I'm starting to feel angry today.

Angry that I didn't know support was available 5 years ago that could have prevented the situation I'm in now.

Angry that I didn't know shelters existed and I could have gone to one when my ex left me standing in the middle of a hair salon with nothing but the clothes on my back, a couple of dollars in my wallet and my kids, and he told me not to come home again.

Angry for all the times he told me if I left without the kids, I'd never see them again. Angry that I didn't know laws existed to prevent that from happening.

Angry that he has a live-in lover and her son who get favorable treatment, whose wants come before his own flesh and blood. Just an example - her son gets to drink soda in cans that is reserved for guests. My kids have to drink out of 2 liter bottles because she says "we're living on a budget now. You waste it when you drink from the can." Her own %#@&#! kid wastes it. What budget? They didn't live like this before she moved in. Now they have a two-income house again. If it starts with something as ridiculous as soda, what's next?

Angry that he's treating our kids more and more like objects than people.

Angry that he rants in e-mails about our children needing to earn their rights and freedoms by respecting other people's rights and freedoms first. We live in a free country. We do not need to EARN our rights. Rights to what? Feeling safe and loved and cared for in our own homes?

Angry that he continually makes promises to the kids and then breaks them. The latest - talking up a week-long camping trip the 5 of them will take this summer for the last 9 or more months, and now turning around and saying "Well, I'M going camping for a week. I don't know about you kids." Can't wait until he cancels the first fishing trip he's been planning with my son. It's just a matter of time.

Angry that he's been whining about needing to refinance the house and save money for the last four years, finally starting to get around to it last month, and now me finding out that he ONCE AGAIN told the bank that he "just can't get the house fixed up in time for the appraiser." and now I won't get my VA housing certificate back for who knows how much longer. I can only guess that he did it because I'm taking him back to court. It's his way of getting back at me without actually hiring a lawyer of his own.

If I mention any of this to him, I'm delusional, crazy, imagining things, blowing them out of proportion.... you name it, I've been accused of it.