It rolls on (part 2)

back from lunch

where was i?

right...

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daughter stayed overnight. stbx-Mrs_C had arranged for daughter to sleep at grandmother's place, but daughter refused. daughter says that now that she has her period/menstruation grandmother is constantly on about sex and daughter not having sex.

She says her grandmother has gone weird on her. Her grandmother is the one pushing stbx-Mrs_C the hardest about son and saying son will try something with daughter...

you will recall what i have said previously about grandmother's younger brother being the one who molested at least three of the sisters (including stbx-Mrs_C) when he lived with them.

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anyway, daughter stayed overnight. she didn't want to sleep in the bunk bed. she wanted to sleep on the couch. she said she had no problems or concerns about her brother, or about the bunk bed arrangement, but she still wanted to sleep on the couch. she had been making cracks all day about having to sleep with her mom for so long. i said that i assumed she wanted to sleep on the couch to have her own space. she said yeah - she just wanted to sleep in a room with just herself.

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she said that her mother had taken another week off from work (lots of banked overtime this year). daughter said her mother had promised twice before to finish the room on weeks off and hadn't. daughter said she was hoping it would happen this week, but she wasn't counting on it.

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we went to cousin M's art show (to clarify - cousin M is daughter of stbx-Mrs_C's sister). stbx-Mrs_C phoned over to tell daughter that she was back from the spa overnight and wanted to get over to the show. daughter confronted her and said that stbx-Mrs_C hadn't actually made that arrangement, and that she was going with me. stbx-Mrs_C argued (i assume) but daughter told her "You're just being possessive. And how am I sussposed to know that you wanted to go with me. You never said that to me. You never taked to me about it."

We went.

It was a nice show. Cousin M's studio is in a more run down area of town. It is in an old building on the edge of our small "chinatown" with peeling paint and various unfinished renovations. Very starving artist. it's kind of cool.

I bought a painting for $150.00

couldn't really afford it, but it seemed the right thing to do. and i liked the painting.

daughter put her stuff up for sale on a small table.

it was cordial and even a little friendly with niece/cousin M. her friends were all quite pleasant.

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we went for a barbeque in the park with Smitten and her kids. we set up a portable net that Smitten has, and played a little volleyball and badminton. The kids paired up quite well and enjoyed themselves. it was a tension free period for them. there was a little tension between Smitten and I, but that is a different post.

nothing much just a relational rub in the same vein as the last one a few days ago. my view of how are decisions being made, is she imposing or asserting? blah, blah, blah.

the tension did not ruin or particularly colour the event. it was 9:30pm by the time we left the park - it was just getting dark.

the kids all enjoyed themselves thoroughly. the sons playing sword fighting with sticks and the two girls on the little dock out into the lake and watching the geese and pelicans and other wildlife.

took daughter's dog with us. she really wanted the dog to come with us. then she ignored it, so Smitten and i paid attention to the dog and played with it. i think that daughter's world is so wrapped up in her dog because she escapes reality in her relationship with the dog.

as soon as she had a real person and a non-tense environment her almost obsession with her dog evaporated in an instant. i am happy about that.

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i had thought about stbx-Mrs_C's actions and i realised that i should have said more at the time. so i wrote a note and dropped it in her mailbox.

"You tell the children that I raped you and then you
want me to hug you?

You’ve crossed too many boundaries, too many times.

“I was angry at the time”, or, “I was upset when I
said that” are not acceptable as reasons for saying or
doing what you do.

You need to get professional help to help you through
what you need to get through.

Also, you need a woman counsellor, not a man."

stbx-Mrs_C called me about this right before her conversation with daughter about going to cousin M's show.

stbx-Mrs_C said she had received my note and that she was calling to tell me that i had non-consensual sex with her twice and that what other name for it was there? we argued back and forth - i asked her to say when these incidents allegedly happened and she gave a date range. i pointed out that the dates she gave were different than the last ones she had told me. she then said that i was picking at details like i always did, and that it happened.

she also said that she hadn't meant to tell son, but that he had been pushing her and she finally blurted it out. i pointed out that daughter was there too. she then said that she was trying to make the point to them that i wasn't so perfect and that maybe they shouldn't look down on her and her shortcomings.

she also said that i was telling her she was a nutcase by telling her to seek professional help. i told her that if that was how she interpreted the note that i should have written two separate notes - one about her allegations, and the other suggesting she need help.

she came back with her usual "everyone needs help. i prefer to leave my past behind me." i told her that she might think she was leaving her past behind her but she wasn't and that she needed to deal with it or it would continue to damage her life.

blah, blah, blah

i re-asserted that the rape had never happened and went to end the call when she wanted to talk to daughter - that conversation described above

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in hindsight i realise that once again she deflected me from my point. my point was that she wanted to hug me and tried to kiss me after telling the kids i raped her. i didn't even address the question of whether it happened or not. perhaps by implication - or maybe because the question of the authenticity of the story is at the top of her mind she sees everything as an attack on whether it's true or not.

i'm still a little irritated that i was deflected. but that has been her pattern all along hasn't it? deflection and diversion when i want to bring something up.

wait 'til i excerpt some of the book and it's discussion of diversion...

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there's more, but that's most of it, and i should do some work now.