A lot of Angry

I really love those boys.

Right now they're at their father's house.

And right now, he makes them feel like they have done something bad all the time.

How do I know? Because he has taken their cell phones and told them that they cannot use them. If they want to call their mother or me they have to ask permission. And what did they do to cause him to act this way? They were born. That's it. He won't let them paint their own models for their games. Why? Because they can't do it right. He won't let them play outside because they will get dirty and ruin their clothes. He keeps the home telephone locked in his bedroom because... I dunno... somebody might use it to let the world know what he's doing to them. And that's just the stuff that's been brought to my attention this weekend.

When he was married to my wife, he wasn't engaged in their lives at all. He would go to work, stay late, come home, go to his room and watch TV away from the three of them. He was simply not involved. Sure, he ate meals with them. And at those meals, they were using their silverware incorrectly, and slouching at the table, and her meals weren't to his liking and their chatter was too loud, and loud temper tantrums would be thrown if something fell on the carpet, and if he spilled something it was blamed on everyone but himself: the boys moved the table causing the glass to spill, or the wife moved the boys who moved the table causing the glass to spill, or the three of them were around causing the glass to become frightened and spill. Vacations were oppressive, as nothing was right. Life was oppressive, as nothing was right. But at least he would go to his room at the end of the day and they had some peace.

Upon inspection of this man, you would say that he shouldn't be a father. And if he absolutely must be a father, he should stay as far away from his children and wife as possible. He is bad for them. He is bad for her. Hell, he's bad for himself, but that is actually a positive if you consider that his having to live with himself might actually shorten his life. He's bad for people. He's bad for you.

Now, this man is involved in his children's lives in all the wrong ways. Our 9 year-old was sick, and instead of calling us, he took the boy to his grandmother's house over 30 miles away in another city. Not because this was better for the boy, but because he didn't want talk with us. Never mind that the boy would obviously feel better with his mother, who is less than 5 miles away. The 9 year-old was bitten by a dog. We had to hear about it a week later from the 9 year-old because dad didn't want to tell us about it. Our 13 year-old fell and hit his head on the concrete surrounding a public pool, a doctor happened to be there and made sure he was okay, and we didn't find out until the following week when the 13 year-old came to stay with us for the week. Again, he didn't want to tell us. Those aren't the reasons he gives, of course. He tells us that he didn't want to bother us. He tells us that it was no big deal. He tells us that the boys are fine. Our 13 year-old told his father that he wanted to kill himself on Saturday. On Monday, the psychologist called and asked if we had been made aware of this situation, which we had not.

What am I supposed to do?
Rage?
I wanna smash every house on our block and then stuff my bloody, flesh-torn fists down that bastard's throat until he chokes to death.
I wanna torture him.
I wanna hurt him so badly.

And then I stop. Mostly because it's no good for me to think thoughts like that. But I also think about the boys and what my rage would do to them.

I need to teach them that there are people who can handle themselves.
I need to teach them how to deal with feelings like this without going to jail.
Without harming others.
"The first person to resort to violence is the first person to run out of ideas."
And a whole bunch of other shit like that which never makes me feel as good as it's supposed to.

I guess I just keep blogging until I can breathe without anger.
Until then, fuck that fucker.