I cringe every month now when it comes time to flip to the start of the next month, it would be safe to say that I hate the 1st of each month. My life seems to get turned upside down on the first of any given month, here is my best attempt to explain how my children's lives, my life, my familys life all began to unravel starting with the first of the month of course.
September 1, 2010 is when my personal hell began, or where my personal hell became a not so secret hell possibly. The previous night my husband and I had an argument, your typical why can't you do abc type of argument but none the less a verbal spat that ended with him going to his Mother's, turning off his phone and not returning home for the evening.
Sometime late in the night he called and asked if he could return home the following morning to talk, we agreed around 9:30am , after I took our 3 year old to preschool. The next morning came and went, no husband, nap and lunch came and went, no husband, as my 1 year old and I were leaving my husband arrived, carrying a bag of drinks and snacks. As we were both on the front sidewalk anyway we continued our conversation to the front of his car. We weren't fighting or disagreeing, if I recall correctly I told him it irritated me that he ran off to his Mom's without so much as a good night to the kids and he stated something about needing to get away for the night. About this time his Mother jumps out of the car and grabs, twists and scratches my arm, while I'm holding my son. I handt known she was even in the car so to say I was caught off guard is an understatement. My son was fine, my arm was not and I called 911. In the end the officer didnt have a unbiased version of the events and no charges were filed. I was irate at that, I was assaulted on my property, in front of my car with my son and there was no recourse??!
Lesson #1 , it never pays to become upset, emotional or loud with officers. My emotional outburst that day, while quite possibly justified would come back to bite me several times.
Regardless, my husband took his Mother home, returned and we picked up our daughter from school together. We never finished our discussion of .our previous nights argument and he had a new guilt due to my fractured arm and I had a new resentment because of my fractured arm but as people do we stayed silent, for the time being at least.
The one question I had continually asked was why didn't you show up at 9:30am and why was your Mom even with you? I didn't get a good answer to either but by the following day, September 2 , I had new concerns anyway. The afternoon of September 2,2010 a CPI and police officer showed up at the house. Clueless as to why I openly chatted away and answered their questions until an hour of questioning had gone on and no answer as to what they wanted. At some point they eventually referenced an anonymous call they recieved along with violence involving my son the previous day, I thought great they are going to.arrest her for assaulting me then! Wrong. They were going to civilly charge me with failure to protect! And the anonymous call they recieved, that came from my mother in law after she returned home from the previous days incident! Both of those alone didn't concern me much, as there was no validity to one and I didn't cause the other and I aS injured,, not my son. What I didn't know was how manipulative my husband, who was seemingly distraught, really was and what he had been doing the previous morning. CPI ended up leaving, stating they'd be in contact if they needed anything and yet again I was off to pick up my daughter. Sometime that night I decided I was in need of a quick, relaxing get away with the kids so I packed an overnight bag, loaded up the car that Friday and we headed to Sanibel for the labor day weekend.
We had an awesome time and really lived it up, my husband even joined us and I truly believed we had reconnected and life was turning right again. Then reality hit. On the following Tuesday I recieved a call from ERT, whom the CPI worker apparently referred us to. She wanted to come out that day and I explained we were in Sanibel, she referenced she would go ahead and just meet with my husband then and to call when the kids and I returned. I corrected her and told her we were all 4 in Sanibel and was met with dead silence. I recall thinking these people must deal with messed up families if she's speechless over a family vaca. Then she said, what about the injunction, what injunction? The one your husband petitioned for on September 1 and the hearing tomorrow, part of the need for agency involvement. I told her she must be confused, we didn't file for an injunction, no your husband did against you, on behalf of the kids was her response. It was denied but a return hearing had been scheduled for the following day. I thought my head might explode.
My husband, my children's father, the man I trusted, loved, created life with had gotten mad, left, stayed out overnight, filed for an injunction against me , involving my kids, then allowed his mother to attack me, left on vacation with us and had failed to mention the small fact that he applied for protection against me?! To my true surprise, I didn't yell or get angry, I was more hurt, but yet again it was just another bit of the writing on the walls.
We returned home on September 8 and were informed that due to the application for the injunction (done early on 9/1/10), followed by the 911 domestic call (9/1/10 afternoon) and the abuse hotline call (9/1/10 evening) the state of Florida, on behalf of Child Protective Services, would be filing a Petition for Dependency the following morning, 9/9/10 , against my husband and I, attempting to shelter our children in relative care or foster care.
My world was falling out from underneath me and I dint know who to, or who not to, trust.
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