Remember me?

This is my nightly pain management strategy, so please bear with me!

Update? OK! SFB has not changed. Had a horrible incident last month. Miss I was on camp. One day a week the kids catch the local bus to school. It drops them at the gate and I see them onto it at the local shopping center. So this day I arranged with SFB to be on the bus to go to school with J. At the start of the year this was what was happening anyway most mornings. I had spoken to SFB about this and he assured me it would be fine. I reminded him the night before and again was told it was fine and he was looking forward to it. This I didn't doubt. So when J and I race for the bus and discover SFB is not on it, I am faced with a huge dilemma. J had already told me he didn't want to go by himself. Of course his first thing is 'Where's Daddy?' You know a million things rush through your brain. I thought I could make myself around 45 minutes late for work and drive J out to school, I could wait for the next bus, but even then I would be late and if SFB was not on it I would be even more screwed. So I spoke to the driver. He said that he would make sure J was fine and would drop him at the gate. Now I suppose I am lucky that J does not look like a 7yo and his height can give him a couple more years. So I asked him what he thought and he said it would be fun to catch the bus.

So I put J on the bus. I rang SFB. No answer. So I texted him telling him I was not happy putting a 7yo on the bus by himself. No reply. I got to work and again tried ringing. Again no answer. By 10.30am when I had been trying to get hold of him every 10 minutes or so and there was no answer I started worrying. Well perhaps worry is the wrong word. So I tried to ring his SIL. She was at work. In the end I rang his mother, the dreaded MIL! I had not spoken to her since last May. She told me I should ring the police. I said that I was not going to do that but if she wanted to it was up to her. She also told me that she didn't think his psychiatrist was helping (no!) and mentioned that when he was a teenager she had him at a psychiatrist because she knew he wasn't right. So the things I picked up on a couple of months into our marriage had been there since adolescence!

Of course SIL then rang me asking what I was going to do. I said I planned on doing nothing. She was out of town with work. She asked when I finished work at 2 if I would be able to go around and check he was ok. So I did. I stood at his front door and rang him. I could hear his phone inside. I called out. No answer. So I went around the back, up the stairs of his block of flats, past the guy watching telly in his Y fronts and looked through his back window. Nothing. So I knocked again. No answer. I turned the handle and the door was open. Great. So I opened the door. 'W, are you in here, I'm coming in.' No answer. The place was a mess. He was not in his bedroom or the lounge room. So I opened the bathroom door and flicked on the light. Nothing. Satisfied he wasn't there I left and rang his SIL and told her he wasn't there.

At 8pm, over 12.5 hours after he was meant to meet J on the bus he rings me. 'I see you have been trying to contact me,F.' No apology, no nothing. When I asked him where he was that morning he said that the bus had not stopped for him. ie, he missed it. He didn't have his phone with him so he couldn't call. He caught the next bus but J was not waiting for him. There was no apology, no nothing. He didn't seem concerned for J's safety or anything. His only comment was that perhaps I should stop working if it was placing this much of a strain on my kids.

So no, not a lot has changed with SFB. The kids finally got a birthday present from him at Easter. I know Miss I is over it, but J is too young to see it. He now says he wants to live with Daddy because Daddy does cool stuff. I suspect if I let him stay up past 11pm most nights watching telly he would like to live with me too.

Me? I had an interesting 'hot date' with G. His settlement has just happened and I thought we were celebrating, but no he wanted to give me pointers for my settlement which was nice, but... At the end of the evening I realised that he is a good friend, but it will never be more than that. When he wasn't advising me about my settlement, he was telling me how he was going to spend some of the money from his. Back to building boats and planes and things, but ones that are big enough for him to take his kids away. No talk of anyone else. Part of his settlement sees him having his kids 4 days on, 4 off which works with his work schedule. Previously his ex had not let him get them the evening of his last day on so he was only having them for 3 nights. He was telling me how he will start earlier on this last day now so he can finish early and get the kids. I said that I was sure they would have friends they could go to and offered to get them every so often if necessary. My offers were met with deaf ears. Perhaps it is his pigheadedness in that he thinks he has to do it on his own. But still he made it clear I was having nothing to do with his kids. So I have left it. He has texted a couple of times and I have replied, but I have not suggested anything and neither has he.

Last week I had my tonsils out. The reason I am writing this now is partially pain management. Mum came up and I survived! Writings about the tonsils are on the other blog. The kids are now down with Mum and I am home alone. Whilst the pain has been unbearable for parts of yesterday and this morning, I don't mind being on my own. I have my online contacts. I have so much support from Twitter and other people that I am doing ok. I am scared I will run out of pain meds, but will cross that path when I get to it!