u/Low_Hat_2693

I’m about to sound insane so pull up a seat.

It’s my one night of the week I actually have a minute to myself so tonight I went to my favorite Mexican restaurant with my best friend and got a couple margaritas.

I came home and checked on my kids (8, 5, 3, and 1) who were obviously asleep but I wanted to see them anyway. Now here I am and I cannot stop crying.

They are just the most important thing I have ever done in my life and they are so pure and so innocent and so beautiful and so perfect to me.

I spent most of my life not wanting to be around anymore and tried to make that happen more than once (before I had kids and medication) Now I stand here and think about everything that I would have missed out on.

Getting the first positive test that completely changed my life and mindset in a single moment. Feeling them kick for the first time. Hearing that first cry and seeing the doctor hold this actual HUMAN up to put on my chest for the first time. The instant bond. Then watching them grow up and their milestones breaking my heart and making me happy at the same time. My kids are absolutely hilarious and we spend all day laughing.

I just cannot believe I almost missed out on all of this and I’m so happy that I didn’t. Love is not a strong enough word for what moms feel for their children.

My best friends baby daddy is a piece of shit who beats my best friend and the kids if they get caught in the middle. He’s been arrested 1 million times and he’s gotten away with it 1 million times he’s broken no contact order 1 million times and he’s gotten away with 1 million times. Six times he’s been arrested for this and six times they let him out to do it again. The most recent time I was finally allowed to testify for the Commonwealth and I gave them enough evidence to convict him so he took a plea deal instead.

The plea deal was that if he did not get in trouble for two years then the abduction felony that he got would be dropped down to a misdemeanor and the obstruction charge would be dropped completely, but if he did then he would go to prison for two years. He beat the shit out of her and got arrested yesterday.

Is there a good chance that he is going to go to prison finally? There have been no consequences for him every single time he got away with it and it seems like the court just don’t care or they don’t take it seriously because they keep letting him go. I guess I’m just wondering if there’s any chance at all he might get away with it again so I don’t get my hopes up and then nothing wind up happening.

It's 3:20 in the fucking morning and I haven't been able to get a single solitary SECOND of sleep, and I'm probably not going to. At 1am when I went to go to sleep, my 8 year old comes in my room and says "I threw up". I cannot do cleaning throw up, I literally wanted to die before I even went into the room. Then when I DO go into the room, my 4 year old is laying there ALSO COVERED IN THROW UP ITS EVERY FUCKING WHERE GOD DAMN IT.

I try to get my hus band hey can you help me theres literally throw up in every nook and cranny. "No I have to get up for work at 6am I'm not getting up". Perfect. Awesome. Thank you so fucking much for getting up and doing the bare minimum for your sick kids.

I get them in the bath and scrub the throw up from their hair. They're not even acting sick all theyre doing is constantly throwing up out of nowhere and then going back to normal. I get them out of the bath. Theyre running around screaming about what pajamas they want to wear now that their other ones are soaked in throw up. I'm begging them to be quiet so they don't wake up my 1 year old.

I strip everything one blanket and sheet and pillow at a time, I bring it all outside and spray it down with the hose before I put it all in the washer. I scrub the throw out of the carpet and off the wall. It is taking 10 fucking years. Now I'm putting new sheets on, and finding them new blankets and new pillows. I finally get everything done and put them back to bed.

It's 2:15 at this point. I literally douse myself with Lysol disinfectant spray. It burns like shit. I grab the Lysol wipes and scrub my skin raw so that I don't wind up getting whatever the fuck they have. Then, fucking finally, I lay down. It's over.

JUST KIDDING NO THE FUCK ITS NOT BECAUSE AT 2:30 MY ONE YEAR OLD PROJECTILES ALL OVER HIMSELF AND HIS BLANKETS AND THE CARPET. Here I go again. Throwing him in the bath. stripping all his shit to put in the wash. resetting his shit up. putting new pajamas on. getting him pedialyte. I just laid him back down but who knows when the fuck someones going to come in here telling me they threw up.

NOW. The shit that has me so mad I could burst into a pile of ashes. My 3 year old went to hang out at my moms the other day. She never hangs out there by herself I usually take her when I leave but that day she wanted to stay and my mom told me she could. I take my 1 year old home and my hus band picks my 3 year old up on his way home from work. That night at 1am, my 3 year old wakes me up and says her tummy hurts and instantly throws up all over me and my bed. The next day WHICH WAS HER FUCKING BIRTHDAY she just threw up all day. after 2 days it stopped and I thought I was in the clear until tonight.

I text my sister and she says oh yeah my kid was throwing up the other day when he went over there at the same time my 3 year old was there. FUCKING WHY. They live 2 doors down and she was home so why the fuck would she send her sick ass kid to my moms while hes throwing up. She does this shit all the time and then they tell me I'm crazy when my kids get sick and I cuss her and my mom out. The purposely don't tell me because they know I won't go over there, and I won't let her kids over here.

I cannot fucking stand that shit now I have 3 kids throwing up at the same time after I had one throwing up for the last 2 days. Of course my sister doesn't care becuase she just sends them over to my mom when they're sick so she doesn't have to deal with it. It's so fucking selfish and fucked up.

I'm so fucking over it. This has been going on for so long and I just don't want to give a fuck anymore, but how could I not?

She has always had behavioral issues since she was a toddler. I do everything that I can to help her. I take her to therapy once a week, I have all kinds of appointments with her, I have a bookshelf overflowing with parenting books and books on how to connect with and understand children, I go to parenting classes and seminars, I do everything that is suggested to me and none of it matters.

A big part of her behavioral issues was screen time and I noticed that at a young age so banned tablets and youtube and video games, and it made a HUGE difference in her behavior towards everyone else. I actually just made a post about that the other day and got a lot of helpful feedback. But her behavior towards me got worse.

I know that the biggest factor in all of this is me and her dad. She is my first daughter and we were very happy together when it was just us and her so that is what she remembers. Somewhere along the way things slowly unraveled between me and her dad. We are still married and live in the same house because neither one of us can afford to be on our own with 4 kids, I've been a stay at home mom for 3 years now and I'm taking college online to help me find a career that will give me a way out of this.

There are no big blow up situations, we still interact with each other and help each other with things. We are civil with each other no screaming or anything like that, but she has noticed the divide and resents me for it. She doesn't know that things that her dad has said and done so to her its my fault. She says all the time "You're not friends with my dad for no reason". I do not speak or have any kind of interaction with his family because they are a huge part of the reason that things are the way they are. He takes the kids to his parents occasionally and my kids love them they love going over there, but his family has conversations about me in front of my kids that make her resent me even more.

Her dad works during the day so I am the one who has the task of disciplining her and telling her no which is usually what sends her into a rage. Then he gets home and of course he hasn't been in the house to see what is going on there so I wind up being the bad guy. The thing that bothers me is that he isn't involved with her as I am. I do everything with and for her. I go to all the P T A events and am super involved with her school. I signed up to be a coach for her softball team that she loves, like I am IN THERE with her and she doesn't care. He doesn't do any of that extra stuff with her. He won't bring her to birthday parties or volunteer for weekend events at the school, he's not the one bringing her to therapy and doing all of these bonding activities with her but she still just loves her dad more then me and she says it all the time.

The other day someone told her she looked like me and she started screaming and crying that she didn't want to look like me because she hated me and I am ugly. Everyday if there is even the slightest inconvenience for her she says she wishes I wasn't her mom and she wants to only live with her dad. This morning I looked at the chore chart and she had replaced the chores with Punch Mom, Make mom bleed, kick mom.

At this point I'm just ready to give up but I can't because I can't let this be something that happens forever. Thats the end of my rant I just needed to rage somewhere

She wouldn't stop chosing her abusive, alcoholic, drug addict fiancé over her kids. He leaves drug bags all over the house and where the kids play. He gets insanely fucked up and loses his mind beating my best friend into early labor twice, destroying the house, traumatizing the kids, hitting the kids to get to my best friend. Then she lies to the cops and says nothing happened so he doesn't go to jail.

Last July I called 911 when he was losing it and I was on facetime with my friend while she was barricaded in a room with the baby and he was punching holes in the door to reach in and unlock it. He had beat the shit out of his dad who is dying from cancer I told 911 that he was not going to let her open the door, and that he tells her what to say through the window when the cops show up. He tells her that if he goes down hes taking her with him and blames all of his domestic abuse charges on her for calling the cops. This last time (that I am aware of) he was charged with abduction for not letting her leave the house when the cops were there. They busted the door down with their guns out right in front of their 2 year old who was terrified the whole time that the fiance is screaming and throwing shit glass everywhere couches flipped. I mustve called the cops 50 times telling them that he will not let her open the door and her and the baby were not safe in the house. They finally busted in the house and he was arrested.

The next morning she went into early labor and I took her to the hospital until the baby wasa born, and then her and the baby came back to my house because she had no food and no money because he won't let her get a job because he wants her to stay home and homeschool the kids. The kids are 2 and 9 monthe now. While they stayed with me he was calling her I shit you not every second of every day screaming at her for getting him arrested and telling her she needs to call his boss to make sure he still has a job, and bet on his games on fanduel. FANDUEL while my friend is fighting for her life using baby diapers as pads with a newborn and a 2 year old, because he isolated her so bad that she no one to go to for help, except for me which I obviously made sure her and the kids had everything they needed. While all this is going on, there is a no contact between them court ordered on the night he got arrested. I told her to block him because he was ruining the experience of the first days with her baby, she wouldn't.

When he was released, there was still a no contact. I told my friend that if she lied for him in court again and continued to put her kids in danger to keep him out of jail I was done with her. Sure as shit one day my friend stops answering her phone and I go to look and see he was released that day. He was staying at the house with her with the no contact and he had blocked me from her phone. That same day I found out from her sister that CPS had showed up and my friend lied and said everything was fine and there was no danger in the house, WHILE HE HID OUTSIDE. I called CPS and sent them back to her house. An hour later her mom calls me saying that CPS showed up and my friend was having a mental breakdown over it. She never found out it was me, and at this point I don't even care because she blocked me from everything when the attourney called me to testify against him and show that my friend was lying about what was happening.

Anyway thats my rant, best friends for over 10 years and havent spoken in almost a year now because I tried to hold her fiance accountable for abusing her and the kids.

This may not be for everyone, but I'm putting it out here just in case there's anyone that needs to hear it.

My oldest is 8 years old. She has always had behavioral issues since she was a toddler. She is the only one of my kids who had a tablet, and it never even crossed my mind that it could be a problem because everyone I know has tablets for their kids.

I passed off her tantrums as "Oh, she's just a toddler; this is normal for them." But it wasn't normal, and the older she got the more I realized it. I had her in therapy, I had mental health appointments for her constantly, I spent everynight deep diving into behavioral studies of children, I read books, I got myself into therapy, I was going to online meetings for parenting, I was begging her pediatrician for help, I was reading more books, going to more seminars, I was disgusted with myself for not being able to help her.

Then I took the tablet. I blocked everything from the TV except for Disney Plus. It was horrendous at first, but once it was the norm, she was a whole new child. That was about 5 years ago and I have had 3 more children since then. There are still no tablets allowed in my house and sometimes I do feel bad because all her friends have phones, and they play video games, and they live on youtube, but I remember the chaos of her screen time and I just refuse to go back.

Lately, she has been throwing tantrums again. Full meltdowns. Screaming at me, saying disturbing things out of nowhere, scaring her younger sisters with creepy stories. I got her back into therapy and the same mental health clinic where they asked me what has changed in her life lately. Thats where I found out that she had figured out how to get into youtube through the tvs browser (that I didn't even know was on there) AND, her Dads mom had gotten her a switch and hidden it from me because she knew I wouldn't allow it.

So now we're back in youtube and screen time withdrawal, I am devastated that I had to take that switch from her because she loved it so much, she loved it TOO much and that was the problem. She had Youtube on it, she had roblox on it, there were convos with other supposed children on her video games, and none of it was being monitored because they just handed it to her and told her not to tell me they were keeping it at her (Dads Mom) house.

I know that not all children are like mine and it isn't a problem for everyone, but if anyone out there is in shambles like me and my daughter were, it is worth looking into!

**Edit to say that**

Yes my kids dads mom was wrong for buying the switch, but her son never should have supported her buying it because he is the one who lives in the same house as me and the kids. He has seen the behavioral problems screen time causes her, he has watched me take her to therapy and mental health appointments for years, and he knew that I had 0 tolerance for video games, YouTube, and everything else that comes with it. His mom only knows what he tells her, which is usually whatever benefits him at the time. So yeah I'm enraged at both of them, but at the end of the day it is on her son to be responsible for his kids.