Lets break it down.......

Let's break it down.......

It wasn't long after I arrived home, that I received an email from my attorney, stating that I need to pay up or she was going to withdraw from my case. This would be the 3rd attorney that I hired who promised me that they would work out a payment plan with me, then turn around and file a motion to withdraw from my case. Up until that point I had been paying her monthly, what I could on top of the child support that I was trying to pay. But I guess, that wasn't enough.

The first attorney withdrew from my case and I owed her close to $15,000 if not more. I don't exactly remember the exact amount, but I paid it with Brian's visa. The second attorney Brian and I hired cost us roughly around $8000.00. I also paid her what I could, also with child support being deducted from my check. She eventually came back to finish out the rest of my case. Her total bill was $11,000 which I put on Brian's visa.

Now, I was facing another attorney, who was threatening to withdraw from my case if I didn't pay up. But I was paying what I could to her, but like I said, it was never enough. How did he do it? How was he able keep forking out the money to keep his attorney for as long as he did? His attorney made a killin' off of him. While T and the boys survived off my child support, his attorney was driving a Lexus and going on exotic trips, buying expensive suites to wear in court. T was stupid for spending, or should I say wasting money on trials, and motions. But, his attorney just kept on taking the money...I hate attorney's!

The bill that I now owed this attorney was close to $5000.00 just from April to June. She still need to go back to court. By the end of it all, I ended up paying, or should I say, Brian and I ended up paying close to $10,000 for her to do absolutely nothing. On top of all that money I had to pay, don't forget I was made to pay back over $4000.00 to his attorney for the first round, and the two motions he filed trying to find me in contempt. So over all, it was well over $40, 000 dollars that we paid 3 attorney's to help me, to represent me, to advise me, to protect my rights, to guarantee me that I will NOT be alienated from my kids....and I have nothing to show for it. Each time we got no where. We lost money, and they got richer. Now, if I was gaining something from all that money and time spent in the court room, like more time with my kids, phone calls that were not ignored, ….need I go on?

I wouldn't complain one bit. But since I spent all that money, and got nothing from it. Then you can see why I am pissed off. (By the way, I still owe $9000.00 on my visa, from 2008 that I am still paying.)

Now lets see what else I was facing....

Along with my attorney's little reminder to pay up or she's done with me. I was also informed that If I didn't start paying that “now new child support amount” by the next pay period, T and his attorney would be filing contempt charges against me again, and this time she promised that I would be put in jail. Here we go again with the jail threat. Or she said, they have also made the proposal again, if you choose to relinquish your rights, you will owe nothing and they will leave you alone. My attorney actually advised me to except the proposal, but made it clear in “legal lingo” that she's not making me do it, or advising me to, she just said, if I were in this situation, I would do it. How in the hell is that NOT telling me what to do? Unreal! She knew, that I wouldn't be able to keep up with that amount of money I was being made to pay. She knew, that I would be targeted from here on out, with every possible thing they could think of to keep me broke, in the hole, always on the defense and always living in fear. She knew...what was ahead of me if I didn't go thru with the relinquishment.

If I was to do this, I told her I don't want his wife to adopt my kids. She said, that will be impossible. Once I relinquish my rights, she then had the right to adopt them. Like always, denied. I also told her, that if I do decide to go thru with this, I want to exercise my last visitation with the boys, which was coming up August 4. Denied. She told me that “in the best interest of the kids, they don't think it would be wise for the last visitation to take place.” “But I promised them, they were looking forward to it. Cody was coming this time.” Austin is going to be so disappointed......I promised him I would be there to pick them up.........it was a promise! But it didn't matter to T. They knew they finally had me where they wanted me. I was hanging on to a limb over a cliff and it was either let go, and be free from the harassment, the fighting, the war, the battle....it would all be over and I could just move on, and never be bothered by them again. Or hang on by a fingernail, until each one turned 18? All the suffering, the misery, the fear of going to the mailbox each day to see what they will file next, what accusations are they going to come up with next......I didn't know what to do.

As much as I liked the sound of that, living in peace and all. It was the pure sadness, and heartbreak I would feel, and what the boys would feel....was torture. But, was it any worse then what we were all ready feeling? They would no longer have to live under the fear of having fun with me, loving me out loud, seeing me. The pressure of taking information back to their dad about me. Spying on me.

Having the uncomfortableness they felt when they returned back from a visit with me. This would make it easy on them. It would keep them out of the middle, I would be doing this to save them from a life of misery with their dad. How in the hell does that make sense to someone who had never been faced with this type of decision?? Was I being crazy for thinking this? Was I being selfish? Again, once you are facing this decision, faced with actually knowing what your future holds either way, you can't judge the decision I made, a decision a lot of parents, mothers and fathers face daily.

Then she tells me that I will also be receiving a motion in the mail from his attorney stating that I took the kids out of the state of Alabama and took them to Florida without T's permission. Are you “F^&*#@!” kidding me....this just keeps getting better and better. Also they were wanting more information about that argument that happened between my mom and brother on 4^th of July. Of course they were, so dang typical! They just wouldn't quit!

All of this was happening way too fast. My mind couldn't keep up with all the crap that was being thrown at me. I knew I had to find another job, full time, part time, it didn't matter, I just needed to find another way to make this money so I can start paying it. After I would leave my part time job at 1pm I would go around looking for another one. I would just drop my resume off every where. But I had no luck. But of course I could look and try all I wanted, when it all boiled down to it, I was screwed and had no way out. Here I was being forced to pay an unreasonable amount in child support, or relinquish my rights to my kids. It was a decision that I tossed and turned over night after night. There was no way around, under or over paying this amount of child support. It was the amount I had a problem with, not the child support itself. I can't emphasize that enough.

I knew that even working two part time jobs would barely scrape the service of the child support I owed. Plus I had to come up with another $1000.00 for his attorney by October 1^st... and pay mine! How in the hell was I going to do all of this? I couldn't....even if I tried, it would always be something else. Another motion, another accusations another contempt charge. It would never end. I figured, it would take me until after each kid was over 18 before I would be able to see at least a dent in the amount of child support I owed, and that is if he didn't file anything else on me....to make my child support bigger or be ordered to pay his attorney's fees for filing some stupid motion. It would never end.

How in the world does a judge do this to a mother and her kids? How does a parent do this to his own kids? In a million years, if someone told me that getting involved with T, would be the biggest mistake of my life, I would have laughed in your face and said you were wrong! He's innocent and weak. He doesn't have a back bone. But.....

“Ask me now?”

I have never witnessed such evil in my entire life. For a father, to allow his children to suffer the way he as allowed, is wrong. He has committed the ultimate hate crime against a child. What he did is a “legal” form of child abuse, and got away with it. Just like he got away with raping that girl.

He knew what he was doing from the very beginning, he just didn't think it was going to take so long.

See when a parent who has an agenda, to destroys another persons life, they never give up. They push and harass until the other person gives in, and gives up. They are the bullies in our society. They will make another human life suffer for the pure gratification of their own. These people have social and mental issue that can't be repaired. The are sociopaths and narcissists. They don't have much sympathy for human life. Like a person who cuts to ease the pain, the alienator bullies and harasses the victim until they finally can't take it anymore, and they cave. They fall victim to the evil work that the bully has done. His plan all along was to make me relinquish my rights to the kids, to be rid of me, to have me out of the picture. He tried many, many times and failed. He never asked me too, he never even offered that to me. He just knew that if he pushed me hard enough, long enough and if he had me right where he needed me, right where he wanted me, I would cave. He played a smart hand. But unfortunately he didn't play with a full deck, if you know what I mean. These people are capable of committing murder and able to get away with it. However, they do eventually get caught. And in a lot of ways, T did commit murder. He killed me, and he killed his kids. Figuratively speaking.

I didn't know what kind of man T was when I married him. I didn't even have a pretty good idea of what kind of person he was. As the years went on, and I started to learn more about him, I would see things that just didn't seem right to me. Like when he was afraid to face his parents about my pregnancy, about his adultery and the rape. His inability to bathe every night, to have proper hygiene.

The way he would curl up in a fetal position when we got into an argument. But I didn't see what was behind all these issues. He had some very deep emotional issues. They all stemmed from his child hood, the way he was raised. He didn't have a loving supportive family. Both of his parents were bullies in their own way. His father bullied his wife and his children. When he was mad or upset he withdrew from the family for days. Then when he was supportive of his childrens decisions, he put them down and belittled them. He would criticize them even if they gave their best effort. His mom smothered him, wouldn't let them breathe without her. She pacified them, picked up after them, bent down to them, and would never discipline him. Instead of telling them they loved them, they just bought them what they wanted. Instead of embracing him, and comforting him when he needed it, she shied away from his emotion, and made him suck it up, and act like a man.

His parents didn't have a loving relationship either. They slept separate from each other. They didn't speak to each other lovingly, they never embraced each other or said I love you. He was raised to believe he was going to be this big football star, and he was afraid to tell his parents that’s not what he wanted to do. They brain washed him into thinking he was Swedish, and had to live up to these expectations. He had a sad life. He had a sad childhood.

I always said his family was like their own little cult. If you didn't belong, or believe their ways, you were not part of their cult. You were shunned from their family. Maybe that's why neither one of then associated with their extended families?

One can only wonder.

I do want to make clear the part about his mom smothering him, and picking up after him. I don't have a problem with picking up your kids, or smothering them to and extent. But, when it interferes with a persons growth and development, that is when I have a problem. I picked up after my kids all the time, but I also made them pick up too. They had to put their clothes away, clean up the bathroom after a shower and take shoes off at the door. Things that you teach them hoping that it will stick with them.

From what the boys told me, they were not aloud to have friends spend the night because their house was a mess all the time. So who's fault is that? T was just teaching them the same things his mom taught him.

I am in no way saying that my family was perfect. We had our own personal issues when I was growing up. My parents fought all the time. I was raised in a very religious home. We went to church every Sunday, and Wednesday night. But, if my mom was “ill” we wouldn't be able to go. It was a functional dysfunctional family. If that makes sense. Both of my parents were loving and affectionate with each other,(when they didn't fight) and with us. We had chores, and earned money for each chore. We were not aloud to listen to rock music. I had to convince my mom that “Wake me up before you go go” was a Christian song about the rapture just so I could buy the tape. I still think that is the funniest thing ever.

But my parents told me they loved me. It wasn't bought by material things, it was the words they spoke to me. They encouraged me, supported me and held my hand. They provided a shelter for me, a place of warmth and kindness. They taught me to love and forgive, not to judge my neighbor. Not to be prejudice. They gave me the tools growing up to deal with what lies ahead for me as an adult. The ability to handle what life throws at me. Yes, I had it easy, I didn't want for anything, it was provided for me. It's what I got accustomed too. But I also learned how to bust hump when I needed too.

But regardless how we were raised, we all have to be accountable for our own actions. We will all face God someday who will then judge us. But what I have shared with you in my story did not warrant the way I was treated. What me and my children had to go through and what we are still going through to this day. I hurt everyday. I think of children everyday. When I grocery shop, when I get my nails done, when I am working, talking to a patient, when I drive, when I watch TV.....I am thinking about my boys. Everyday I have to live with the decisions I made, whether they were good or bad. Everyday I have to live with the questions, the finger pointing the stereotypes of a mother who doesn't have her kids. The “how could yous” the “I could never” “I would do anything it took for my kids.” I hear all of it.........this is why I had such a hard time with telling my story. I have already been through enough, and I didn't want to share this with the world. It was fear.

When I was finally sent the relinquishment papers, I didn't even want to look at them. I didn't even want to know that in my hands held the life line to my kids. These were the “apron strings” this was the artery that kept my heart beating. Signing these papers would mean.........my heart will forever be broken, the apron strings will always be cut, my artery to my kids hearts would be severed. We would no longer be connected, always be disconnected. Always be separated always be left with questions, and doubt.

I was screaming inside, but it was a silent scream......no one would know what I was feeling. Except or Brian. I didn't tell anyone that I was doing this, not my parents, my sister....a friend...no one. The only person who knew, was Brian. I would get up in the middle of the night, and just cry..and beat a pillow. I was sad....I couldn't believe that this was happening to me....happening to my kids. WHY??

I didn't want to make the drive to Elgin and walk in the doors of that giant courthouse. I was scared this time. I knew that if I had to walk in there again, I wouldn't go thru with it, I would break down and cry. Or worse, I might have just went crazy and started screaming at the top of my lungs how unfair this judicial system was. Maybe if I SCREAMED it someone would here me....someone would finally listen. I was afraid that if I saw his attorney, I would want to beat the crap out of him. I would want to inflict the most pain on him for allowing his client to manipulate him and the system the way he did. Scratch his eyes out with my bare hands begging him to listen to the cries of my children.

But I didn’t make it to that courthouse.

I made it as far as the Kankakee County Courthouse.........