Single Mom…and so much more!

You can’t get ahead while you’re getting even.

Me (center) with my sisters at my 40th birthday party.

After my panel on Saturday, several people wanted to know how my story ended. I’m happy to report that it hasn’t. What the devil meant for evil, God has certainly worked for my good. This drama birthed my ministry. Yes, I still have those same crazy people in my life, but the way I deal with them allows me to have peace and joy. And I no longer feel guilty about being happy. I’m a freelance writer, I’ve penned my first book (being released in February 2009), and I have an Internet radio program on Blog Talk Radio.

One of the hardest things about going through a crisis such as this is going it alone, feeling like you have no one to talk to. When all this nonsense started I had an extremely supportive boyfriend. I called him as soon as I got home that night after standing in my sister’s living room with two “rent-a-cops” accusing me of child abandonment. The first thing my boyfriend wanted to do was pray. I was busy trying to figure out where I could hide a body, and he wanted to pray. So, he prayed, And I plotted.

I called the next morning and woke him up. He asked me how I slept, and I told him I didn’t. (My sister is 450 pounds…TO THE TENTH POWER. That’s a lot of body to hide, so I had a lot of thinking to do.) He told me he slept really well. Now, that was unusual because he was the one who usually woke up several times during the night. I’m the one who slept peacefully when I was with him. But, over time I made the connection between prayer and rest. Plotting revenge was keeping me up day and night, and wreaking havoc on my body and mind. And, I eventually realized I couldn’t get ahead while I was trying to get even.

When my ex-husband showed up in Minnesota to get the kids, I gave him their birth certificates, social security cards, school records, and a note stating that he had my permission to take them out of the state and to register them in school in Georgia. Even though we had joint custody, I didn’t want him to have any problems. It was also important to me to do things decent and in order.

That’s why I was shocked when I got the papers from him seeking custody. He had the kids, what more did he want? I was even more shocked when I read his grounds: One, I had failed to buy the children sufficient clothing, while I enjoyed a lavish wardrobe. And, two, I had failed to provide them with a stable place to live. This is the same man who took EVERYTHING but the kids when we separated, including the kids’ beds, because he had a “friend” who needed them. I knew he didn’t have a place to put them since he had moved into a one-bedroom apartment. And I was pregnant with our fifth child, a son who was later stillborn, so my mother, who had moved out of state, let me have her bed.

As for his second claim, I was living in a house that I’d bought a couple years prior, after living in Motel6 for more than a year. The kids and I never heard a word from him during the time we lived in that motel. But now that I’d bought a house, he wanted to bring up the fact that I hadn’t provided the children with a stable place to live? It may have been a motel, but that’s more than I could give him credit for.

I called my boyfriend as soon as I got the papers in the mail. Since he’s a lawyer, I figured I could just read them to him and he could translate everything into layman’s terms. I called his cell phone, his house phone, his work phone. No answer. It was a Saturday, so I knew he wasn’t at work. But, since I didn’t get him on his other numbers, which was totally out of character for him, I was willing to try just about anything to find him. He called me back a couple hours later to let me know that he was on a date with another woman. Because we lived in different states and saw each other only a couple times a month, he wanted to meet new people. So much for that extremely supportive boyfriend I had.

When I showed up in court on July 10, 2003, I was there with my lawyer and my ex-husband’s lawyer. My ex was a no-show. At that point I felt like Elijah when Jezebel sent the word that she was going to have him killed. Nowhere have I ever read where Jezebel was chasing Elijah. She simply sent a word, and he ran. That’s what happened to me. My ex served me with court papers, and I went scrambling, trying to figure out how I was going to defend myself against his accusations.

Since my children were 13-, 15-, 16-, and 17-years old, the judge decided to not rule on the oldest two. In the case of the youngest ones, she didn’t have jurisdiction since we were divorced in Georgia and the claim was filed in Minnesota. So, my lawyer called my ex’s lawyer and told him to have my ex return the children to Minnesota immediately. That didn’t happen. I had to go to Georgia to get them. By then, I wanted the back child support that I was due, so I contacted a lawyer in Georgia. I met with him, he told me his fees, and then he looked at me and said, “I’m not going to take your money. Why don’t try doing self-help? You totally screwed yourself when you failed to put visitation guidelines in your divorce decree. You simply said that he can have the children when he wants them. And then you agreed to give him abatement in child support when the children are with him. If you want the kids back and they want to go back with you, why don’t you just have them meet you on the corner somewhere with their suitcases when Dad’s not home, or just go to their school and get them?”

Self-help. I hadn’t given that any thought. But, I’ve learned that it’s the key to happiness and inner peace. The first time I met with my lawyer, she read the Motion and said, “It looks like you were set up.” She was referring to how orchestrated everything seemed to be between my sister and my ex-husband. But, I instantly thought that I had been set up for a come back. What had this come to teach me? I learned that I was sabotaging my own happiness and success trying to keep others happy. But, happiness is an inside job. The only person I can make happy is me. So I’ve stopped waiting for happiness to come to me. Instead, I’ve learned how to help myself to IT.

Related posts: A letter to my younger self: Out of adversity comes greatness