As mentioned in a few of the previous posts, contact with my step children has been Shakey at best over the past few years. Well, its reached an all time low and with that being over a two month window including birthdays and Christmas, Its starting to feel like its not recoverable. I promised myself I would fight for them and never give up. I knew that the distance was not their choice and was due to the pressure and actions of their mother. I still believe that and don’t want to give up, but as they get older (oldest is now 20), it is becoming their choice at this point. Although I know that choice is still based on the manipulation they’ve been subject to, it is still their choice. If I continue to try they will probably only view it as desperation on my part, so maybe its time I give up.
We once had an amazing relationship and I want to share some of the details of that so I’ll jump back to the beginning of the relationship with their mother. First off, I almost didn’t even start dating her when I found out she had kids. I wasn’t interested in having kids and really enjoyed my adventurous lifestyle and felt kids would only be a burden. I gave it a shot anyway. I only went on a few dates with their mom before I finally met them. They were 1 and 4 I believe and I fell in love with them immediately. Almost all of the dates from this point on were centered around the kids. We would take them to the zoo, tier park, amusement parks, and any other adventure we could think of. We got them into ski school at a very young again so we could travel on the weekends and have fun family outings. I look back at all the photos of our time together and its nothing but great family memories. I think these kids played a much bigger role in me deciding to marry their mother than she did herself. (I think I’ll do a post in the future that actually discusses her and what she brought to the relationship) Bottom line is, I loved them and wanted to officially make them part of my family.
When I met them, they shared a small bedroom in their grandparents’ house. It was a small room that was connected to their mother’s room. At this point, they were pretty much being raised by their grandparents. Their mom was still in school and gone throughout the day. I really don’t remember the details about her schedule but it was clear that the grandparents were definitely playing the parental role. Although they came to my house on the weekends, I couldn’t get them to move down based on the location of their kindergarten and eventually their school.
In 2010 that changed. Their mother and I got married, we bought a house and moved the family to the house they currently live in. Things continued to get better as I got promoted and brought more money into the family. My ex went from having an old crappy VW Jetta when I met her to now having a brand-new BMW X5. The kids went from sharing a room at their grandparents to having their own rooms in a big house. They went from having almost nothing to having almost everything they wanted. From bikes to skis, TV’s and video games, you name it and I would get it for them. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just spoil them and give them everything they wanted, they had to earn it. They had chores and expectations about how to act as well a goals for their education. As long as those things were met, they were rewarded. I think they can look around at the things they have hopefully still recognize what I provided to them in their life.
Anyway, going back to us being disconnected. As previously mentioned, this all started after our trip to Disney. Although this is still extremely clear to me, I’m sure its very vague to the kids at the point. Before this trip, I would talk to DJ almost daily and most days even play video games online with each other even when I was on the other side of the world. I talked to Reilly a few days a week on average but the stronger bond was actually based more on the occasional occurrence. She would call me up in the middle of the night to complain about how her mom and this new guy were treating her. She asked to move in with me but unfortunately that wasn’t an easy option (will discuss that point in the future as well) She was depressed at times and even asked about reaching out to the Jugendamnt for help but said she was too afraid of her mother and the consequences or reaching out for help. I told her I would address the concerns with her mom and make it seem like it was my concerns as to protect Reilly. Each time I did this, I knew the consequence was that my ex would get mad and cut me off from my own children. I didn’t like this fact but standing up for Reilly was worth is.
Then the Disney trip happened. This was probably the best vacation I’ve had with the kids up to this point. We had an amazing time. 5 or 6 straight days at Disney, great food, very cool Airbnb with a pool, and a chance for the kids to be happy with me again. Other than the Drama that Reilly saw on the first day with her mom crying on the phone, the kids were unaware of the drama that was going on during this entire trip. I knew hell was coming but I just didn’t know to what extent. I even talked to the kids during the drive to drop them off, I told them that I expected our contact to be limited over the next few weeks but they shouldn’t let that bother them. There is always a way for us to stay in contract and stay close if that’s what we wanted. Little did I know, it wasn’t going to be just a few weeks, it ended up being almost 8 months of absolute hell.
I have all the emails and whatapp messages from this time so if the accuracy of these comments ever come into question, I can easily prove it. Basically, it started with my ex not letting the kids call me from her phone any more and wouldn’t answer if I called. If I wrote to try and coordinate, my messages would just be ignored. I would try to write to the older kids directly but for weeks couldn’t get through. It turns out, the ex blocked me on their accounts. I’m not sure if she told them that or if it was in secret. My assumption is it was done in secret so that she could tell them she didn’t know why I wasn’t trying to call….I probably didn’t love them anymore or so stupid bullshit like that. Anything for her to start chipping away at our strong bond. A bond by the way that was much stronger than anything she has ever had with the kids. I’ve always been the one that was close to them. We did sports together, would draw together, play video games together……. I’m even the one that would spend the time to sit and help them with their homework on a daily basis. She was at a phase in her life where the only thing that mattered was her facebook and that caused her to be very cold and distant from her kids. Anyway…. So I find out I’m blocked but find other ways to write to the kids. It was nice, when we started finding these alternate ways to chat, they would always tell me they still love me and want to chat with me…. They just weren’t allowed to. The ex would of course tell me they didn’t want to talk to me but I knew that was nothing but a lie. I wasn’t going to give up because I knew what was best for me and the kids. Well, they ex took their phones, blocked me on everything and would search to see if we had any attempted contact. I have no idea what happened to the kids or how they were punished but clearly, they were scared enough that they eventually stopped trying. I never gave up but I was told frequently to stop writing to them and subsequently would loose contact with my kids again. Something she of course claimed to be a complete coincidence.
BTW, it is actually illegal to interfere with the relationship between parents and children, and in Germany this even includes step children. I passed the notes from my lawyer to my ex to prove this point and have her back down but she didn’t seem to care. She knew she was breaking the law but was confident she wouldn’t get into trouble. Well, I reached out to the Jugendamt for assistance but that was kind of a dead end… After month of emails I became aware of her connections within the jugendamt and realized they would protect her and not enforce the rules that are in place for the benefit of the children. I ended up reaching out to my lawyer and spending a bunch of money for them to contact her an inform her of the law. They did and all she did in return was say oh, its just a misunderstanding, I can talk to the kids anytime I want. Although we were allowed to talk, the kids weren’t that interested in reestablishing a relationship with me. Reily wouldn’t even come down stairs to say hi to me or give me a hug. DJ did and we got back into video games a bit but that didn’t last long before the ex found ways to cut that off too.
So….. what were they told? Why did they become so distant? I have no idea, I thought they would run down and hug me and say how much they missed me. Tell me how pissed off they were at their mom for interfering in our relationship. Nope, none of that. To this day I have no idea. Was it just the 8 months without talking that they lost interest and they fell out of love? I doubt it, i think it would take more than that. Were they lied to? I don’t know. I only know that in real life I didn’t do anything that would weaken the relationship with my kids, if anything I did things that should make it stronger. If only they knew the battles that I went through on their behalf…
This is getting to be a much longer post than I intended but its such an important subject to me and so much I want to get off my chest so I’ve got to keep going…
As I’ve mentioned, things never really got better after this. I had my house built and even built it with extra rooms so Reily and DJ could continue to stay with me. Unfortunately, they’ve never taken me up on that offer. They would still come over occasionally and every one of those visits were absolutely amazing. I felt like they still loved me and each time I had hopes that things would just progressively get better on each visit. But as soon as I would leave, they would go quiet again. They wouldn’t respond to my messages or if they did, it would be short and emotionless. None the less, I’m not giving up!
Well, I kinda hit my limit and opened up a bit more to Reily. I told her how much it hurt me that they were so distant from me. I told them that I would be happy to talk about any of the stuff their mom has said about me so that I could help clear my name and maybe rebuild some of our love. She basically said she didn’t want to discuss the things her mom had told her but she did want to improve our relationship so would try harder. She even said she would send cat memes or stupid things like this just so we had some sort of interaction. This was very comforting to me and gave me a lot of hope. This is also the visit where she told me how upset she was about her mom taking the money that she should be getting from her dad. She said she was too afraid to ask her mom for it but really felt it was time that she got what she deserved. I told her that I would help any way I could and if things were bad with her mom, she could always live in my house for free. This was one of the original plans anyway since I’m only there part time, it would be good to have someone look after the house.
After that visit, I wrote a few times trying to coordinate for her upcoming birthday and Christmas that followed shortly after that. I didn’t get a single response from her. I thought this was strange since she had just told me she wanted things to improve and would put more effort into this, not less. Oh well, I assumed her mom was getting in the middle a bit but felt we could deal with this. Reily knew I was looking out for her and standing up to her mom who was the one hurting her. Not physically, but stealing her money and what ever else was making her to scared to even discus these issues. I honestly felt Reily would get fed up with the drama and mistreatment and would get closer to me again for needed support. I guess I’m an idiot since none of that happened. I’ve written to Reily multiple times and even gave her the opportunity to just tell me to leave her alone if that’s what she wants. I’m not getting any response. I didn’t get to see her for her birthday or give her any presents. I wrote a Happy birthday message to her and got a very cold “thanks” in response. Similar scenario with DJ, obviously no birthday message but I’ve reached out multiple times and now get absolutely nothing in return.
So…. What do they think? What have they been told? Are they being convinced that I’m a bad person? I can’t think of anything they could possibly here that would make them think that. I think they know me and would brush it all off as lies. Are they just so scared of their mom that they just don’t write? Did she manipulate their accounts again that they don’t even see when I write to them? I wouldn’t doubt this one….. I really don’t know, but all of them are very sad. If she is interfering, not only is it illegal, but is also hurting the kids, not just me.
I am, and will continue to be successful in my life. If the ex wants to take that away from the kids, I hope they recognize their loss someday. Besides the obvious love that they are losing, what kind of support are they not getting? Help financially…. Travel benefits and perks from my career…. Inheritance…. Life insurance…. who knows what else. Maybe some of what I can offer are petty and materialistic, and for now they can say they don’t really want any of that. What happens in ten or fifteen years when they do need or want something but they’ve completely burned that bridge. What happens when they ask the why…… why was I forced out of their life. What was so bad about me. My guess is just that all of this is based on jealousy. I’m a better parent and can offer the kids so much more in their life, the only way for my ex to not seem like a failure is to remove the one person she would be compared to. If she can find a way to replace the things that she is taking from the kids, maybe they don’t lose much by losing me. But if she doesn’t replace it, how does she justify shorting them from things in their life. If they struggle, how does she comfort them? I know you could have gotten support from Papa or be rich from his inheritance, but this is so much better for you because ….?????? What will she say?
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