You won’t believe what you forget. I have been journaling since 1993. Not every day but enough to look back on and put the pieces together to make sense of life when life starts to not make sense. I am grateful for my effort to journal and hold onto emails. It helps this all make so much more sense because an ex-wife strangling a new wife and attempting to murder her does not make sense.
Looking back on these conversations, I see over and over again the warning signs of future violence to occur. Threating to call the police on your child’s other parent just for coming to pick up their shared child who is begging and screaming for it is outrageously inappropriate.
The attitude of this is my time, my child and MY TIME with my child is more important than the child because it is mine is concerning. It reminds me of a dog obsessing over its bone and attacking anyone that comes near it. Not normal by any stretch. We didn’t take it seriously. We should have, but we were more focused on the health and well-being of a child.
These emails were about the professional help that we sought out for my stepdaughter who was not learning. She was not learning at school and we needed to get to the bottom of it. We were worried that if she could not feel successful at school she’d want to belong to a people outside of the school and outside her family. We wanted to help her achieve dreams and goals succeed. Her mother was hyper-focused on the what she was losing rather than seeing her daughter needed help.
From: Husband’s New Wife
To: Husband’s Ex-Wife
Cc: Husband
Sent: Tuesday, August 7, 2012 10:13 AM
Subject: Pyschologist Diagnosis
Hi Husband’s Ex-Wife,
I am glad that we had an opportunity to speak briefly when you came back for our daughter. I feel that although it will require a tremendous amount of effort, tolerance, and letting go of past issues, without all of us coming “together” to help her she will not succeed. Like I said we don’t have to love each other and having the expectation that we will be a big “family” is unrealistic but we are her family and we need to do a better job. It may be a far way off but I would like us to all think about having a family meeting with her to discuss somethings we need to work on to create more consistency for her and what her role is in that too.
We have talked with a clinical counselor that has helped us understand the entire report and review the IEP from last year to compare/contrast the progress. We are still reviewing but felt it necessary to reach out and share our concerns. From our conversation the other night if I understand you correctly, you share the same concerns.
What we would like to do is prepare an email requesting that the ADHD be taken off her diagnosis. We can by law, request this and with the right approach, be effective. On the report she was diagnosed with ADHD (severe/moderate), Adjust Disorder with Anxiety and Depression AND a Reading Disorder (dyslexia). This is just too much, and if the ADHD stays on her health record and shared with the school it could be devastating and we will most certainly lose the great momentum that we have since she got her IEP and the extra resources.
We firmly believe that even if we went to an extreme and put her on medication, her reading impairment would not necessarily improve. So the major focus on to treat the ADHD changes the course of treatment for her when we should be focusing FIRST on the reading, then the adjustment disorder that is going to between homes or the fact the homes are not getting along is creating a tremendous about of anxiety and depression for her. We need to fix how she is seeing things in order to get her to read and understand better.
That was a long way of saying please do not share this information with the school and asking for your help to get this taken off the diagnosis. I am happy to prepare an email with the help of the counselor I have consulted so that we are positioned in the best light to be effective.
Like you said she is very calm at times and so fun to be around. Also, if how she is scoring is so rare why is she given the most common overly diagnosed label of ADHD and severe at that.
Let me know if it would be okay with you if we sent an email over to in the next week or so.
We will send a draft to you guys first to review and/or change if it doesn’t feel right.
Thanks,
Husband’s New Wife
From: Husband’s Ex-Wife
Date: August 9, 2012 9:54:34 PM PDT
To:Husband
Subject: RE: Pyschologist Diagnosis
yes , iwas hoping to be able to speak to your new wife about this i asked when was a good time to call her..if it doesnt work i would like to set up a family meeting with a therapiste to help our daughter and for us to communicate better .. waiting for referals from her assurance .i need to review some info myself before i make a decition ..i will get back to you in the next weeks before school starts. Huband’s Ex-Wife.
From: Husband’s New Wife
To: Husband’s Ex-Wife
Sent: Thursday, August 9, 2012 10:45 PM
Subject: Fw: Fwd: Pyschologist Diagnosis
Hi Husband’s Ex-Wife-
I didn’t get your email, something has been wrong with my yahoo account. I am working tomorrow and I assume you’ll be busy with herBirthday during the day. Probably could find some time this weekend not sure if you are going to be with her to American Girl? If not could be a good time talk while it’s all fresh. Otherwise I travel next week for work Monday-Wednesday.
Look forward to speaking to you and figuring out what we can do better this next year to help her.
Husband’s New Wife
From: Husband’s Ex-Wife
To: Husband’s New Wife
Subject: RE: Pyschologist Diagnosis
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 17:49:25 +0000
hi Husband’s New Wife,
thank you for your email. would it be ok with you if i call you later ? let me know a good time. Husband’s Ex-Wife
To: Husband’s New Wife
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 10:13 AM
Subject: RE: Psychologist Diagnosis
ok great saturday afternoon would be good for me after i dropp off her to her friends house around 130? sunday i will be with her in los angeles at the american girl store!!let me know if that works..thank you Husband’s Ex-Wife
From: Husband’s New Wife
To: Husband’s Ex-Wife, Husband j
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: Psychologist Diagnosis
Great let’s try and catch up on the phone as soon as we can. My cell is 619-xxx-xxxx
Journal – Week of September 9th, 2012
First week at her Mom’s since our house after Portugal. She started texting us at 10pm saying she could not sleep. We know she is worrying about her homework which was lost. She really wants to do band and knows she had to have good grades. We talked her through a plan to have her dad go to the school the next day. She fell asleep about 11:30pm.
The next day she called me and asked me about her outfit choices. I asked her what she had for breakfast she said a chocolate cupcake and watermelon. She told her lunch was going to be a chocolate croissant and cupcake. Then pizza after the therapist for her little brother’s birthday.
At 7:52 we got text asking if we could her up tomorrow. We were confused because it was her mom’s week. So we asked for more information. She said her mom called her spoiled rotten and her feelings were hurt. Then she asked for us to pick her up now and that she missed us. So we did something and called Heather Spomer to ask for advice as she’s never called this upset before. Heather suggested we call the mom with the approach of how can we help. So we did. The mom said there was nothing we could do to help that she was disrespectful and she is not going to reward disrespect. That she could handle it. Then our daughter started getting even more upset, screaming in the background and I said if our daughter called you begging to come to your house I would not stop her. It ended in an argument and me going to get her. Our daughter heard I was coming and smiled so the mom said to her “oh you think you won and that I was loving this” When she was at our house she shared that she was very scared her mom was going to call the police on her Papa and the she was very upset and it felt very real.
Her mom yelled at her telling her to stop texting her Dad or she’ll take her phone away. We got her phone this year to help her have contact with us because she tells us her mom makes her feel bad when she wants to call me or her Dad. She also told her she is going to read all her texts she sends to us.
Strangled In La Jolla 