Stormy Seas

I seem to be a woman of many cliche's lately.  I think my brain is just so overloaded and sluggish and tired that I need people to get me, like now, instead of having to explain stuff.  Enter the cliche's, lol.  So that stormy sea, tropical island analogy I spoke about it my last blog post is turning out to be eerily appropriate.  We did spend a tiny bit of time on the island we last landed on, but it was small and without enough good resources so we were chased off of it quickly.  It wasn't until we were in the middle of a deep and treacherous part of our lives (home remodeling, :shudder:) that the storm hit.  I wish I could say I didn't see this storm coming, but I had a glimpse of it so I was somewhat prepared.

Months ago I had this horrid thought that our decision to take our children out of what we feel is an unhealthy and dysfunctional environment might be met with a drastic effort to force us to maintain contact.  I did some googling and contacted a few friends who have legal experience in an effort to find out who, besides my husband and myself, might have some kind of legal claim to my children.  I discovered that, at least in Missouri, nobody does.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

Last week my husband got a text-via-email from a particular family member who should be pretty desparate to see my kids right about now.  Unfortunately this desperation doesn't seem to be driving anyone to actually fix anything, but I digress.  He got a text/email stating that I had told somebody something that was TOTALLY untrue, followed by a statement indicating that a lawyer had been contacted.  It seemed random and our first response was "uh, ok???", but then it dawned on me.  This person was insinuating that they were going to try to use the family courts to force us to allow our children to visit.  I cannot even tell you the speed and force with which 1000 emotions went through me.  There was a bit of sadness that this seemed like a good idea to people who claim to love us, followed by anger that they are being controlled so thoroughly, and every single imaginable emotion in between.  Fear was in there as well, but I quickly recovered from that and pulled the links that I had tagged months ago back up for reassurance.

In Missouri (Dear family member, read this and save your money.  Or better yet, use it to get counseling.) there are very, VERY strict guidelines to dictate when somebody other than a parent has legal rights over a child.  In this particular case hubby and I would have to be divorced and I would have to be keeping the kids from his family out of spite.  There also might be a case if hubby were dead  and, again, I was keeping the kids out of spite.  Another scenario dictates that if my children had lived full time with this other family member for most of the last 24 months, then there also may be a case.

Unfortunately for our misguided loved-one, having the desire to openly communicate would be much more effective, and cheaper, than threatening lawsuits.  Sadly, there has been a whole year to do so and we seem to be stuck in this cycle of tumultuous seas, followed by our family finding peace on our tropical islands while the rest of the family churns the water with speculation and misinformation and a general desire to continue to reside in dysfunction rather than work a little bit at healthy resolution.