Kyttin's blog: "other stuff"

I know this is silly, as a mom I've pent up a lot of stuff for the past five and a half years, money trouble, fights with the kids' father, and now the emotional turmoil that goes with leaving him.

After almost seven years of struggles financially and emotionally and trying to grin and bare all the stress and turmoil that goes with being a blossoming family, I left him, for personal reasons that, no, I don't want to talk about.  We still live in the same house for now, though summer is creeping up on us.  This all started with one stupid choice, moving to Virginia, which turned into moving to NC for a bigger home.  Now we're fighting out custody, not in a nasty way, but in a way that deadens the soul.  I want to move south, with the kids, he wants to split them up, which in my book is a nono.  Our oldest has autism, well, Aspergers, and he's made some great strides and progress since we found out two years ago, he seems almost completely "normal" which I happen to think is over rated.  He is catching up with his milestones.  He gets excited over silly things like losing a tooth like any normal five year old.  He likes to put his teeth under the pillow and wake up to a dollar per tooth under it in the morning.  He plays pretend with his sister, who is only fifteen months younger, and I'm afraid that splitting them up could end up backpedalling his progress.  I understand that giving up both kids would be extremely hard, but it's best for both of them, because they need each other in these difficult times with our family.  But Daddy is a bit of a workaholic, though he can't help his schedule.  He can't pay the attention to them that they need, especially my oldest, who is still prone to throwing fits over something small, and is, like his mom, quite clumsy.  He can trip over a wrinkle in the invisible carpet on the hardwood floor.

I love my kids, and I know he does, too.  But it doesn't mean that he's going to be able to handle the stresses of being a single father full time.  I've offered the whole summers, all of them, out of sheer guilt from taking the kids away from him.  I don't hate him, and I know we're going to need a relationship of some sort for at least fourteen more years, and I'd prefer he and I have an amicable one so the kids don't have to deal with mommy and daddy fighting all of the time.  Sometimes I wonder if it'd be easier to just pick up in the middle of the night, but I couldn't do that to him, or the kids.

I am at a loss, yes, I am finally getting a three week vacation, which I will easily admit has been a long time coming, but now I'm worried he wouldn't feel guilt at doing things the easy way and disappearing with the kids, the last thing I want is to go away for three weeks and find out that he did take off while I wasn't looking and then you'd see my kids hanging out on the Amber Alerts on your profiles.

I wonder if every single parent who leaves their kids with their ex feels this concern?  Am I just being paranoid?  It's terrifying to worry like this, which is something that I'm worried I'll go through forever.  I guess the worry won't abate until I come back.