Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Never-Ending Battle Over Phone Access

One of Stella's most frequent, and most favorite, ways to block my boyfriend, who I'll start to refer to as Guy, from contact with the kids is to ignore his phone calls. To an outsider, Stella's not wanting to talk to her ex-husband on a daily basis seems reasonable. But the thing is, whenever he calls her phone, he's just trying to reach the kids and would rather not have to listen to her nails-on-a-chalkboard whining, scratchy, smoker's cackle.

In this "wonderful" age of wireless technology, very few people keep a house phone around anymore, and even those who do usually have Vonage, or MagicJack, or some other voice-over-internet-protocol phone that's reliant on a working internet connection. Stella can barely manage to maintain internet service at her house and has an aging computer that isn't getting any younger, so she only maintains a cell phone. Guy has no choice but to call her phone, every night, and suffer through her "I've Seen The Light" Christian music ringback tone until he gets sent to voicemail.

"Hi, you've reached Stella. I'm sorry I can't take your call, but leave a message and I'll return it as soon as possible? Have a blessed day!"

Yuck. She pretends to be a "Christian" yet actively prevents Guy from being able to contact the kids on an almost daily basis. Because torturing another person by dangling your position of power in front of them is very Christian. It was so bad a few months ago that Guy had to request that the police to welfare checks on the kids since he hadn't been able to get a hold of them for days at a time and the last he had heard on one of the occasions, was that the little one was sick.

Since we live 400 miles away from the kids, phone calls are all we've got on a regular basis, and thanks to the current parenting time orders approved by the court, and agreed to by Stella, Guy is supposed to be able to talk to the kids every night. Of course, what he's supposed to be able to do, and what Stella feels like allowing are two completely separate things. Dealing with a Borderline Personality like Stella, court orders don't mean much and they are pretty much useless. I mean, after all, she's the mother and shouldn't have to obey any rules because that might not be in the best interests of the kids, right? She doesn't believe that the rules should apply to her and that the orders only exist for us to have to follow...which we do because that's the right thing to do. Most of the time, Stella will insist that she's not blocking communication, but really, how effective is it to put a phone next to a 5 or 10 year old and say, "Call your father." The kids both know his number, but they're kids. They're not necessarily going to pick up Stella's cell phone and call their dad when told to. In fact, when I was a kid I only picked up the phone if I wanted to ask a relative something, or on one occasion, my spunky 6-year-old self called Grandma to tattle when Dad wouldn't let me have gummy bears with my lunch. Still though, I would rarely call a relative if I were told to do so. When I was the ages that the kids are now, my mom or dad would have to dial the number first and then put me on the phone. What Stella is supposed to do, and was even told to do by an officer of the court during a Parenting Time Enforcement Conference she was dragged into by Guy, is to dial Guy's number and then put the phone in the hands of the kids. She just decides not to. Instead, Guy gets text replies to his phone calls that say, "I told them to call u. It's not my responsibility to call." This happens all.the.time. Or, he'll get a text reply that says, "The kids don't want to talk to u. They are watching their favorite TV show." Guy will request a call back but of course, never gets one, because TV is more important than talking to Dad, and by the time the shows are over Stella has decided to wisk the kids off to bed...or allow the 1o year old to keep watching TV...or allow a friend to come over and hang out with the kids at 9pm on a school night......

I believe that if they had a house phone, the contact wouldn't be blocked so much. But, I might be wrong. I would like to believe that the ringer for the phone wouldn't be kept off and that the annoying sound of a telephone ringing off the hook would resound through the house and let EVERYONE know, "Dad is calling! Pick up the phone!!" But, knowing Stella, that ringer would be broken off and the only time it would be used would be for outgoing calls, when she felt like it or when her Cricket phone gets turned off, again. Stella recently decided to get the 10 year old, who I'll start calling Marsha, her own phone to fix the contact problem! Oh yay! Even our judge figured that it wouldn't be long before that phone was lost or broken, when the contact issue was brought up in a hearing. Stella's reasoning was that 1) the kid had told her she wanted her own phone for Christmas, and seriously, whatever Marsha wants, Stella gets her, and 2) Stella feels that Guy's nightly attempts to get a hold of the kids and say hello is really his attempt at harassing her daily, so now that Marsha has her own phone, she believes that Guy shouldn't feel the need to call her own phone anymore. Of course, now what happens is that two phones go unanswered instead of one.

Phone contact with Marsha, and her brother, who I'll start calling Johnny, has gotten a tiny bit better with the new kids' cell phone, but the phone is regularly turned off, or goes dead, or the kid doesn't return messages and her mother doesn't make her. Another thing to note is that Marsha and Stella have a very co-dependant relationship. Marsha is Stella's best friend, and sometimes her daughter. Marsha believes whatever her mother tells her is truth and won't do anything unless she's made to do it. Of course at the same time, Marsha makes most of the rules in the house and manipulates the crap out of Stella so that she doesn't have to worry about bedtimes, can talk on the phone to pretty much whomever she wants, and so that she can also eat whatever she wants. It's not a healthy environment. Johnny is then left to play video games and clamor for attention, and is left to suffer being mothered by his "mother" and also by his sister. The poor kid never gets a break, and it's very obvious that he's frustrated with living with Stella and Marsha because whenever we get the kids, we'll spend about the first two days re-establishing boundaries and balancing power. Johnny will start to clamor for attention then get confused because he realizes he's getting it and that he's not being picked on. It's sad and funny to watch. In fact, it's almost like having to daily deal with a broken car handle, then someone comes along and fixes the car handle, and you forget to notice until you go to complain and realize you no longer have a reason. Meanwhile Marsha tries to fight us on bedtimes and sugary snacks all day and by the third day she finally remembers that she's 10 and is supposed to do what she's told. The "please's" and "thank you's" return and the kids go from being spoiled or ignored monsters back into obedient, well-behaved children.

As soon as the kids go back to Stella's, after every visit, they immediately revert to the cold, distant behavior we experience with them on the phone whenever we are able to get through to them. In person, they're chatty and bubbly and giggly. On the phone it's, "I don't want to talk right now. I don't want to talk to you. I love you. Bye." And we can't get anything else out of them. Of course, in the background, we can hear Stella screeching, "GET OFF THE PHONE!!!!! IT'S TIME FOR BED!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S ENOUGH!!!!!!" I can practically see her head about ready to start spinning around while she spits fire, just like Sissy Spacek in Carrie.

The battle over phone access is a major part of the war. There's literally nothing we can do to win, though. We can't MAKE them answer the phones. We can't MAKE the kids talk. We also can't exactly send a friend over to the house every night, knock on it, and tell Stella, "Hey. Guy wants to talk to the kids. Answer your phone. NOW." That could be taken as actual harassment... A judge can't even get Stella to stop blocking phone contact. An officer of the court tried, to no avail. So here we remain, frustrated that the kids are being told that they shouldn't have to feel like they need to talk to us, by their mother. Or simultaneously being told that their dad will get their mom arrested if they don't talk, because we know that Stella likes to scare the kids and make them think that Guy is abusive when all he's trying to do is tell the kids he loves them and see how their day at school was. The only thing we can hope for is that maybe, just maybe, the judge will end our suffering and send the kids to live with us because when they're with us, phone access is NEVER blocked. Stella is NEVER told, "Oh, we told the kids they needed to call you. I guess they didn't because they don't want to talk to you and are watching TV." We do dial Stella's number, make the kids turn off the Wii and the TV and talk to their mother every night they're with us. That's called "encouraging a relationship with the other parent" and it's something Stella is too evil to understand how to do. After all, that small act of decency would diminish her sense of power over the situation, because clearly in her mind it's more important to make her ex-husband suffer for having gone through with the divorce after she cheated on him, than to allow the kids a chance to have a relationship with their dad.

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