of who they are. A helpless guy and his hero supergirl saving the world from the messiness of adulthood, unaware of the tsunamis they leave in their wake. BAHAAHAA

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Alex
1/7/2013 04:50:59 am

To Yoga Girl;

I assume you're at least a little hurt by what's said about you, here and other places. Nobody likes to be called names like "home wrecker" or "skank" or "dirty slut". Those are all basically misogynistic names for "thief", and people think thieves are trash. That hurts.

My mom was once a "Yoga Girl". She had an affair with a married father when she was young, in a foreign country, very depressed and incredibly lonely, and was fed the same lines you were.

You might be like she was at first, but look at yourself now. Is this who you want to be for some 33 year old jack off?

You did *not* "save" him from a miserable marriage. The only people who can actually do that are the ones in the marriage. He's a grown ass man.

You probably don't believe you "stole" El Capitan from Elle, and I agree, since I don't believe you can "steal" people.

Here is what you *did* steal;

- her privacy in her marriage; what goes on in their marriage was their business
- her autonomy in her marriage (would you be cool with someone butting into your relationship with El Capitan?)
- her time
- her damn Netflix- really, this is just tacky.

Being married to someone isn't "owning" them, but it IS the "owning" the relationship, and so each person has the right to deal with it alone, no outsiders. Being "invited" in by one party doesn't change that. You need the consent of BOTH parties. If 2 people own a car, they both need to agree to sell it and how. One can't just sell it to a buddy for a deal. KWIM?

So you did steal from this woman and you really owe her an apology. She may gripe about you here, but she hasn't exposed you (and many, many would), she even made sure you didn't lose your doll house FFS.

So think, did she deserve any of this? Did you have any right to it?

Reply
Alex
1/7/2013 04:54:18 am

Damn Elle. That totally sucks, the other guy not really being a friend so much as "fishing".

Do push them out of your head. Be cordial and open, not vindictive, but distant. Kind gestures from you will neither be reciprocated not even appreciated, so don't throw good money after bad.

An admission; my mom was once a "Yoga Girl". He was her boss, and fed her the whole "my wife and I hate each other, just staying together for kids, etc." schtick too. She was in her twenties, brought over to a new country, was terribly depressed, neglected by her own family and so, so, so lonely and she fell for it. She did not break up the family, and eventually met my dad thank God. Guess who called her pleading for her to go back 2 weeks before her wedding. At least my mom could see through it by then. Barely, but enough to know not to go back. She hung up

Reply
Wendiroo
1/8/2013 12:55:39 am

I grew up with a father like El Capitan. My father cheated and broke up our family. He married the woman and they are married still, to this day. However, they live in separate houses and my father has continued his adulterous existence throughout the last 30 years despite whoever he was married to at the time. It's left a lasting impression on me. He left when I was 9 years old. I spilled a soda on him, he got up, grabbed an already packed suitcase out of the closet downstairs, and walked away, down the street, around the corner, and was gone. For a long time. He shacked up with his mistress and eventually came back for the every other weekend thing. Everything El Capitan does and, more importantly, doesn't do, will be remembered by the children. They will look back as adults and see him as different than a father, as someone selfish who didn't love them enough to put them first as he should have done when he decided to have them in the first place. Yoga Girl may or may not be around by then, but they will never truly love her because of how he threw them by the roadside to be with her. It's easy for him to walk away and become the fairweather parent. Even though it was my dad that cheated, that caused the break up of our family, it was my mom that suffered the most. I grew up ok, although I don't have memories of a happy 2 parent family or even a sense of security with either of my parents, and as a result, I have decided not to have children of my own. I don't want to put them through what I went through. Nothing makes it better, but as I read your blog I'm really rooting for you and your children. I think it's great that you can do what you believe is the right thing when all you probably want to do is shishkabob El Capitan and Yoga Girl in their lovers embrace and stake them up in the yard, portraying their shame for the world to see. I really do wish you the best.

Reply
Jaimey
1/8/2013 04:57:12 pm

How badly I want to out stupid cunt monkey, baby teeth yoga girl right now.... But alas I won't. :-/ hugs. Love you.

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PS.... you *WILL find errors in grammar, spelling and otherwise... I am just a Mom - now a 'single Mom' who
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