This weekend is the first one since before Christmas that my ex has taken the girls to stay at his for the weekend. I think I've mentioned it to the girls several times this week that it's a while since they'd been to their Dad's and I was looking forward to a quiet weekend. A break.
When he came to pick them up on Friday he negotiated a time to bring them back on Sunday. He said 12 noon, I offered 6pm. We settled on 4pm, although he usually brings them home earlier than agreed anyhow.
Well, it's 10.20pm on Saturday and The Teenager has just called. She was talking in a hushed voice and sounded upset. I asked her if she was OK, she said yes but she was 'bored and confused'. Bored, she said, because they had stupid rules at Dad's house and she couldn't use her Nintendo DS or laptop downstairs - she had to take it upstairs to use it. And everyone was shouting at each other, they were all in bad moods. (He lives with his fiancee). Confused because she didn't understand the logic behind these rules, and she didn't know why Dad was being so mean.
I asked her if she wanted me to go and get her and bring her home. She said no. I said perhaps she shouldn't go to her Dad's again for a while. Her answer? "But you need a break Mum."
I feel really bad about that. I'm on the verge of tears just thinking about it. Have I made her feel she has to go whenever he decides to have them for the weekend just so that I can have a break?
I told her that I don't need a break that much, that she is more important to me than having a break and I don't want her to be unhappy. I said she should ask to come home early tomorrow. So far, she has usually wanted to go to her Dad's but I think she is beginning to see her Dad in a different light. She's beginning to see the man that I recognise: the mean-spirited bully. And that breaks my heart just a little bit.
