Her spelling is still atrocious and has no hope of improving haha. Of course, FDH hates it when I laugh at her spelling because he truly believes that she has a learning disability like he had. Nope, she's just a lazy 7th grade drop out who was taught to spell with that hooked on phonics nonsense - which can help a kid learn to read but REALLY messes up their spelling if left unchecked.

Well...SD and GUBM moved. Again. This time they moved in with friends of GUBM's because the roof was leaking on the last place they were living in and rather than contact the landlord to fix it, they took off and burned the bridge GUBM had with the friend they were subletting from. So we all know that THIS move is going to end just as well as the last two...but hey! Good for them! They only spent 9 months in that last place! Living the transient dream!

SD was all excited because now they'll have internet and cable which means that she can do stupid shit like sit on YouTube and space out while watching TV shows in the comfort of her own (shared with someone else) home for hours on end and not have to deal with pesky nonsense like librarians or screen-media limits like we have in our house (because, really, 8 hours of you-tube? Seriously?)

Of course, she also laid it on a little thick with FDH and said that she now wants to start online school - a clever tactic, I think, on GUBM's part to encourage FDH to not drive straight to NJ and bring SD back to PGH (I feel like maybe I should send her a thank you card?) upon hearing of the second move in less than a year. Because GUBM was a big opponent of SD moving the last time and THEN moving to PGH this fall because that would be "too disruptive" for her jam packed schedule of doing nothing.

He really believes she's going to do this. He thinks that SD got jealous of the excitement her cousin had over starting high school this year. I don't doubt it and I think she deserves to feel that jealousy. Drop outs don't get to go back to school shopping. Drop outs don't get to be excited about the first day of school. Drop outs don't get to go to school dances or make friends. So, I hope that if what FDH believes is the case, that it all stung when SD realized how excited her cousin was to start high school and how much fun her cousin has with all of her friends from school.

But. I don't fully believe it is going to happen. I think that once they realize how far behind SD is (half a year, because that's what happens when you drop out of school halfway through the year) that it might cool the fire under their backsides. And heaven forbid SD have to repeat 7th grade at all. I think that not enrolling SD into online school would be a good segue for FDH to use to go get his daughter and remove her from the negligent clutches of GUBM, though. Because much as I'm all *phew* that she's not living here, the kid does deserve to have an appropriate future and not one where her job prospects are limited by her lack of a high school education.

It really is classic, so I guess I'm lucky in the sense that I can point FDH to the right resources (books and websites) and say, gee, sound familiar?

One day, I hope he will get to a place where he can cop to the fact that being a full-time parent scares the shit out of him. Especially since he can't just dump the kid on me and expect me to take her abuse ^_^ My guess is that if he had been willing to step up and stop SD's bullshit from the start, he'd have a bit more of a safety net in me. I can't guarantee that I'd be 100% willing to fill the parenting gaps for him, but, I'd be more willing had he not let SD treat me like crap for so long without recourse.

I think I finally am getting to a place of not caring whether SD likes me or not, though, which is HUUUUUGE because I have social anxiety or at least components of social anxiety.

No offense taken, so, I hope you don't feel offended when I say that I really don't need to justify my relationship to a stranger on the internet.

Yea I'm gonna have to check back in on it with him for sure after I've given myself sometime to cool my heels. Perhaps he meant in the larger "it isn't you personally it is fucked up GUBM's BS that is keeping SD from visiting" but I don't really think that is what he meant because that sure isn't what he said. And that's giving him far too much benefit in that regard.

But. If he doesn't think that's why SD won't visit - like if he really thinks that now, so many months later, there's a different reason she told him she won't visit, then I'm gonna just have to sit him down with my blog entries from back then.

SD most definitely needs counseling and a wake up call of the variety that checks her overinflated sense of self importance and replaces it with healthy self-esteem and positive regard for, well, anyone, herself included. FDH needs counseling if his own. He needs an objective third party to tell him to wake the Frick up and figure out that HE is the adult and parent and that if GUBM won't properly parent SD then he needs to step in and stop cowering away and wait until hehas SD to himself. Because that sure won't - and hasn't - worked.

Every parent should want to help their children become better people. It's really just that simple. It's just too bad that some people have messed up and skewed ideas about what makes a person good let alone better. And it honestly breaks my heart with how broken NCPs get with dealing with these ridiculous CPs (because lord knows it's not all BMs that act this way). They feel powerless and they really aren't. And then there's that refrain of never talking badly about the other parent that guilts them into silence. That's at least one thing I've gotten from divorce poison so far, that constructive criticism can be useful (now to devour the rest of the book so I can let FDH take it to work on the weekends to read in his down time.