All the violence was too much for the kids.

Kavin was so traumatized from all the violence he had seen that every time I would go to leave the house, he would stand in front of the door with his arms out to the sides, begging me not to leave. When I asked him why, he’d say, “Daddy’s going to hurt you!” This broke my heart because I had allowed this to happen around my children.

Coparenting didn’t go any better for me. At the beginning he would call me and basically harass me.

“You’re no good.”

“You’re an awful mother.”

“No one will want you.”

“I’m going to keep the kids and you’ll never see them again.”

These were things he said to me daily and I would call my lawyer’s office crying.

Finally, my lawyer reached out to his lawyer and said, “Enough!” He told his lawyer that if he continued, that we would file harassment charges against him. That calmed things down for awhile.

One day, when he had the kids, he called and said, “I’m keeping the kids.” So I called my lawyer’s office and there was nothing I could do at the time because an agreement hadn’t been signed yet. This, yet again, broke my heart into a million pieces. My kids were my everything!

The next day he brought them back to me because they were begging for mommy and he couldn’t stand it. This, again, traumatized the boys a lot. I think this was one of the reasons why things never went smoothly when it was time for them to visit him. Parenting obviously didn’t come easy to him and it showed greatly!

Kavin, bless his heart, never wanted to go visit him. He would hide under beds and I’d have to drag him out to go for visits. I HATED having to do that but he would have had me thrown in jail in a heartbeat for not complying with our separation agreement.

Kavin and Logan were treated very differently when they were with him. Kavin was treated poorly because he would say “no” at times, and Logan was treated like a prince because he would comply with everything. If Kavin didn’t something wrong, his biological “grandmother” (on his sperm donor’s side) would pull her wooden spoon out and whip him. Very rarely, if ever, did Logan get whipped with the wooden spoon.

Eventually, he moved to Georgia for awhile so the boys didn’t see him for about a year and a half. They were happy kids, especially Kavin. Until one day he came up to visit his mom with his new girlfriend. He had said that he had straightened out (because after our separation I found out not only was he drinking but he was using cocaine) and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, so I let him and the girlfriend stay at the house with the kids while I went to run errands. When I got back, they left and everything was fine, or so I thought.

About a week later, I noticed that we were missing some of Kavin’s ADHD medication. My ex had taken some of his pills from his bottle while I was gone. They were sitting on the counter. I should have known better but I didn’t think anything of it when I left the house. Needless to say, Kavin had to go without his medication for about a week, which was absolutely NOT fair to him.

Eventually, my ex moved back. It was shocking to the boys because they had only seen him once in about two years and all of a sudden they then had to go to his house every other weekend again.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Coparenting Hell!