Illusions
“What a jerk!”. “Asshole.” “Dickhead.” “Those poor kids.” “He will get his.” He better hope I never…”.
These are just a smidge of things that are being said about me via voice mail, text messaging, Facebook, and in front of my children. Nice. I have left my ex-wife’s comments out, because they are assumed. It is only a natural part of a divorce for one spouse to hate the other. And while the majority of the comments like those mentioned above are very real, they are spoken by people who have absolutely no idea why they are saying those things. Those words are being spoken by people who are misinformed and let us face it, the only two people who truly know what is happening during this process is my ex and I.
Everyone seems to know the “facts”. Yet I can literally count on one hand, and not use all the fingers on that hand, how many people have asked me “what happened?”
I will continue to keep the details of the divorce between my ex and I as we are the only two participants in this process. But one thing I will address is an accusation that I am ignoring my children. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consider this, that through the divorce process, the two of us have continued to live in the house with each other until paperwork is signed. So for those of you have accused me abandoning my children, kind of hard to do that when I am still living in the house to this very day.
My car has been vandalized on at least one occasion.
And the final thing that I will address, my father. He is to be left out of this discussion from now on. He is being used to explain the “lack of time” I spend with my daughters, “on purpose”. Claims are made against me that I would rather spend time with my dad than my daughters. Let me make one thing clear. There is no harder decision for me right now than to be by my dying father’s side (lung cancer if you need to know), and spending time with my daughters. I still work full time and then the balance of the time is taking time to say “hi” and “goodnight” to my daughters, and then sitting by my father’s death bed. But for those of you who feel you can judge me for this decision, you are a sorry excuse for a human being.
I will continue to not involve my children in the divorce process. When I get asked by them, situations or circumstances, I explain to them that these are things that Mommy and Daddy need to take care of. But to my ex’s family and friends, my daughters have heard too much from you and it is not fair to them. You do not get to blame me and the divorce for the way my children feel when you say the vile and hateful things about me that you do. I get it. You hate me because of what little you know that led to the divorce. But you do not get to emotionally hurt my 9 and 11 year old daughters. What the Hell is wrong with you? Just because they may not be in the room with you does not mean that they are not within earshot.
When I see my girls every morning, they have sadness in their eyes. And while originally it may have been about the confusion of divorce, and what it all meant. But now, it is because of all the hateful things that they hear being said about their father. I have not, nor has anyone of my family, said anything negative about my ex. But when you know my children have the possiblity of hearing the hateful words you speak, why can you not just eat those words for when they are not around?
Enough already. You are the ones hurting my daughters… not me.
Paul's Heart 
I just have to say, as a product of divorce and being divorced myself, they will get theirs in the end. Your daughters will eventually see and know the truth and all the lies being told will catch up with the people telling them in the form of resentment from your daughters. The worst thing anyone can do is talk bad about the other person involved in the situation. It will come back to bite them.in the ass. My ex and I made the decision to do what was best for our daughter and to this day me and my ex can talk and me and his wife talk. I had to explain this same thing to my husband now. He thought the same thing if the child was not in the room they weren’t hearing. People are very misguided in that arena. Children hear a lot more than you think. My step sons mom is paying for her words now. As 23 years later she is still bad mouthing his dad in front of him. Even though he has asked repeatedly for her to stop. All I have to say is Karma is A B*tch.