Siguiendo Mi Catracho: Kids as Pawns

Why do parents use thier kids as pawns? I don't understand it. I don't understand how the parents that are using the kids don't see how much damage they are doing - not just to the other parent, but to the kids as well. Lale's ex that is in Honduras (Sendi and Gisela's mom) is doing just that and it is driving me nuts!! She is using the kids as weapons, and it is killing my husband, which in turn is hurting me because I hate to see him so upset. Yet she doesn't have a clue as to what it is doing to those two kids. I would love to call her up and talk to her. Tell her woman to woman, mother to mother what she is doing. But that would never work because

I am the woman who "stole" her man and
2) She would care less about what I had to say anyway.

Let me give you a little background first. My husband and her knew eachother most of their life. They began dating when they were young, and were together for a long time. However she is the type of person (I don't personally know her - I have talked to her only 3 times on the phone - but this is going by stories from MANY MANY MANY different people who have no reason to be on my side so to speak - more about sides later) that is bitter and just basically a bitter woman. Almost from the time they got together they did nothing but argue and fight. She would tell him he was worthless, and she didn't need him and so forth. Just be nasty to him. They split up twice, and in their time together they had three children. The first, Gabriel, died when he was 2 hours old. Then they had Gisela, then Sendi. (So they didn't fight ALL of the time ;)

After Sendi things went from bad to worse, and when Sendi was about 2 years old, Lale got the opportunity to come to the US. He told his dad that since things weren't getting any better between Suyapa and him that he was coming here to at least be able to provide a decent fuure for his children. So in late December 98 he headed to the US. While here he worked his butt of making a better life for his two children, and her as well. Even when he had an accident at work and he wasn't working and wasn't recieving workers comp. he borrowed money to send so that they could continue in the style that they were living in. He saved enough and bought land in a nice place, and had a beautiful house built for them - and at the time had all intention of going back to her. She had written him and told him how sorry she was for how she acted and now realized how horrible she was etc. etc.

Then in September 01 he met me. Now at this time I had no clue of what his relationship was with this woman. He told me he had kids, and he misrepresented himself to me and told me that they were seperated (which technically they were since he was here and she was there) but I took it to mean that they weren't together. I asked others, and they vouched for him that he was free. So we ended up dating. In Feb. 03 we had Mickey, and 6 weeks later I was pregnant again with Isa. During this time that I was pregnant with Isa, I found out the real truth, and so did she. The real truth for me was that when he came, they never had terminated anything. Things were left in a bad place with nothing fixed, yet nothing finalized that they were not together. She told him that if he didn't come back right away then he was going to never be able to talk to his kids again, and so on and so forth. Even before this had happened and before we knew I was pregnant with Isa, he had planned on going home because he missed his children so much. He had already had his plane tickets to leave in August, she just didn't know it yet. So he told her he would be home, and she thinking it was because of her threat. After she found out, he came clean to me about how things were there with her. How they had left things, and how they never ended anything. I talked with his father and other people and found out all about what type of person this woman is. I asked him what he was telling me. Did he want to go back with her? And he told me he wasn't sure what he felt. He knew he loved me and Mickey and Andre and Jordan too, but he still loved her he thought. I understood having had to deal with somewhat those same issues with my first husband of not being able to let go for a long time. So I told him to go back and figure out what he wanted, and if it was her, then I understood, if he wanted to be with me, fine too. I would give him one year to get his heart and mind figured out. It hurt me to say that, but I told him his kids there were old enough to remember him, and they needed him. Mickey and Isa needed him too, but if he never came back they would never remember him, and I could deal with being a single mother again. I didn't want to, but I would. All of his kids needed him, but the older two, knowing him, remembering him, needed him more.

Anyway fast forward to when he arrives back in Honduras. His first night home he gave his kids all of these presents and his parents and her too. His flight came in at around midnight, and he got home close to 3AM. Well by 9AM she had a bonfire with all of the presents he brought for the children, plus her presents too. She wanted nothing to do with them because they came from the US, and that is where I was from. While he was there she continued to do crazy stuff like that, and 10 months later, he was back here with me. From that moment on he had nothing but problems with his children. They would say things like he never loved them, how could he leave their mother, and that their sisters and brothers here weren't their sisters and brothers - they would never claim them, they hated him. He never cared about them, he never sent them anything, never worried about them - that house that he worked his but off to pay for and have built, their mother did all of that. (She worked too, but her money went to pay for her lunch out everyday with her friends, and new clothes for her and so forth) Some of that is normal for little kids, however alot of that (and more) came from the brainwashing from Suyapa. This last week though he has gotten mutliple calls from his kids where they are telling him that they hate him, it is all his fault, their mother never did anything, they don't know why he would leave her (now mind you, she got married in December, and is having a baby soon - so she wasn't that worried about Lale coming back to me - she married a co-worker who she never dated until late last year supposedly - but lots of rumors on that - but that is just that, rumors) he doesn't love them, he only loves us here and so on and so forth. He tells them that he is here working to pay for their school, their food, their clothes that we send and we are in the process of building our house so that in mid 200 we can go back and be financially stable enough that he can stay and doesn't have to come back here to work again. We are doing this for them. He has told them to go and check out our land, and our cows and horses that we have. Get to know the area (it is only like 15 minutes fro where they live now) but they refuse saying that it isn't for them its for us. Nothing he has now interests them. But this last call that came was one that told him not to come back. They said to him why would he come back - for what. What is he going to do there? All of that is words from Suyapa's mouth into those kids ears. I know that when we get there it is going to be a crazy hard time with adjusting and everything, and with her, it is going to be even harder. Those children has heard nothing but crap about their father so that if he doesn't keep his eye on things, they are going to believe it, and that will screw them up and out of a relationship with him. Alot of times after those calls, they will call back within a half an hour and ask him for a huge list of things. Like a new PlayStation2, tons of clothes, a computer, a minibike/scooter thing - nothing cheap. And when he can't send it right away their mother tells them it is because he doesn't care. Then the phone calls start up again with them reaming him out, him crying and feeling torn about what to do, and me losing my mind because I see what is going on, but because it is his children, he is so close to the problem, and he feels guilty for what happened, he feels like it is ALL his fault and he doesn't want to hear anything about it, which makes my life crappy because I have to deal with him.

I would love to just go and smack her.

Next post will be a continuation of this post - just focusing on how I met and my past relationship with Lale and all of the issues that came with that.