When You Think Meeting The Kids Is The Big Hurdle…

But it’s simply just another speed bump.

It’s true, meeting them was like walking through a gentle spring rain, but little did I know that their mother would have one final and highly effective trick up her sleeve.

She ended up in the hospital again and that stay lead to a much-needed psych evaluation. Everyone in her life agreed, it was the intervention that was needed. She stayed at a facility for 2+ weeks for a continued evaluation and requisite meds. She was finally allowed to return home, but with certain conditions from CPS; this now concerns my boyfriend as well since he is the father of two of her children.

She also has a 3-year-old daughter by another man, which took place while my BF was doing the difficult work to become sober in rehab; for nearly 6 months. He found out that she was pregnant when he was on his way out of rehab and ready to come home; she told him not to come back to their house because she had met someone, and they were having a baby.

While he was shocked and thrown off, he was also surprisingly relieved. It meant that he was finally free of this woman that he felt he’d made a mistake with. He was grateful for his children, but always regretful of becoming entangled with her. It was a difficult situation. The longer they were together the more it became apparent that while she was the forward one, the one that had initially taken the initiative to ask him out and had appeared to be someone in command; she was really just a narcissistic sociopath, hiding behind a facade the sweet but forward girl next door.

It turned out that her boyfriend and baby Daddy was an enabler. He was feeding her substances that, when added to her mental illness, made her a horrible person. So, he did the difficult thing and drove the guy to his sister’s place, a 500 mile round trip. He’s been – once again – living in the basement of the ex’s home to make sure that the boys make it to and from their bus stop every day; and someone manages to handle the needs of this little girl even though she isn’t his.

Meanwhile, she hides in her bedroom, rarely emerges, and only does so to either blather or criticize. In fact, he alone took the boys to her brother’s second wedding this weekend, which I felt was really a very kind gesture since her parents are expecting him to take care of her, and ALL the kids, because at one point in time he had an addiction even though their daughter has had a mental health issue and addiction issues of her own explained away by some phantom “pain problem” that no one seems to be able to solve, and the only way she has been able to manage it is through elicit narcotics: which is completely different from his addiction. His, according to them, was simply recreational. She needs to do these drugs to manage her pain because no one in the medical community will help. (Good God, no one needs to do street narcotics to manage pain unless that is what they prefer; I’ve been under the care of a pain management doctor for something very similar to what she describes as her problem; I wasn’t doing street drugs…)

Anyway, this latest setback has resulted in us seeing each other 3 times since May 26th. I won’t lie, I love him, but this is not ideal. It’s not what I signed up for. I have told him I cannot do this again for another year. Not like I have for the last year.

I said that he should just get the boys through the school year, get them off to their grandparents’ place upstate for summer camp; and then start moving their stuff into his place. While they are at camp, we should look for an appropriate place over the summer to be together, something that will give them their own room/space as well as ours.

He said that he’d been thinking about that for a while. Probably longer than I’d been considering it. If that’s true, I hope he follows through. If this summer passes and we do not move forward, it will break my heart to have to leave him and those beautiful boys behind. They are all truly special, and I feel lucky to have had them in my life, even if only for a brief moment.