So a letter arrived from Mr X for Snuggs the other day. His parole is very clear that he isn't to write without first receiving prior written permission from his parole officer and victims services hadn't been in touch with me so I made some phone calls. Turns out that the PO told him that he could start writing but never informed me or victims services of that fact. The thing that pisses me off the most is that it doesn't appear that they considered Snuggs in all of this. Mr X verbally and physically abused myself and her older sisters. It stands to reason, does it not, that he would eventually do the same thing to her?
I don't care what therapy he has gotten or how he says that he has changed, I can see from his letter that he hasn't. Veiled threats and innuendos about how I may have made things within the house seem worse than they truly were isn't the writings of a changed man. A changed man would admit to the shit that he has done to us and not down play it. A changed man would consider the feelings of his child and not basically TELL her that she was going to be seeing/talking/writing to him. A changed man would concern himself with how she is feeling and what her needs are and not his own. She is happy and she is thriving but she is still afraid of him. She still wakes up with nightmares. She still freaks out if she sees someone that even looks like Mr. X. She has come SO FAR emotionally despite the issues that she has and in one letter he could undermine and destroy all of the work and love that we have put into her.
She might be 9 but she understands the things that are being said underneath the words of his letters. She was only 6 when I left him but she wasn't an idiot. She saw and heard things in that house that no child should ever have to see or hear. She witnessed pain and anger between her parents and from her father to her sisters. She lives with a lot of guilt that he didn't abuse her the same way that he did her sisters. She feels that she was the special one (and she was) and that he wasn't fair to her siblings when he treated her differently. She keenly saw the difference between all of the children in the way that he treated each of them.
If she saw the things that he wrote, she would be scared, angry and hurt. He mentions seeing her despite knowing that via a family court order I have full discretion as to any contact that he has with her. I have clearly informed our mutual contact of this fact on more than one occasion. He tells her "we can see each other" as if the family order and my decision doesn't even exist. He tells her that if she wants to see him, she should tell me, putting her right in the middle of adult decisions and making her responsible for negotiating his ability to be part of her life.
He says:
"There is no reason why we shouldn't visit each other. If you want to see me, you should tell your mom. I know you may be upset, possibly angry, confused and anxious about talking to me and seeing me again. I am sorry that you have to experience these feelings, but this is part of your life and there is no avoiding it. This won't be the last time you have these feelings and wish they would just go away. You may think that you can make them go away by not seeing me or putting it off. The fact is that they won't go away and we will meet again."
Then he says that he didn't intend to write and discuss grown up things but that he didn't have a choice because they haven't talked or seen each other in so long and that there is no reason why they should be writing letters when they could be talking on the phone or in person. He then goes on to add:
"Remember the good times in ________. Most of the time there was fun, productive and happy, but sometimes a few bad memories or stories about bad things can make what really happened seem worse than it was"
Gee. Stories? Really? One more way of him hinting about how I am the one that is filling her head with things that aren't necessarily true. Where is the accountability there? Way to make a 9 year old question her memories and place her, once again, in the hot seat. Bravo for making attempting to make her believe that she is wrong about how she feels, that she should question me and anything that I have done to protect her.
To finalize, he makes one more hit on myself and Geeky:
"... yes, I am your father, your dad and always will be. My blood, along with your Moms, runs through your body. No one else can say that"
Well, he is right that it is his blood and mine that runs through her veins - or at least he contributed his portion of the DNA that assisted in creating her but it is MY blood that runs through her veins. It doesn't take blood or DNA to make a father or a dad. It takes a MAN who is kind and caring and who loves her like his own to do that and if he could see my sweethearts together and the way that they care about each other and interact together, he would see what a real DADDY is.
If he thinks, for one second that I am going to even hint to my baby that he is writing he can think again. I will do whatever it takes and fight in whatever way possible to keep him from her because I and everyone else around me believe that it is in her best interests. This isn't just me talking out of anger or revenge for heaven's sakes. This is CAS, the courts, my family and friends. Surely we ALL can't be wrong.
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