My daughter’s 13th birthday is coming up this month.
The last time I got to see her and my son was at one of her 9th birthday events. My dad and his wife treated the kids, their mother, and I to a visit to a pizza and video game place in Tulsa.
I was really depressed at the time.
About two weeks after that night, I called my soon to be ex-wife and told her I was thinking about killing myself.
She said, “What about the kids?”
I was upset that she was concerned about the kids and didn’t mention me or her loving me or anything like that. I wasn’t very happy with #1, but she was my best friend at one time and I missed her.
Without thinking much, I thought up the most dramatic thing I could muster and said, “Maybe I’ll take them with me.”
She asked if she should be scared, if she should get a protective order.
I invited her to get that protective order.
She got the emergency protective order barring me from contacting her or the kids until a hearing.
At the hearing, I didn’t even defend myself.
I don’t think I could have defended myself anyway. The court was going to rule for the order no matter how I explained my motivation.
I was trying to shock #1, which in itself is abusive, but I never intended to hurt anyone physically. Nor would I ever say such a thing in front of my kids.
I was a little taken aback when the judge granted a real order for a period of three years.
Three years. I was not to have any contact with the children for three years.
I reminded the judge that then I wouldn’t be able to see the kids (I’m sure the judge was perfectly aware of that fact) and so the judge allowed me to see the kids at the Parent Child Center, the costs to be split between #1 and me.
That night I tried to lay down and die, but I was only able to cry.
I cried for three days.
I kept having this vision of little Baby J wondering why she couldn’t see her daddy.
I didn’t have a job for more than a year.
I got way behind on child support.
The cost to see the kids was $75 per hour, but when I did get a job, I tried to get caught up on child support instead of seeing them. I felt the child support was more important than seeing them.
I never did get caught up on child support.
Eventually, #1 filed to terminate my parental rights on the grounds of abandonment — because I had not seen the kids.
My father told me that #1’s new husband was planning on adopting the kids.
I didn’t fight her. I didn’t even show up for court.
I figure that letting #1’s husband adopt the kids was best for the kids.
Before the order was up, I left two voicemails for #1 and sent three emails. The messages said things like, “Tell the babies I love them,” and the emails said the same and asked about the kids.
#1 turned me in to the police for all these violations and I had to plead guilty to three counts of misdemeanor violations of a protective order. I got sentenced to three years in jail, suspended, and was instead ordered to take a course on anger management once a week for 52 weeks.
#1 has filed to get a new protective order for three more years.
On the emergency order, she wrote, “He has no reason to contact us except to pay the [apx] $4900 he owes.”
I tried to fight that one, but the hearings kept getting continued.
On the last hearing, I was downstairs in criminal court on the VPO matters and the judge continued it until this December. The whole new process started in January, so it’s going to be almost a year from beginning until I hear about the three new years.
This whole thing is a mess of my own design.
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