Autumn news
I am so sorry for the lack of updates. It's partially due to lack of contact with The Ex now that the kids are over 18; we have not spoken to her in almost a year and it's been amazing. My silence is also partially due to the fact that my own life (work, kids' school, kids' extracurricular activities, etc) has been so incredibly busy that I have honestly barely even had time to think. The other day, I said a small prayer of thanks because if I had this much stuff going on in my own life AND I still had to deal with The Ex and her insanity, I truly don't know how far I'd be making it. But anyway, I'm off-topic.
This blog post is going to be a mishmash of things that have happened over the last month or two. I'm going to try to keep it all in one post, simply because I'm going to reference back to things and don't want you to have to go looking for what I was originally talking about. Fair warning: I feel like this post is going to be so long and rambling that it will make The Ex sound like someone who speaks coherent sentences. Anywho, let's dive in.
The Ex threw a birthday party for her younger son a little over a month ago; the party itself was 2 weeks before his actual birthday. Whatever - her schedule, her life, not my business. Daughter and Guy both went up for the party. Prior to going up to Tiny City, Daughter had a friend of ours give her an undercut. She's had them before and she likes it, not to mention that her head feels a ton lighter because she's got extremely thick hair.
After getting home from The Ex's, Daughter told me about the weekend. She said the night that they got to Tiny City, she had her hair up in a bun and walked into the house. Apparently, The Ex wasn't really looking at and/or paying attention whatsoever because they were there for quite a bit when The Ex suddenly started shrieking at Daughter. "What the hell did you do to your hair?! It looks disgusting!! Why would you do that?!?" Daughter said that she did it because she liked it and she wanted to do it. The Ex, in her perpetual narcissistic game, attempted to drag Guy into the middle of it by asking what he thought about Daughter's hair. Guy told The Ex that he liked Daughter's hair. The Ex continued to bash Daughter and insult her haircut; Guy continued to announce to nobody in particular that Daughter "is beautiful, no matter what." When The Ex wouldn't let up, Guy finally told Daughter, "Babe, don't let your mom's actions define your attitude. You look amazing no matter what." (First of all, good for Guy for saying something; I will admit that after hearing this, I began to like him a tiny bit more. Second, I don't think that Guy realizes the danger that he's put himself in by having the audacity to not only hold an opinion different from The Ex, but to then express that opinion and encourage others to do the same.)
Sometime this year, The Ex started to plan a "waterfalling" trip out-of-state for herself, Ned, Daughter, Guy, The Ex's two youngest kids, and The Ex's daughter's friend. Now bear in mind that both Ned & The Ex's vehicles only hold a maximum of 5 people each...but she planned an out-of-state trip for 7 people. Okay fine, no big deal; they can always drive 2 vehicles and split into groups. Well, Daughter said that The Ex had asked her if Guy would want to take his vehicle on the trip. ("Would you like to come on vacation with us? Oh, and we also need your vehicle. Thanks!') Daughter told her no; they were already driving almost 2 hours to come to Tiny City and she doubted that Guy was going to want to take his vehicle even further.
They go on their trip. Daughter and Guy were riding with Ned in his car; The Ex had the other 3 kids in her vehicle. The Ex had asked earlier this year if a Friday-Sunday trip or a Saturday-Monday trip would work better; Daughter said Friday-Sunday would be better for Guy because he doesn't work on Fridays, but Saturday-Monday would be better for her because she doesn't work on Mondays. A week or so later, The Ex gave Daughter the trip details and, no surprise there, she booked it for Friday-Sunday.
Daughter said they were about 5 hours away from Tiny City when Ned's battery light came on. Daughter isn't a car aficionado by any means, but she knew enough that she told Ned that his alternator was bad at that he needed to pull over right away. Ned called The Ex, who asked him if they could wait to pull over until they got to the next gas station because she didn't want to stop on the side of the highway. Daughter told Ned that they were going to break down and be stuck wherever it happened if he didn't pull over and shut off the car. Daughter said she told Ned that he needed to pull over because she knew that The Ex wasn't going to. Finally, Ned pulled over and they made arrangements; Ned's parents were going to bring their extra car to Ned & The Ex along with a tow dolly, haul Ned's car back to Tiny City, and let Ned & The Ex use their spare car until his got fixed. Daughter said at some point during all of this, The Ex had asked if she and Guy would drive the two younger girls back home; Daughter said they declined. (Daughter also commented that when Ned's car broke down, she'd said something about how they should have brought her car on the trip instead of Ned's. I told Daughter that while her car was probably a lot more mechanically sound than Ned's was, what would they have done if her car had broken down? Who would have picked it up if we were 7+ hours away? How would it have gotten fixed? Everything worked out so in the end, it was fine.)
Daughter also commented that she didn't know if they were going to fix Ned's car or not; she said there was a lot of other issues with it and that The Ex "had been trying to get Ned to buy a new car." (Even though I really really REALLY wanted to say it, I bit my tongue and did not comment, "Why, so when she leaves him she can claim it as marital property and force him to pay out half the value of the vehicle?" I just had a memory flash into my brain; that's what The Ex did to Husband during their divorce. Husband had a really nice car when they were married and he did a ton of upgrades/modifications to it. When The Ex filed for divorce, she tried to get half of the car that she'd put literally no money into whatsoever; Husband sold it rather than let The Ex take it from him. A year or two later when they had reconciled, broken up, and The Ex filed for divorce yet again, she tried to get half of the car that Husband had at that time. Fortunately for him, the car was in someone else's name so The Ex couldn't get her greedy, chubby hands on that one either.)
After this whole debacle, The Ex went on Facebook and posted:
"Wanna say THANK YOU!!! To [Ned's dad tagged] and [Ned's mom tagged] for driving 5 hours to pick up [Ned's name] car and taking the girls with you. It means a lot to have family that can be there for you (emoji of smiley face with hearts) (heart emoji)" (Uh...okay. I got the vibe that Ned's parents didn't like The Ex, particularly after Daughter came home after their wedding and told me that the one and only thing that Ned's mom said to The Ex on the day of the wedding was, "Welcome to the family" and absolutely nothing else. But keep this post in mind, because I think I made sense of it later.)
Son and Girlfriend had a birthday party for Granddaughter a few weeks ago. (Can you believe she's already one year old?!) Girlfriend told me that if The Ex didn't show up for this party like she hadn't shown up for Grandson's party, Girlfriend was going to be done talking to her; she said they didn't have the money to buy food for extra people only to have The Ex not show up twice and prohibit her kids from coming, either. Girlfriend said that both she and Son had asked The Ex if she was coming for sure; allegedly, The Ex answered with something like, "I wouldn't miss it for the world." Girlfriend said to me, "Okay, so what about [Grandson's] party?!" (Because I guess only the first birthday party is the important one...? Forget attending the second birthday party, who would even waste their time? Duh.)
About a day or so before the party, The Ex must have picked up the birthday cake for Granddaughter. The Ex buckled the cake into her back seat, took a picture of it, sent the picture to their family group chat, and wrote, "It ain't going no where!!! Bring on the deer (deer emoji) (emoji of smiley face with tongue sticking out) LOL!!"
......you guys.
I don't know what's funnier: a)this woman clearly doesn't understand inertia and that if she slams her brakes on, this cake is going to go flying off the seat, or b)she's so proud of herself for "securing" the cake that she's bragging to her family but only making herself look even more stupid.
The day of the birthday party, we got there a bit early to help finish setting up whatever needed to be done. The Ex's parents showed up about an hour early, came over, and sat down by us. Daughter jokingly said to her grandparents, "You better not be sitting here when Mom shows up, or else she's gonna have a fit." The Ex's dad shrugged and said, "What else is new?" (...oh. Okay then.) The Ex's parents sat with me and Husband for most of the party. I assumed later that based on The Ex's Facebook post thanking Ned's parents for helping them, The Ex's dad's comment about her having a fit, and both of The Ex's parents' decision to sit with me and Husband during the party, that The Ex must have been at odds with her parents at that point in time.
Ned obviously had an alternator put into his car because he drove it to the party; The Ex also drove her vehicle. I don't understand why but again, there's not a whole lot that The Ex does that makes sense to anyone.
The Ex showed up looking like her miserable self and didn't talk to hardly anyone. The Ex's daughter looked upset/irritated/depressed the entire time; Husband mentioned something about it and I even asked Daughter if her sister was okay because she looked sad; Daughter said, "Yeah, that's just her RBF." (For those of you unaware, that stands for "Resting Bitch Face." I know because I have one; when you're sitting doing your own thing, you look pissed off and scary. The difference is that when you have RBF and someone talks to you, your face changes when you're engaging with someone; this 13-year-old just sat there like her entire life had been ruined by attending this party. Although, as I pointed out to Husband, how do you think you'd feel if your only parent was The Ex?)
Baby Boy and The Ex's son got along pretty well during the party; they were even arm wrestling and laughing while Girlfriend took pictures. I thought this was pretty cute and would make nice memories for Son and Daughter later because their siblings were getting along. A few days after the party, Daughter told me that The Ex was outside taking pictures of her kids during the party when someone told "all the kids" to get in the picture. Baby Girl and Baby Boy asked, "Even us?" The Ex said sure, and then took pictures of her three youngest kids with Husband's and my two youngest kids. (I didn't let Daughter see it, but I cringed a little when she told me. I share Son and Daughter with The Ex simply because I have to due to her being their biological mother - I do not want her anywhere near my children. In my typical fashion of making jokes to ease my own tension, I later told Husband that The Ex was probably pretending that all of the kids belonged to her and Husband.)
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