~Another Day Full of Letdown~

I am so pissed right now that I don't know what to do. I cannot believe the actions or rather in actions of my family and others. It escapes me how the hell my own father could marry his girlfriend without telling anyone. Not me or my sister or even his own sisters.  That coupled with what is going on with my soon to be ex husband....All that keeps going through my mind is that I have absolutely NO control over my loved ones. I can see a train coming at my own father and kids and there is not a damn thing I can do about it because the people who should be listening either won't or can't.

My opinion of my father's girlfriend-or rather wife- have no bearing on my being upset right now.  I don't know her well enough to form an opinion.  She has surprised me in the past few months with her seemingly caring way with my ailing father yet all I hear from both of them from day one is how much they fight. Tonight I come on face book to find that he has changed his status from in a relationship with her to married??? And why am I, along with his own sisters and other family members, the last to know? WHy are we finding out on FACE BOOK?? He was just here a week or so ago visiting us. He had nothing positive to say really. Yet having suffered from half a dozen strokes dad tends to become disoriented. To be honest, if I had had the money I would have gone to court years ago to become his "Power Of Attorney". His doctors told me after his first stroke that he could no longer drive, and that he should not be left to live alone or make any decisions.  He gets confused about the year, how many children he has good days and bad.  I couldn't afford to go to court and fight for the legal right to help my father make important decisions financially or mentally. I had given all I could at that point and then some. I was writing all his bills, maintaining his home and mortgage, taking care of all important paperwork to keep him insured,etc and dealing with the IRS for him.  All I was doing for him was out of love but when he came out of the hospital A.M.A.(against medical advice) with my own sister and his girlfriend backing him and then came to take back all the work I had done for him, including withdrawing all the money in our account so that 5 checks bounced (my name was on the account so I could write the checks so when they bounced to the IRS and elsewhere my name was affected too.) That was the beginning of my downfall. I had to let go. Now I see that my selfishness is the price my father will have to pay because now I cannot protect him in anyway, shape or form.  And I only have the word of a half dozen doctors and other people who told me from my father's hospital room that this woman he married was a well known gold digger, that she had come out of the hospital each visit with a new man who she had her eye on....

They may have been wrong...Every one of them. Maybe she WAS like that but she is different now. Maybe she really cares for my Dad.  It would be easy to believe that if he didn't have a nest egg sitting there. Yeah, she knows about it....He was heard on at least 3 occasions at the hospital telling her (and anyone who would listen) all about his money. I hope I am wrong but the problem is that I don't know her. 

Then there are my kids. I won't get into that now because I am already so upset but lets just say that no matter what I try to do to keep their lives as normal and happy as I can, my ex seems to come along, influenced by his girlfriends need to keep all the kids on the same level playing field, trying to rip the ground out from underneath them. He wants to change the school they go to and take them away from the friends they've grown up with.  He is on his 3rd move to a new place.  He fights me so that he can share them with me on such a sporadic schedule that I literally have to write it down to keep track because they are here one day and with him the next and then back again.  My kids aren't allowed to shut their own bedroom doors for privacy, or drive down the street on their bike in front of a house where a woman lives that my ex's girlfriend is fighting with, my 13 year old son, having finally earned his right to go and venture outside of our immediate neighborhood, has been pulled back to only being able to go a few houses away...and ONLY if he brings the other kids with him too.  Its ridiculous. My kids have made all the sacrifices and changes and yet the new girlfriend has not had to change a thing for anyone. Why? Because my ex has no spine. He is so scared of her.Enough said.....I am pissed but more than that I am sad. If I had just stayed married and ignored my need for happiness I would have kept the kids from all this.(That is if my ex hadn't gone off with this girl anyway since I've heard whisperings of them flirting before we even broke up.) I guess if I could have kept my Mom alive and my Dad from having strokes I would have kept him head over heals in love with Mom for the 36th year but alas I cannot.....And all I try to do to keep anyone safe and happy or even one or the other I have failed at. UGHHHH