Ladies...Enough Already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Ladies...Enough Already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Mon, 10-04-2004 - 2:10pm
Can we please voluntarily end this thread from grlimilakinskeeper, or whatever her screen name is...it's getting too personal, and not very productive.

Kat

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 1:46pm
Try READING my posts. My kids have been 100% of the time in a household where I was policing the situation. Smoke exposure was reduced because I was here to chase him outside as much as I could. Given a free reign to smoke all he wants around the kids, even on a standard visitation schedule, would likely increase their exposure.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 1:47pm
No, I'm trying to put his smoking around the kids to zero because it's bad for the kids. He will determine how that plays out. Either he'll listen to the court or he won't.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 1:49pm
How has it changed over time? One of your descriptions of his smoking habits talked about vacation *this year*. Also you are in Michigan, right? Last I checked the weather still tends to be wintery cold for a good 4-6 months every year....I still don't get your 90% calculation.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 1:58pm
Because I can nag him outside when the weather's not bad. When it is, it's another story. I'm lucky to get him out half the time then but it's better then all the time all year round when he has the kids. Without a court ordered restriction on smoking around the kids, I expect their exposure to go up unless I can significantly curtail visitation.

January-March, I play hell trying to get him to go outside. However, I see no reason to increase their exposure year round just because it increases in the winter. I really don't get why people are telling me I should accept a situation that increases my kids exposure to his smoking. I really am hoping the court issues a no smoking around the kids order. Hopefully, he'll listen to them. He doesn't listen to me, or the kids or the doctors involved.

I am so glad these threads have happened the way they have. I was thinking that maybe I needed to try and work things out but having to rehash over and over the way he's treated the kids and I has steeled my resolve. People here are right, I should have left long ago but I faced a delemea if I had. I could have left because he smoked around the kids but it wouldn't have stopped his smoking around the kids. At the time, it seemed silly to me to take a course of action that didn't solve the problem. I considered being exposed to smoke in a two parent household better than being exposed to smoke during his half of a joint custody arrangement. Now it's different. I actually have a chance at improving the situation by leaving.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 2:12pm
So it isn't anywhere near the 90% of the time you claimed in your post...just sometimes yes and sometimes no. Gotcha.

Look, if you feel that a court order to stop the smoking would get his attention, go ahead...knock yourself out. Maybe it will be just the kick in the pants he needs to change this habit. But ultimately what everyone here is telling you is that if that court order results in him losing meaningful contact with his children, you need to really start paying attention to the long-term emotional consequences that WILL hit your daughters (not "might", the statistics are pretty overwhelmingly negative on the subject of lack of paternal involvement in children's lives). You don't seem to be prepared to face this issue at all.

Your daughters are facing both physical and mental risks in their current situation. Frankly, the long-term mental and emotional problems that will result from losing contact with their father far outweigh the possible risks to their health that continued exposure to smoking poses. It's not a question of good vs. bad, it's a question of dealing with the lesser of two evils. Many people think that you are not sufficiently considering the long-term evils of banning their father from their lives.

You have repeatedly stated that their father doesn't care for them (I hope you haven't said that sort of thing in front of your daughters? I can't imagine what they must be going through if they keep hearing that one of their parents doesn't care about them regardless of whether it is true or not). From that I get the impression that you think they will suffer no great loss should he be out of their lives for good. On the contrary, they will only gain. That is a dangerous way to think because they may grow up profoundly disagreeing with your perspective and may permanently resent you for the breach, regardless of whether you were justified in your opinion or not.

Laura

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 4:07pm
Again, i hope you can sleep at night because it is YOU and ONLY YOU that set ALL of this in motion...<>

Losing their dad will be detrimental to them and YOU are the one who will have put that in motion. I certainly wouldn't want to be you when your daughters are in their teens and put it all together. Kind of like the backlash that will hit my x-bil (who was a real PITA to my sister) when my niece reaches majority age. Personally, I'd love to be a fly on the wall when she tells him off about all he put them both through.

eileen

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-07-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 7:32pm
I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did what you think I should do.
Avatar for taylormomma
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 7:40pm
I'm sorry, I apparently didn't make myself clear. What you need to get over is the hyperbolic hysteria. No one claimed your kids were mental cases.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2004
Sun, 10-10-2004 - 9:40pm
Well then i'm done. I'm in shock that you can sleep well knowing that you are doing everything in your power to keep the girls from their dad.

good luck with that. you're going to need it now and down the line.

eileen

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 10-11-2004 - 9:34am

Oh please....let's get a little realistic here!

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