Vince's Vetoed Heart

Titled as such because to his father, Vince's pain is not real.  

I'm writing this while Vince is curled up on the couch, finally asleep after spending yet another hour crying over his confusion regarding why Daddy doesn't live with him anymore.  

I'm going to attempt really, really hard not to derail this entry into an all-out assault on the SOB responsible for those tears, but I'm not making any guarantees.  The point of me writing this isn't to denigrate John; Vincent's tears pass judgement over his selfishness well enough.  I'm writing because I know there are women (and men) who, like me, have been thrust into a position to explain the unexplainable... to soothe the broken hearts of their children when there are no words that could possibly begin to do so.  

For well over a year I've been asking John to come up with some sort of solution to this problem. In typical John fashion, he simply ignored Vincent's emotional state and brushed his fears and insecurities aside.  When I would raise the red flag, he would angrily shoot me down and tell me I was either "feeding into" Vince's upset or making a big deal out of nothing.  Again, this is par for the course with John.  Ignore, deflect, and disavow.  If there isn't a real problem, there isn't a real consequence to his selfishness.  And if there isn't a real consequence to his selfishness, there's no reason for him to feel any sort of remorse or guilt for causing so much pain in his own son.  

So I started taking videos.  Not all the time, but moments where it's obvious Vince needs help working through his emotions.  He couldn't keep ignoring Vincent's tears when he could plainly see them on the screen.  He couldn't keep writing off Vincent's confusion when he could hear the questions through the speakers.  And he certainly couldn't keep pushing off the conversation I'd been telling him needed to happen for more than a year that dealt precisely with how we'd need to handle things moving forward.  

So sit down we finally did and what a pointless conversation that turned out to be.  Again he tried to deflect or blame me for Vincent's emotional meltdown.  God forbid he recognize what utter devastation this divorce has brought into Vince's heart!  And I get that it's a self-defense mechanism whereby John doesn't feel the weight of his guilt, but he's yet again putting his own feelings above that of his child and it was driving me insane.

Instead of recognizing the source of my anger being a mother fighting for her son, he again dismissed things and treated me as though I was only "being mean" because of how our relationship ended.  

MY. GOD. IN. HEAVEN.  How You look upon John and want his soul is beyond me.  He is revolting. His arrogance would be impressive if it weren't so utterly execrable.  

So I explained, very clearly, that I was angry because he had caused Vincent such pain.  As a mother, I wanted to tear his heart out for hurting Vincent and light him on fire for continuing to ignore how upset he'd become!  I despise him on a personal level, but I at least tried to have some respect for him as a father.  Apparently that was a fool's errand because here he was STILL putting himself above Vincent's very clear and (now) well-documented needs. 

Lord, forgive me, but I cannot make peace with such a worthless excuse for a man.  I don't think I will ever be able to forgive myself for trapping my poor children with him as their father.  

Did anything come of this discussion?  No.  Of course not.  But no one can say I didn't try for Vincent's sake.  And I'll keep trying.  I'll keep plugging along because he needs at least one of us to recognize and validate the pain he carries.  He needs one of us to be the adult.  And God knows John's way too keen playing Peter Pan to take on that responsibility.