No hope.

Blog 122108

No hope. That’s what I have for my 14 year old niece. The following is a tragedy in the making for the past few years.

Here’s my take of it and everything builds off the following. My niece is not a number one or probably even number two priority in her own mother’s life. My niece is not shown much love by her mother. And it seems my niece will do almost anything to gain favor of her mother but she will never fully receive that love. It’s always conditional. It’s been that way since the divorce, probably since the birth of my niece.

My brother’s ex is a piece of shit of a human being. Her only excuse, the only excuse I’ll accept in reducing any of her blame in this is that she has mental instability.

First the ex lied to my brother before they were married saying the baby she was carrying was his. It wasn’t and this wasn’t revealed until after they were married. The baby was given up for adoption. I always had the feeling that the child would have been nothing but a burden to her anyways.

The marriage was always rocky except for what my brother called the ‘good years’. This apparently was when the ex was seeing a shrink and getting happy pills from the doc. She even became tolerable. I actually had to change my opinion of her. But it didn’t last. She cheated on my brother at least three times. My brother didn’t want to hear it, though. When they were first married she would often disappear for hours with no word to say what she had been doing. I can remember driving my brother around looking for her.

Later on my niece was born. Sometimes I really wonder if she is his. Not because of my niece but because of her mother. Still, my brother has always been a close father to her. My mom also regularly took care of my niece realistically probably raising my niece for at least one-third of her first nine years. My brother and the ex were always asking my mom to take care of my niece both day-care and when they wanted to go out. I’d say my mom had my niece at times for 40 hours a week.

The ex ruled my brother’s word. She definitely wore the pants in the family. She controlled him as much as she could. This led to many fights with the family. And she would treat my niece like shit. When my niece was an infant I overheard the ex changing her diaper telling her over and over ‘you’re a little bitch, you’re a little bitch’. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it when to punish my niece she would send my niece to the back staircase. This was terrifying for my niece because my parents’ house is very old, 1840’s and is surrounded by ghost stories. My niece would be sobbing in terror about having to sit on the stairs while the ex would laugh evily about ‘the monster’ that would get her if she cried. This was stolen from an old Farside comic where one parent stood outside with a balloon of a monster outside their child’s window while the other parent taunted and mocked them saying something to the effect of ‘Mr. Monster Head hears you crying’. To a child that won’t go to sleep. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive my brother for going along with this. I wanted to call child services on them I was so pissed at this. But I figured if I did I wouldn’t see my niece again.

This type of behavior continued for awhile. My brother played Mr. Mom along with working while the ex worked and did whatever she wanted when she came home. My brother was the primary care parent of my niece.

Cut to a family outing. I think it was a Memorial Day. My mom was having a cookout but there were tensions with my brother because of the ex. The ex didn’t want to be there at all and it was obvious. She was there alone because my brother was to arrive later after work. My niece was playing by the road near the front of the house. She got yelled at by the ex. My niece was then taken inside. This is where I could hear everything right below me as my room was right above the living room. The ex insisted my niece, then somewhere between 3 to 5 I believe to sit still. Just sit still in complete silence next to her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My niece had no chance of succeeding in this since there was no given time limit. I could hear my niece fudgetting and getting scolded for it. Then I heard five loud slaps of flesh on flesh. I was shaking with so much anger I went downstairs and sat directly across from them. I did nothing but sit there and maybe stare at them. Soon the ex got up and left driving home with my niece. Apparently my father and his friend had been in an adjoining room and left the house in disgust over the slapping.

When my brother arrived some time later I couldn’t help myself. I was still shaking with anger. He wasn’t there five minutes when I told him she hit his daughter five times. He became hugely irate with me and stormed off. He sped off and left the party. The next day or maybe the day after he arrived at my parents’ house and tossed his house keys either at my mother or on the floor near her. We didn’t see them for six months and they proclaimed the family to all be assholes.

Things came and went and they were in and out of our lives and eventually my nephew was born too.

Eventually the ex told my brother something to the effect that she was leaving him but that if nothing came along she would be back to try again. For once he put his foot down after around 10 years of this shit and they got divorced. From there on out not only was the family assholes but so was he. Where once my brother and my niece were inseparable the ex worked her considerable skill of hatred and convinced my niece to hate her father. I believe she completely mis-represented what happened with the divorce claiming my brother was the reason for it and that it was all his fault. She is skilled in saying just enough truth to warp it to her needs. She’s done this all her life.

When the divorce first happened the ex didn’t even want the kids. The courts had to force her to take them part of the time and even then she complained about it. Then she worked her manipulations on my niece. Thankfully, my nephew never really bought into this bullshit. However, because he didn’t I believe he has been emotionally neglected by her and to this day my brother can’t walk away for five minutes to take a shit without my nephew banging on the bathroom door looking for him.

During this time of the divorce the kids were shared. And this is where the ex really started hammering home just how to hate my brother. I think they divorced with my niece was 9. By 11 she hated her father. She was literally getting instructions from her mother on how to inflict monetary damages on my brother’s house and this is when we first started hearing her mother tell my niece, we literally heard this over a phone conversation, to tell my brother on Christmas Day to shove his presents up his ass. It got to the point to where my niece would run away outside and even called the police a few times on my brother any time he tried to discipline her for doing something wrong. Part of this was her mother’s teaches ‘you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to’.

Court cases came and went where custody of the kids was at stake. My brother had a girlfriend during some of this time for about 8 months. The ex’s claims were insane. They included among other things that my brother and his girlfriend were having sex in front of both of their kids, five in all. Eventually my brother broke up with his girlfriend and then during court cases it became he was sexually molesting my niece. All out of the blue during the proceedings and without prior notice to his lawyer. The calls to child services were constant. My brother was regularly investigated and never charged with anything. He never even had the kids removed from his care. My family was investigate several times too. In the man time the ex went through a series of boyfriends usually with troubled pasts like alcohol and drug abuse. On a ‘vacation’ with my niece to Tennessee, the ex really went down to fuck some guy she met on the internet. Part of the vacation was to bring my niece to Graceland, the Elvis Presley estate. They did. They brought my niece to it, said it was too expensive, took her picture outside of it and left. Nice.

For quite a while around the ages of 12 and 13 my niece wouldn’t even see her father when he would come for visits or leave the area as soon as possible. The courts eventually stepped in and literally forced her to see him. Things were awkward but there were some okay to decent times spent with my sister from what I’m told where my niece acted normal.

Eventually the ex just kept filing court case after court case against my brother putting him in financial debt. He was always so worried about losing any chance to see the kids, despite having the majority of her cases thrown out, he conceded a little here and a little there until about last year the ex won custodial rights to the kids. He still saw them regularly but the ex was determined to move. My niece started getting into a lot of trouble during this time. I’m talking court records trouble. Her mother brought charges against my niece including larceny and assault. She also put my niece in a foster home for a few days without telling my brother who lived maybe 10 minutes away. My niece became sexually active at either 13 or early 14 years of age. She’s also been caught stealing from the local mall by Macy’s. She’s also into prescription drug medication when she can steal it like from my mother and into drinking and posting pictures about it on her MySpace. The ex had her shackled and led away in a police cruiser. The ex outright lied to the courts claiming a visit to Ohio was just a vacation. She never came back. She brought the kids back and left them with my brother. She also called to constantly complain to my niece’s parole officer about my niece’s activities. She also complained to the courts when the bank my brother uses for child support messed up the registered check so that she couldn’t cash it and blamed it as on purpose by my brother. It was later proven to be a simple bank error but that didn’t matter to the ex, she only wanted her money.

My niece, since she started school this past September has been unbearable. She was suspended for theft in her first few weeks. She also missed many days for court days. She missed enough days in three months that the school was threatening t o kick her out. Her friend was caught with prescription pain-killers and claimed my niece gave them to her. During the same week before that incident my mother’s pain-killers for an operation she had had disappeared. My niece is in trouble again at school for stealing. The courts, police and parole officer know her by both face and name now – the same as most of her friends. My niece always seems to see some of her friends at court in trouble at court for hearings when she has to go. The last time they went my niece signed a contract, just like she had had to do months earlier with her mother, to follow my brother’s orders or go to lock-up. Still, she has been so nasty and disrespectfully that it has been worked out that she will go to her mother’s place in Ohio and stay there. This is the same mother that shows affection only when my niece is to be used as a weapon. As soon as my niece is no longer a weapon the ex starts to eventually berate her and turn her hatred on my niece. There were phone calls to my niece when she was at my sister’s where my sister could hear the ex screaming at my niece and reduced my niece to tears. My niece had to be consoled until she stopped crying claiming that she was not a loser.

As of this writing the niece and my nephew are to spend Christmas with their mother and to be picked up on Dec 23rd. My brother has yet to tell my niece this but I believe she knows. She acting like she has nothing to lose. She comes home now on school nights after 10pm and then takes 20 minute showers and then more time in the bathroom before going upstairs to make phone calls. She stopped only when my brother sat across from her while she talked. She constantly shoots glares at him and totally disrespects him.

This past Thanksgiving she didn’t want to be with the family. Still, my brother made her go. She spent as much time as she could on the computer away from everyone. When my oldest brother went over he found instant messages sexually related. Later my other brother told her we needed the chair she was using for the family dinner. We’ve used this same chair every year for over 30 years to help accommodate the family. When he went to get it five minutes later she refused to get out. She outright said ‘no’ to this third brother. That brother pulled the chair out from under her and turned the computer off. She refused to eat with the family, about 11 of us, and sat by the computer crying. Later when my other niece showed up with her friend they all went out and my niece claimed once again how she hates the family. But my older niece added that when she asks troubled niece why she hates her father troubled niece never has a solid, definite answer.

So this is why I have no hope that my niece will ever have a truly happy life or any sort of successful relationship. Her mother continues to make her chose her love over anyone else and places conditions on it. She has told my niece that she will never talk to her again if she chooses ‘them’ (us). This was in November – last month. My niece will forever try to win her mother’s love but the ex has none to give. She will show affection to my niece as long as she can control her. But all her training of hate and disobedience is then used by the ex to tell my niece what a loser she is. My niece will never win. The ex has trained her to hate people, not trust people, steal from people, do whatever she wants regardless of other people. She has taught her most if not all she needs to fail in life.

What’s further scary is my niece speaks the exact rhetoric of her mother and has made the same decisions in life to the year of her mother. I fully expect my niece to have an abortion in her freshman or sophomore high school years like her mother did. The crowd my niece hangs with are virtually the same her mother did, troublemakers and kids that are likely to fail in life. I fully expect within 4 to 6 months my niece to once again be in court but under new charges of criminal activity probably stealing again. And I fully expect my niece to end up in either some sort of juvenile hall or jail before she graduates high school. Actually, I don’t expect her graduate high school. I expect her to quit just like her mother did. I also expect my niece to not be able to hold a job and to work only low skill, low wage jobs because of her problems with both authority, her attitude towards others and life, and because she’ll have no skills to build upon. I could easily see my niece resorting to being a stripper to get by in her late teens and twenties. And I see no reason for her to change her ways so I expect someone in the crowd she runs with to eventually rape her or borderline rape her. And I expect her to have kids from various fathers while having poor relationships with these men. I don’t see her ever having a successful relationship with a man. It virtually exactly what happened to her mother.

The ex has nothing to do with her own father or her half sister. When married to my brother they had three court orders against her mother who constantly threatened to kidnap my niece. The ex hates us especially my mother, my brother, and my middle brother who always saw her for what she was and she knew it. I don’t believe the ex has ever held a job longer than 2, maybe three years. I’ve never known her to have more than one friend at a time. And now she has been ruining my niece’s life since the divorce.