I tried to have him calm down explaining that it wasn’t that big of a deal. The girls could go to his father’s or my parents or their mother’s for an hour or two then come back home. He was so mad he was screaming and then hung up on me. About fifteen minutes later I received a text from the therapist asking me to call her. So I did. And apparently after Jolly guy hung up on me he called her and proceeded to go off on her about how ridiculous her request was. Now, this is a woman, making a home visit to my disabled child who can’t stop crying over a near death experience and his nose was all out of joint because she asked for no one else to be home so there were no interruptions. It didn’t seem all that ridiculous to me. If the tables were turned we would do it for his kids in a heartbeat, I didn’t get why he was so upset. Needless to say, the therapist would not be coming to our house. In fact, she was so taken aback by his behavior and the vulgarity of his words that she requested a different location. Ugh. Of course….I’ll just put my child that can’t walk into the car again and take her somewhere so she can have a session where she may have a breakdown. Makes perfect sense now! I called him back and explained in a very high-pitched, wiggly chinned voice that he was making things much harder on me and my daughter. Instead of just helping us figure out how to make it work, he just made it more work period. I was crawling out of my skin with resentment towards him. This was not about not wanting his kids around. This was not about him getting enough rest. This was about rehabilitating an accident victim, whom happened to be my daughter and basically almost six weeks prior was essentially dead. Was I the only one who understood the severity of the issue? It had to be me. It had to be, because what I was asking for seemed completely normal and sane to me even though at every turn he was making it out that I was some horrible person. What part of PLEASE HELP seemed horrible? I was beside myself, but as usual, I sucked it up and did what needed to be done. At first I tried to contact both families to see if anyone could help. His side wasn’t around and when I finally got ahold of my side the decision was made that the next day I would leave the three girls at home and go to my parents house where they would sequester themselves in another area of the house to give my daughter and the therapist privacy to work. Fine. Moving on. That night, things were worse instead of better. Her discomfort level was rising, the tension in the house was growing and everyone could feel the disdain that was palpable between jolly guy and I. That night I spoke to his sister on the phone and her visit wasn’t going according to plan either. She didn’t get along with her step mother and she was making it impossible for them to enjoy any time at her father’s house. I apologized profusely that the timing was rotten and that she was more than welcome to come for the day tomorrow while I was gone if she wanted to. She was nice enough to agree to take the three girls at the father’s house swimming while I took my daughter to the therapy session and then they would come back to our house afterwards for dinner. Fine. Done. Lets do it. Jolly guy came home and I explained the following days plans to him and he again seemed annoyed. What the hell? Why was everything I tried to do bothering him? He obviously didn’t want to help me make any of these arrangements so I was making them on my own. Asking him for help bothered him, not asking him for help bothered him. I was in a lose/lose situation, but I was trying to keep my focus on my daughter. But my rage was building and I knew it was a matter of time before I not imploded but exploded taking down everything in my wake.