It’s true. I have two and a half other children besides H-. I barely write about them on here. I think I have written about my step-son (he makes up the “half”), A-, the most, and I can recall writing one post about my other daughter, A-. I do not believe I have mentioned my son, J-. If I had to guess, I believe I don’t mention him because he, unsurprisingly, carries all my hopes and dreams. I think I’m trying to say, with my son, that it’s the same as how we don’t tell the birthday wish after we blow out the candles. You won’t get a chance to know him on here. Only time will tell if you have the opportunity in real life.

But I have written a whole series of posts, generally categorized, ‘The Daughter Project’, about H-. And my last post was not just written about her, but to her. (Though in it I did write some facts about her ((that she has been kidnapped by her mother)) as I pleaded with her to “wake up”. Upon consideration of that post’s purpose and this blog’s content as a whole, I found myself almost motivated to rename the blog once again, this time to something like, “Revelatory Blog Posts from One of the Many Divorced American Dad’s Who Desire to Father Their Children on the Topic of ‘How Vicious Women Can Be as Measured by How Absolutely Impotent Her Ex is from Stopping Her Heinous Moral Crimes Against Their Child’, Among Other Interesting Musings.” But given how few blogs are actually written by humans (not AI), and how few of those are written by men, and how few of those are updated with any regularity by men doing anything other than expressing bitterness, I realized, “Pete’s Blog” pretty much does the same job–and it’s much easier to remember.

I want to tell you something I have never written about on here.

I want to tell you what I believe is the real beef between her and I.

Aaron Sorkin, the Hollywood writer/director, offers writer’s the tip, “Each line of dialogue should be an attack. And every argument is always about something beneath whatever the stated topic is.” (I’m paraphrasing.) I really like that. I like it because it is clear and easy to follow for writers, and I like it because I believe it is true. Sure, some folks may not always attack, and some folks may legitimately be superficial, but these folks clearly are missing out on the good parts of life.

I can only imagine what my ex tells her family and friends as she describes her crimes. Everyone loves playing defense these days, so it wouldn’t surprise me if all she said was, “I have loved him from the moment I heard there was a ‘big white guy’ in the studio. I really do want him to play a role in H-‘s life,” and subsequently the whole room always rushed to her aide.

For my part, when I talk about my ex-wife’s crimes against me and our daughter, the general response I get is, “I hate when people use the kids against each other,” and, “That sucks that she is using your daughter to hurt you.” As the respondent begins, I always take careful note to learn if anyone is willing to enter the fray and claim that either of the adults (me or her) need a defense or to be attacked to my face. Nope. They do not. Instead they stick to the fairly obvious and fairly neutral, “DON’T HURT CHILDREN!!” claim in all its agreeableness and wisdom. In other words, people–even friends, especially friends–do not attack her, or defend me. Truth be told, as I candidly mentioned last post, if my family and friends do any attacking, it is against me for writing and posting these stupid posts. Aside from that, the only human being who certainly is attacking anyone (outside of me and my nightly imprecatory prayers to the Most High God, Yahweh Elohim–ineffective as they are) is my ex. And she is only attacking H-.

On to it, on to the raison d’etre of this post. I told you that besides informing ya’ll about my family demographics that may not always come across and I like to believe may have a softening effect on the man behind the blog, I wanted to take a moment and describe, for H-‘s sake, what I imagine is the “real” fight/argument between her mom and I. I want to take a moment, crazy as it may be, to reveal my best guess as to what her mom really has had beef with for at least this past 11 years of being divorced. Ready, H-? Ready, dear reader?

H-‘s mom, unlike me, really loved me. As in, she really wanted to not be divorced from me.

Three clues that lead me to this conclusion.

Firstly, when we were in front of the judge for the first and only time we both appeared together in a court room, even he, the judge, commented how well we seemed to get along. I was, naturally, unconcerned with truth and just doing whatever my instincts instructed would be the winning action/speech to get the hell out of there alive. In the moment, I assumed K- was doing the same. Like a traffic stop on steroids. Survive. That’s the goal. But then one of the weirdest moments of all my life occurred in the elevator down, which we, for some reason, got into at the same time. K- said to me, “Well, who knows? Maybe we’ll get remarried.” I knew then, by the speed of the transition of the look on her face from hope to hate, that without a doubt I wear my feelings on my sleeve.

Secondly, I can’t take sole credit for developing this imaginary scenario of mine. One of the only people to truly listen and try to figure out how someone could still care enough to keep pursuing the crime after seven years was the first to state it. This co-worker said something like, “She must have really been hurt.”

My immediate reaction was like, “What do you mean? Hurt by what? Hurt by who? Me?” It’s actually a bit daunting to consider what I saw as the conclusion of this co-worker’s assertion. I started thinking, that my ex-wife–miserable, vindictive wench that she is–actually loved me and wanted to remain married to me or get remarried to me despite all the unpleasantness of our 6+ year marriage. All the more daunting because I just never did. I had even said, “If it doesn’t work, we can just get divorced,” casually on or near the day I proposed.

I have never been one to hide my faults. I have never been one to deny my sins. And I suspect this is where I am different from most people. I have no problem baldly saying, “I never really loved you. I never really cared about you. There were many outside variables–most of which stemmed from my view of sexual union–that led to my proposal.” I just don’t shy away from confessing shameful things like that. “Let’s get the truth in the air and then figure out the path forward” has always been my modus operandi.

Keep in mind, I also believe that “let’s get the truth in the air” is what is happening all day long by our actions. The distinction I draw or ask for help in drawing is that I believe we should intentionally match our words to our actions. K- was no happy wife/mother. She still isn’t. Her actions said so and say so.

Thirdly, the final piece of the puzzle that assures me that my imaginary world of her “love” for me and wish to remarry is the fact that she got remarried, only after I did. The difference, of course, is that I barely dated–and never lived with a girlfriend for the 6+ years between divorce and wedding. Slow down and read that again. I had 6 years of living alone–and after trying some dating for the first 3 years of renewed bachelorhood–was single for the next 3 until I met my current wife. And we did not live together until we were married. My ex, on the other hand, continued where she left off back when I became her bankbook of the hour. Since our separation, a year before the divorce was final, she had live-in boyfriend after live-in boyfriend. As much as I can cherry pick all the disastrous women I have heard of and conclude that I disdain the female sex in its entirety, believe me when I say that I am well aware that the male is equally as terrible. What kind of man moves in with a single mother–a single mother collecting child support and kidnapping the child as if the father, me, is on the penal farm? Horrible men, that’s who. Tried and true “mother effers”. It’s in the name, folks. But she found them and invited them in. Yet, she wouldn’t marry them, or they didn’t ask, or she didn’t pressure them to ask with the “get the milk from the cow for free” BS that made me feel guilty all these many years ago.

But she loves me still. And I don’t love her at all, never did.

That is the underlying disagreement that all the surface dialogue attacks about child support and parenting time is truly about.

****

What do you think, H-? In your almost 14 year old wisdom, does every marriage have to be based on love? And does every divorce have to be based on equitable lack of love? And do empirical facts have any role to play in determining what love is?

Finally, H-, I’d love to hear how you justify your treatment (or lack thereof) of A-, A-, and J-, otherwise known as your ‘brothers and sister’. Do you know that I barely say your name around them anymore, to protect them? Is that what you want? Or are you gonna reengage sometime soon and I can remind them of their big sister? For what it’s worth, J- is so young and promising that he probably won’t display any care, taking the wisest of stances if/when he decides to speak about it. Something like, “I always figured things would change when the right situation presented itself.” So while you two need each other, the age and gender gap is just too big anyhow. I will tell you, though, that taken together with how much your mom is hurting you, you’re doubly losing by not having A- in your life. I can already see that. She has so much love and energy to give. The four of us can’t receive it all. So please start using your grey matter and come back to us.

What will you do?