By October 2019, Kim and I had made the decisions to “de-couple.” Until this point, I had to “hold back” my objections to Kim as a parent (or as a partner), because she had made it perfectly clear that she was willing to let a little spat escalate into a justifiable reason to breakup a household with two small children. I had conceded that I wouldn’t be happy with her as a partner, but was not going to personally allow “silly” arguments be the cause of a broken home for my two kids.

Below is an email to Dr. James that outlined some of my concerns with Kim as a parent, as a partner, and just as a decent person.  I called out the use of profanity as a concern around the children, something that I had brought up a number of times. Just days later, that documented concern would come to a head when our 3yr old daughter corrected me to say “What the Fuck?” instead of “What in the world?”

I came to this decision that de-coupling was necessary after Kim absconded with the proceeds from the sale of 399 Curtice, and immediately tried to argue that she was completely justified in doing so, I realized that even if I was willing to concede every little mole hill of an argument with her, I would never, ever, trust her in any way again. She had numerous financial improprieties in the past, but she played both sides of the issue so as to not be addressed:

1. “I don’t understand finances, because nobody ever taught me, because no one in my family ever had any money” – even though she was 43yrs old and could have/should have taken this upon herself by this time.
2. “You’re not my dad, don’t treat me like I’m a child by trying to get involved with how I spend my money!” This is what she would say when I tried to get involved in getting a handle on the household finances and understand where her income was going.

With 399 Curtice, she didn’t even feign to offer an excuse; she just said it was “her house,” and she could do whatever she wanted with the money.  The history of 399 Curtice, is a story of its own, but suffice it to say that I unquestionably put more time, money, and labor into that house than she did. This made me realize what she was capable of, and that she would likely never regain my trust, at least sufficient for a healthy relationship. She either never attempted to – even when it was explicitly stated for the benefit of the children in building some kind of working co-parenting relationship. 

I learned a few things over those last months of 2019:

1. That she cannot be given the benefit of the doubt that she’s not lying straight to your face…about anything
2. If you simply politely press Kim to clarify a “story” that she’s telling you when it doesn’t make sense, you don’t get very far until you run into one of her avoidance tactics. I had not pressed her much in the past (prior to kids), because there weren’t many issues that were worth fighting over.  Upon having kids, I had positions that I at least wanted to understand the rationale to the opposing position. She would consistently stand her ground, without giving any kind of explanation for the position, and continued this underlying “well, I’ll just leave if I’m not happy (getting her way).”
3. Kim has a very deliberate and identifiable strategy once you’ve seen the pattern:
   1. She uses what would be a virtue as an exploit for her avoidance tactic for something that she’s doing or planning to do, and sets it up well in advance.
      • e.g. “You’re calling me stupid!” seemingly out of the blue. When I adamantly object to that accusation, she’d use anything like a sigh or a questioning look to be the same thing.
      • Other examples that started with divorce: “You’re calling me a gold-digger,” “I would never do anything to limit/restrict your time with kids – I’m afraid you will,” “Are you seriously going to drag this family to court (rather than conceding moving to Alabama)? I can’t believe you would stoop to that..”
   2. As she has you on egg shells to not make her think that “you’re calling her stupid,” she’d use absurd rationales for her arguments.
      • e.g. She objected to me “spending the money” to put the children on the waiting list for a feeder daycare into the charter school right by our house, in only a few back-and-forths, I shouldn’t spend the $100 admin fee because, “we don’t even know if the kids will want to go to college, so won’t need to go to a good school.” (I later found out the real reason to this example – she wanted to use “bad schools” as part of her justification for the urgent departure with the kids, and that only she was the parent who arranged schools).

 

 

TODO:

1. Add links to posts, where indicated in the red text.